I felt such a mix of emotions as I opened my eyes and surreptitiously checked him out. He was so stinking handsome. He’d grown into an even better-looking man than he’d been before, which I’d thought would be impossible. His hair had turned darker over the years, but I could see the blond highlightshe’d always gotten in the summer already starting to form. His jaw was sharper, his face leaner. He looked completely grown up now. The last time I’d seen him, he’d still had something of the man-child left in him. It was gone now. He looked every inch the successful businessman that he was.
He suddenly opened his eyes and looked down at me, catching me staring at him. I quickly ducked my head.
He squeezed my hand, and I darted my eyes back up at him. He grinned at me. I bit my lip and tried not to smile back but was unsuccessful. Then I rolled my eyes and looked back down. I couldn’t let him suck me back in with his ridiculous good looks and magnetic personality. I didn’t know what it was about Harrison, exactly, that had always attracted me to him.
I mean, sure, he was objectively very handsome. But I’d been out with other handsome men who hadn’t interested me at all. There was something about him. Something he’d lost for a while in college, but that he seemed to have possibly regained.
Oh, well. I steeled myself against those thoughts. Some other girl would have to reap the benefits if he’d managed to go back to how he was before those awful times. I was done with him. Forever.
As soon as the preacher was done with his prayer, I dropped his hand like it was a hot potato and sat down.
Later, after dinner was eaten, the presents were opened, and everyone was starting to leave, I happened upon Harrison talking to one of the middle-aged ladies from the garden club. They were blocking my way out of the building. I started to turn and go another way, but then I heard my name.
“You know, I always thought Sadie was partly to blame for all that mess that went down between y’all,” she was saying.
I’d heard this before, but it still didn’t seem to numb the pain I felt each time I heard it again.
“How could she possibly be to blame?” Harrison asked, sounding offended.
The woman leaned in, laying a hand on his arm. “Oh, honey. Back in my day, women knew what to do to keep a man like you. You had needs, and she just wasn’t meeting them.” She patted her blond hair and batted her lashes at Harrison. “I can’t evenimagineleaving such a virile, handsome young man all alone off at college for the summer.”
Harrison pulled back from her. “No, Mrs. Reardon, it was one hundred percent my fault. I can’t believe anyone would have the nerve to blame Sadie for my horrible mistakes.”
Mrs. Reardon, with her perfectly dyed hair, carefully applied makeup, and designer dress just laughed. “Well, I know if you’d been with my Gemma, you wouldn’t have cheated,” she insisted. “I could set the two of you up,” she smiled, looking predatory. Like a very pretty crocodile.
For some reason, I didn’t like to think of Gemma and Harrison together. Gemma Reardon had already been married three times and she wasn’t thirty yet. But what did I know? Maybe she was exactly the girl Harrison was looking for.
I turned and walked the other way before they could see that I’d overheard them. But as I was leaving, I kept hearing Harrison saying ‘one hundred percent my fault’ on repeat in my head.
He was owning the blame. That was… unexpected. It’s not that I thought he’d try to blame me for it, exactly. I just thought he’d try to deflect some of it to Aubrey. To present her as a femme fatale who offered something he shouldn’t have been expected to resist.
But so far, he hadn’t even said her name.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Harrison
After the strange party at the banquet hall, I’d decided to stay in town for the weekend and hang out with my parents.
We were eating out at Whispering Dove, which was a really weird name for a steak house, but it had been around forever. No one questioned it. It was an Indigo Falls institution and one of the nicer restaurants in town.
We were enjoying our meal together, when I saw the smile drop from my dad’s face. He was looking at something over my shoulder, so I turned around.
And my stomach dropped as I met Sadie’s eyes. She looked beautiful, in a pretty sundress and heels, her skin already lightly tanned even though it wasn’t quite summer yet. The tan always made those blue eyes of hers stand out even more, and I couldn’t look away.
“Oh, I think she’s on her own,” Mom said, looking around. “We should invite her to sit with us.”
“Mom, no,” I protested. “I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”
She completely ignored me. “Sadie,” she stood up and waved, gesturing for her to come over.
It was awkward for a second as Sadie obviously ran through her options and found none that weren’t rude. She lookedbehind her for a moment, and I was sure she was waiting on someone. But she walked over.
“Hello,” she said almost apprehensively. “How are y’all tonight?”
“Doing well.” Mom beamed at her. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She was doing that thing with her fingers that she only did when she was nervous but trying to hide it.
