Page 47 of The Player + The Pact = I Do

“So you still haven’t told me the story with your fiancée,” she says.

She spilled her heart out to me. It’s only fair that Itell her why she’s sitting opposite me with a huge diamond ring on her finger.

“You thought you were in love with her and she with you. And you proposed.”

“And then her dad found out and shipped her off to college on the other side of the country. She was due to go to NYU and ended up at Berkeley.”

“And that was it?” she asks.

Don’t I wish. “I told my dad I was leaving the bakery so I could follow her out west. It caused loads of rows. My mum told me I was throwing my life away. My dad didn’t speak to me for weeks. Anyway, two weeks later, I road-tripped to California. I’d told Caroline I was coming. I figured I’d get a job locally and she’d continue in college… apparently she didn’t see things the same way.”

“I’m taking it things didn’t end happily ever after.”

“No. She laughed and said she never expected me to actually follow her.” I haven’t told anyone this for years. In fact, I think only Bennett knows the whole story even now. But there’s something about Jules that makes me want to be my whole self with her. I don’t need to water things down. I have no doubt she’s on my team. Whatever I tell her won’t change what she thinks of me.

“But you told her you were coming to California.”

I shrug. “I guess she was seeing how far she could push me.”

“So she was—what, taunting you? Testing you?”

“She was trying to aggravate her father. I was caught in the crossfire. I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long to see it. Looking back with twenty-twenty hindsight, it was obvious.”

“There were signs?”

“My family saw it. Everyone but me apparently. Werarely spent any time with her friends. And she never wanted to hang out with mine. But I was in love. I just wanted to be with her. I happily dropped my friends like a burning log. She didn’t, which was fine. But there were evenings when she went out with her girlfriends, except the group that appeared on social media involved plenty of guys. And I was making a lot of the effort. But what did I know? I was eighteen and she was a total princess. I assumed that was how things were supposed to be. And I was happy to do it, you know. I just wanted her to be happy.”

She nods. “Because you were in love.”

“Right.” I pause, wondering if I thought I was in love with Nadia this summer, but no, I hadn’t even been close. She’d just been around. I think I’d gone along with what she wanted because the sex was good.

“So when you turned up in California, she broke off the engagement?”

“If you mean laughed in my face, then yes, she broke off the engagement.”

“What do you mean, laughed?”

“She said, ‘Oh, you really would do anything for me, wouldn’t you?’ Then she told me she’d just been trying to piss off her dad the entire time we were together. I think the last thing she said to me was, ‘You didn’t think I was actually going to marry you, did you?’ Then she reminded me of her last name.” Thoughts of her, of that day, churn in my gut, and I get the urge to run. To bail out of this restaurant, to tellProperty InternationalI’m not going to accept the award. I don’t want to see Caroline Hammond again. Not ever.

“Sounds like a keeper,” Jules says, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Right.”

“And she’s going to be at the awards.”

I freeze. I hadn’t said anything about the awards. “How did you guess?”

She pulls in a breath. “I never understood the whole ‘I need a fiancée for business reasons’ thing. But if she’s going to be there, it all makes sense.”

“Her father is the Hammond at the head of Hammonds. Caroline’s husband is taking over, and they’re sponsoring the awards to show how strong the company still is, I guess.”

“Urgh,” Jules says. “That’s so pathetic. So she’s not even taking over. Her husband is. Does she do anything beyond have her nails done and go to the spa?”

“The family has a lot of money. She doesn’t need to work.”

“You have a lot of money. You don’t have to work, but you work harder than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“You always beat me to the office.”

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