Page 44 of The Grumpy Billionaire
As if hearing my dangerous thought, Reid looked over at me and gave me a relaxed smile. My heart tightened in an ominous preview of what was in store for me tonight when I was home alone in my bed, reviewing the day.
I tipped my head back and shut my eyes, letting the sun’s sinking rays turn my eyelids a fiery red, willing myself to resist the powerful pull Reid had always had on me.
Crapcrapcrap.
This was exactly what I’d been afraid of. I was enjoying our “professional meeting” far too much. All the hard work I’d done over the past decade, training myself not to think of him, not to miss him, was unraveling.
All it had taken to knock a gaping hole in my fortress wall was one sunny afternoon in his presence.
“Still so fucking beautiful.”
Reid’s soft words yanked me out of my mesmerized state. My head turned to him, eyes opening wide.
The unexpected statement reverberated through me like the quivering of piano strings, long after a key has been struck.
Reid lay stretched out on the blanket, propped on one elbow. He was staring at me, a sad smile playing on his lips.
Apparently, he’d been watching me, studying my profile while my eyes were closed. He glanced down to the blanket, pinching a blade of grass that had found its way there.
Lifting it, he released it into the breeze, and his eyes found me again.
“What happened to us, Mara? What did I do that was so wrong you had to leave and never come back, never take my phone calls, ignore my emails?”
Panic-stricken, I looked away from him, desperately searching through the mental inventory of excuses I’d been brainstorming.
Perhaps if I’d done a better job of breaking things off with him, I wouldn’t be facing this situation today. No doubt itwouldhave been more effective to tell him of my “decision” via email or phone—there was no way I could have done it face-to-face.
He would have seen through the lies instantly. I’d have cracked and confessed, and he would never have given up hope. He would have continued to try to see me and ended up with his life ruined—or losing it altogether.
At the time, going cold turkey had seemed like the best way to protect him. But now, here we were, years of unanswered questions and hurt between us.
And still, just as back then, I couldn’t tell Reid the truth.
FOURTEEN
Public Indecency
Reid
I kept my eyes on the slowly shifting ocean, which now gleamed gold in the sun’s waning rays, and waited for Mara’s answer.
It was the whole reason for the ridiculous interview-prep scenario I’d orchestrated. I didn’t carewhatthe reason was—I just wanted to knowwhy. And I wanted to know how she’d managed to move on so cleanly when I’d been limping around with a tiny piece of my soul ripped out for the past decade.
“Let’s not do this, okay?” she said. “I think today was rather… tolerable, and it would just be better for both of us if we kept the conversation limited to preparing for the interview.”
Make that abigpiece of my soul. I wouldn’t have believed there was anything left in the vicinity of my heart, but sure enough, a raw ache surged to life again, my Franken-heart reanimated by the electricity of her nearness.
I sat up and barked a caustic laugh. “Tolerable, huh?”
Getting to my knees, I started gathering the picnic supplies, tossing them carelessly into the basket. Lifting my unfinished glass of wine from the blanket, I poured out the remnants onto the grass before pitching the crystal stemware into the basket, too.
“I’m sorry. For a few minutes there, I thought you’d actually enjoyed yourself today.”
Prodded to action by my sour tone, Mara got to her feet and stepped off the blanket so I could fold it. Obviously, the party was over.
“Poor choice of words,” she said evenly. “I meant things went well today. Why mess it up by dredging up ancient history?”
I shook my head, my mouth curving in a smile of bitter amusement. “Wow. I didn’t believe it was possible, but I guess you really have changed that much. You really are as cold as people say you are.”
