Page 48 of The Grumpy Billionaire
I folded my arms over my chest again, shaking with a chill from the evening air. “There’s nothing to talk about. We were kids. We went to different colleges. We grew apart. It happens all the time.”
Reid’s finger moved to the dashboard to turn on the car’s heater. He huffed an incredulous laugh.
“In one day? You don’t grow apart in one day, Mara. We made love on graduation night—”
He threw a hand up in frustration. “We made love, and then I never saw you again. You didn’t answer your phone the rest of the weekend. I went to your house, and your mom told me you’dmovedand refused to tell me where. What is that?”
I couldn’t fault him for his confusion. He wasn’t stupid. Far from it. HeknewI’d loved him back then, just as he’d loved me.
Telling our respective parents we were going to the all-night graduation after-party at the swanky Eastport Arms Hotel, we had instead checked into a room upstairs where several years of increasingly serious make-out sessions had culminated in going all the way for the first time.
Several times, actually.
I hadn’t regretted a minute of it—I’d been on bliss overload. If he’d suggested eloping the next morning, I wouldn’t have said no. But he hadn’t of course.
At dawn, he’d left me on the front porch with a kiss, and I’d walked inside to find both my parents waiting up. The chaperone had reported us no-shows at the after-party.
I didn’t know what happened at Reid’s house, but all hell broke loose at mine. I’d never seen my parents so infuriated.
“What the hell were you thinking, Mara?” Mom had screamed.
I screamed back, brimming with teenaged passion. “Ilovehim.”
“Love?” My dad had snorted with laughter. “You can’t be in love. You’re a kid. And he’s a loser. It’s just your teenage hormones talking. Believe me—that passes. I’m sparing you the consequences you can’t see coming.”
“He’s not a loser. He’s brilliant,” I’d shouted through tears. “And talented. He’s going to conquer the world someday—just wait and see. He’ll make more money and have more power than youeverhad. He’s going to makeyoulook like the loser, and I think you know it. That’s why you hate him so much.”
“I don't care enough about the kid to hate him. Pigs will fly the day I see my daughter associated with the likes of a Mancini. They’re nothing but greasy low-lifes. You may hate me now, but you’ll thank me later.”
After our “conversation” in his office, I’d stumbled to the bathroom, gagging from the force of my crying. The entire contents of my stomach came up in a violent heave. I wouldneverbe grateful to my father over this. How could I be?
He was forcing me to give up the most important thing in the world to me—or see it destroyed. I had no choice in the matter. If I loved Reid, I could never see him, never speak to him again.
From the corner of my blurred vision, I saw Mom’s feet in the bathroom doorway.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said softly. “But you need to know your father is only doing what’s best for you.”
“Like he does what’s best for you?” I’d challenged, emboldened by my fury.
Mom’s face had hardened. “Mara… if you really do love Reid—you should let him go. You don’t want to end up like me, trust me. There are lots of boys out there. Boys who don’t have power over your heart. Let him go. It’s for the best.”
I had never told anyone that story—I wouldn’t tell Reid now. As the car snaked along the twisting seaside drive, I stared out the window at the white sails dotting the deep blue bay, feeling numb inside.
“It was for the best.” I exhaled an exhausted sigh. “It would have eventually happened anyway. It was better to just—go ahead and get it over with than let our relationship die one of those sad hometown-honey-malnutrition deaths that always happen when people go to different colleges.”
“They don’talwayshappen,” Reid said. ““And allow me to say I strongly disagreed with your idea of what was best for me. Speaking of college, you were supposed to go to Columbia. We would only have been three hours apart when I went to URI. We could have easily kept seeing each other all the time. Thatwasthe plan, wasn’t it? Columbia is the top program in the nation for journalism. Where the hell did Stanford come from? You never even mentioned going there. It took me ayearto figure out where you’d gone and to track you down.”
Keeping my arms crossed, I lifted my shoulders in a tense shrug. “I made a last-minute switch. Stanford had a great journalism program, and California is cool. I needed a change—so I spent the summer with my aunt and uncle in Missouri then went straight to Stanford in the fall.”
Reid’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Right. Well, that still doesn’t explain why you didn’t just tell me, why you disappeared without a word. It just wasn’t like you.Somethinghappened, and I want to know what it was. You owe me that much.”
This was turning into a nightmare. I’d known coming with him today was a mistake. All the feelings, all the discussions I’d successfully avoided for years… we weren’t able to spend onedaytogether without them coming out.
How would I ever get through a whole week?
“This isn’t going to work,” I said, shaking my head emphatically.
“What isn’t?”
