Page 99 of The Grumpy Billionaire
“Okay.” I hugged her and kissed Dad’s cheek.
The shock of seeing them affectionate with each other had started to wear off. Sort of. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow then.”
I did go home, but I didn’t rest. Instead, I opened my laptop and logged on to StillYours.com for the first time ever. I glanced over some of the profile pages.
Many were private, of course, viewable only by those who’d been approved by the account holder. But others were open to the public.
The profile photos were of middle-aged people, old people, college-aged kids, even some who looked like they were in high school.
There was page after page of desperate pleas, people searching for their long-lost loves, posting as much information as they knew, asking for help getting in touch.
In some cases, it was clear the account holder knew exactly where their lost love was geographically—they were just trying to make a connection, win another chance by pouring out their hearts online.
I supposed the network worked best when you were searching for someone and found they were also searching for you. The lining of my stomach trembled as I moved my cursor to the site’s search bar.
Stalling, I got up and went to the refrigerator for a drink. When I sat back down, I typed in “Reid Mancini.”
No results match your request
Of course. He wouldn’t expose himself to the public by using his own site. Besides, I was sure he now wholeheartedly meant his original answer to my question about why he’d started StillYours.com. The one about sentimental suckers.
And as far as he knew, therewasno true love out there to search for.
I briefly considered creating a profile for myself, just hanging it all out there for the world to see—my apology, my love. But I nixed that idea—it was too late.
Instead, I made myself some popcorn, poured a generous glass of wine, and curled up on the couch to watch my DVD of The Princess Bride.
Yep. It was that kind of night—if you’re going to be miserable, might as well take it all the way.
THIRTY-SIX
Still Yours
Mara
The tears started even before the falling-in-love scenes really got going.
Whose terrible idea was this, anyway? I picked up the remote to stop the movie just as the baby-faced actor said to his lady love, “As you wish.”
My heart went into fast-forward as I stared at the screen. I jumped up from the sofa and went back to my laptop, calling up StillYours.com again. This time I typed a different name into the search bar.
Farm Boy.
My stomach-trembling thing only got worse and was joined by a struggle for breath as I waited for the search to complete.
And then the page opened to reveal a picture of Reid. From high school.
It was the one of the two of us from our yearbook, but only his half. He must have snapped it directly from the page, because written inside a black magic-marker heart on Reid’s chest were the words, “Mara, forever and always.”
My heart stopped pounding and just… stopped. When had he posted this? Maybe a long time ago. Certainly not within the past few days.
Had he forgotten it was there?
There were no words on the page, no posts or comments… nothing but the name Farm Boy and that picture.
I started typing, my fingers flying over the keyboard, matching the pace of my pulse.
“Farm Boy—I lied when I said I couldn’t remember my fortune. I didn’t want to tell you what it said because I was afraid. But I remember every word—
