Page 29 of Replay
“Careful now.” He winks. “Don’t want to break one of our non-date rules.”
I roll my eyes. “Are you avoiding the question?”
He gets a serious look in his eye. “No, but I don’t think you’re going to like the answer.”
My stomach falls. “Tell me anyways.”
He sits back in his seat and exhales heavily, a dark look fleeting across his face that he instantly masks. “Part of it was just that I was too old to be going out to clubs with footballers and hooking up with girls who were all trying to shag a Harris Brother. Honestly, it’s pathetic when I look back on it. I should have had my own life by then.” His face grows serious when he adds, “But the real reason had a lot more to do with everything that happened to you.”
“Me?” My skin prickles with anxiety.
He nods slowly, his eyes becoming grave. “There are things about my past that made what happened to you affect me on a deep, dark level.”
“What kinds of things?” I ask, my body leaning into him with curiosity.
His face goes hard, and he shakes his head firmly. “It’s not important, but it is…strangely connected. After you left, I realised that all the things I had been avoiding for my own fucked-up reasons suddenly weren’t all that scary.”
I blink back at him, my mind reeling with that cryptic information. What is he referring to? What about my situation could have possibly triggered something in him? I open my mouth to ask questions, to pry, to challenge and get the full story…but I can’t. Asking deep questions like that would not only break the rules, it would smash them to pieces.
I bite my lip and force my very gentle reply, “Well, I guess there’s one good thing that came out of my situation. Now you’re the perfect single man.”
“Hardly.” His shoulders shake with silent laughter. “Actually, if you want the truth of it, after you left, I think I got worse for a bit.”
“That sounds much more on-brand for Santino Rossi.”
“Yeah…it was a phase. Then the Harris Brothers all started getting married, one on top of the other, and I finally started believing that if they could have it, so could I.”
He shrugs like what he said is no big deal when I know it’s a very big deal. Santino was anti-relationship from the moment I met him. He made that very clear…which, at the time, was part of the appeal. It’s fascinating to see how different he is now.
Silence descends on us as emotion creeps up in the depths of my eyes. “Can I ask you a question?” I hear my heart speaking even though my mind wants it to shut the bloody hell up.
“Always,” he replies, his face taking on a severe look.
“What was it you wanted to talk to me about a couple of years ago…when you asked for Mac’s blessing?” My face flames with heat that I pray to fuck he can’t see.
He flinches, and his eyes instantly cast downward. “It’s not important now.”
“It must have been somewhat important for you to approach my brother,” I volley back, wondering if it had anything to do with things from his past that he alluded to.
He looks up at me with narrowed eyes. “I feel like this is more than breaking your rules.”
“You didn’t want rules to begin with.” I stare him down with blatant challenge as my inner voice screams at me for being weak.
He sighs heavily as his eyes rove over my face, taking in every feature in a way that makes me feel naked. “You know, I don’t care what you said in the lift. I still blame myself for what happened to you.”
My lips part. “Why?”
His face bends in sympathy. “Even with our stupid rules we had in the past, I could see you weren’t right. I could see you were struggling.”
I shake my head slowly. “It had nothing to do with you.”
“I know but—”
“But nothing,” I cut him off. “I made my own choices that night. Choices that had consequences, and well…it doesn’t matter now. Things turned out as they were meant to, and now I’m here, eating dumplings.”
He smiles slowly. “With an old friend.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Business colleague.”
