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“I didn’t have much choice. You know that,” I told him bitterly.
All of the pent-up anger I’d harbored toward Aiden started to roil up inside me, and I had no idea how to tamp it down.
For many months, I’d avoided him, tried to ignore how much I resented the fact that he’d never stepped up to the plate to talk about what had happened so many years ago.
“You had plenty of choices,” he argued. “You had plans to go to college. But you copped out and ran away with a guy who had money while I was out on a long job. Hell, you never even hung around long enough for me to come back and say good-bye.”
“You know what happened.” I hated the fact that the devastation I’d felt back then was actually threaded through my voice.
I have to stay calm. Show no emotion.
He curled his large hand around my upper arm, which forced me to look at him. I was shocked by the surprise on his face.
Aiden had always been ruggedly handsome. His skin was always weathered, even when he was younger. And he usually had a five-o’clock shadow because the black hair grew faster than he shaved. The guy spent a lot of time outside in the elements. But with his dark hair, sexy blue eyes, and ripped, muscular body, it was a good look on him.
He was physically gorgeous.
Unfortunately, his character hadn’t been as great as his appearance.
“I don’t have a damn clue what happened,” he said huskily. “I got back the day after you left for San Diego with a man who had a lot more to offer than I did. It didn’t take long to figure out that you didn’t want to live poor with a guy like me.”
I hadn’t given a damn about his financial situation. I’d cared about Aiden back then, rich or not. So it pissed me off that he was making me out to be some kind of gold digger.
How could he think that I hadn’t wanted him, money or not? How? I’d told him that I loved him, even though he’d never said those words back to me.
“My mother forced me into marrying Marco,” I said, my heart stammering as I tried to explain something that he was already well aware of. “I wanted you to come for me, but you never did.”
Dammit! I don’t want to have this conversation right now. It’s pointless.
His eyes searched mine. “How could she force you into it?”
Like he doesn’t know how my mother got the leverage?
“If I didn’t marry him, I’d no longer have a place to live.”
“You could have stayed with us.”
I swallowed hard as I recognized the sincerity in his voice.
Why is he acting like he doesn’t understand anything that happened?
What food I’d eaten was rolling around in my stomach as reality suddenly slapped me in the face.
Is it possible that he really doesn’t know?
I shook my head slowly. “I couldn’t stay with you. You already had enough mouths to feed.”
Aiden, Seth, and their oldest brother, Noah, had all worked to raise Jade, Brooke, and Owen, their younger siblings. And there had never been enough money. But God help me, had I known that he had wanted me to stay, I would have done anything I could to help out.
“I would have figured it out,” he said gutturally.
I shook my arm out of his grasp in a panic, and then stood up. “I have to go,” I told him.
My daughter was with a sitter, but that wasn’t why I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I had to get some air before I passed out.
I was being bombarded by memories, and none of them were good.
I needed some time and a quiet place to get a grip. I had to deal with the fact that maybe my reality had just been turned on its head.
He doesn’t know. That’s why Aiden has never come and talked to me. That’s why I’ve never heard from him.
I grabbed my purse as I struggled to breathe, my heart slamming against my chest wall so hard that I could barely make my way outside.
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.
If he did, he deserved an Academy Award for his performance.
My breathing was ragged and erratic when I ran out the door of Eli’s home, and then slumped back against it in disbelief after I’d closed it behind me.
What had never been obvious to me before about Aiden came crashing down on my head.
He didn’t know why I was angry.
He didn’t know that I’d explained everything to him in a heartfelt letter, and then never got an answer.
He didn’t know that it had destroyed me to leave with someone else.
Aiden Sinclair was confused about why I’d left Citrus Beach.
He had no idea that I’d been pregnant with his daughter when I’d gone.
CHAPTER 2
AIDEN
“What in the hell was that all about?” Seth asked as he slid into the chair that Skye had just dramatically vacated. “Skye looked pissed.”
I shrugged. I’d been trying for almost a year not to wonder what was going on in that beautiful blonde head of Skye Weston’s, but I’d never completely succeeded. “I have no fucking idea.”
I fucking hated the fact that she was still as beautiful as she had been when she was eighteen. Her expressive, big green eyes could still make me want to climb mountains to give her anything she wanted.
Hell, I should have gotten over those emotions years ago, after she’d left me for a rich guy.
The rest of my family had been momentarily distracted by Skye leaving so abruptly, but they’d gone back to their previous conversations.
I couldn’t forget her departure quite as easily.
“What did she say?” Seth pressed.
“She seems to think I should know why in the hell she left. How would I know? She took off with a rich guy and left my poverty-stricken ass behind. End of story.”
I’d been pretty torn up about her taking off with a wealthy man and forgetting all about the two of us so damn easily.
Maybe we had been young, but Skye and I had connected in a way that I’d never experienced before and had never found again. Not even close.
When she’d come back to Citrus Beach after her mother had died, years later, I was still pissed off that she’d dumped me so easily. Fuck knew I’d never forgotten her, but I’d been willing to bury the hatchet since so much time had gone by. She was my sister Jade’s friend.
But I’d been surprised to learn that she wanted nothing to do with me, like I’d done something wrong.
“Maybe she did leave a letter or something,” Seth suggested uneasily.
My brother’s voice was much more hesitant than usual, and since he sounded so guilty, I turned my head to look at him.
Seth and I were close. Really close. We’d grown up together with only a year between us. So I knew that look.
I stood and hauled him up with me so we could take it outside.
“You know something,” I accused as we hit the back porch. I finally let go of his shirt. “Somebody would have needed to let Skye into the house if she’d left a note. Did you let her in? Did she leave some kind of communication or not? Tell me. No bullshit.”
“What does it matter, Aiden? It’s over. It was done years ago when Skye left Citrus Beach and married another guy,” Seth replied as he leaned against the porch railing.
“It matters,” I growled.
