That makes a bitter laugh slip out of me before I can stop it.
“Right. Because that worked out so well.”
Silence again.
My thoughts won’t slow down. They’re all crashing into each other too fast.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I ask.
“I was going to,” he says immediately. “But I was thinking logically, trying to sort through whatever seemed the highest priority at the time. And that was to get my father to see that I wasn’t going to marry Victoria.”
“When were you going to do that?” I press. “After I figured it out from receipts? After I embarrassed myself by defending you?”
His head turns slightly at that. “That’s not what happened.”
“It’s exactly what happened.” My voice cracks a little on the last word, and I hate that he hears it.
I force myself to keep going anyway.
“Do you have any idea what it feels like?” I ask. “To think you know someone and then realize you were just…not given the full version of them?”
His gaze drops for half a second, then returns to mine.
“I know,” he says.
That stops me and I blink. “No. You don’t.”
“I do,” he says, quieter now. “Because I’ve spent most of my life being the version of myself people expected instead of who I actually am.”
Something in my chest tightens loosens.
But I don’t let it sway me completely yet.
“Great,” I say. “So we’re both damaged. That fixes everything.”
“Avery—”
“And don’t.” I point at him now, shaking slightly. “Don’t say my name like that makes it better.”
He goes still. The silence stretches again, thicker this time.
I force myself to say the thing that’s been sitting under everything else, the thing that caused the most doubt in this whole situation.
“You were engaged,” I say.
“I wasn’t.” He shakes his head once. “It was an arrangement that never became anything I agreed to.”
I stare at him, trying to process that fast enough to make it feel real. “And you were going to go back,” I say anyway, because I need it all out.
“I wasn’t going back to her. I was going back to help sort out the company I’ve put my blood, sweat, and tears into. To save it, and myself, from my father.”
That’s the first crack.
I turn slightly in the seat now, fully facing him.
“Then why come back here?” I ask, softer without meaning to be. “Why come find me?”
His eyes hold mine for a long moment.
