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“That’s debatable.”
His eyes flashed as his lips compressed, sealing in whatever he wanted to say. Until he asked, “Do your parents hate me, too?”
Her chest ached and it took her everything she had just to act normal, natural. “If you remember rightly, they weren’t my real parents.”
“You might have been adopted, but they raised you as their own. They loved you.”
She looked away, her gaze caught by the red and orange striped lifesaver flags on the beach that flapped in the breeze. “They were disappointed you left me.” She laughed a little, the sound harsh. “All they’d ever wanted for me was a family of my own one day, children I could love so that I’d never again doubt my place.”
He pushed a hand over his wet hair. “You could still have found that without me. I never meant for our relationship to give you more abandonment and trust issues.”
“I never said you did!” she declared hotly.
“You didn’t have to. The implications are there loud and clear.”
She unwound her legs from around him. “It was stupid for me to come back here, wasn’t it?”
He reached for her, his eyes holding hers. “The only thing stupid about any of this is that we didn’t go looking for one another years ago.”
“Then why didn’t you?” she asked bluntly.
“Honestly, I thought you’d be married by now with a whole posse of kids. I was never going to interfere in your happiness.”
“And why didn’t you ever marry?”
His eyes darkened, a wave tossing them up and over it before he planted his feet once again and admitted, “I never found the right one...I never found another you.”
Chapter Nine
Luna had finished washing off the sea salt from her hair and body, and was blow-drying and then straightening her hair—there was something innately satisfying doing something specifically to annoy Aiden—before she stepped into a siren-red, sleeveless dress that hugged her curves and finished in a mid-thigh handkerchief hem.
Aiden wanted to take her out to the Garden Café for dinner, then the nightclub afterward for dancing and fun. She pushed her feet into silver high heels, then matched it with a thread of silver coins in her ears that tinkled like chimes and flashed under the lights.
She had no doubt most women would be wearing shorter-than-short skirts and dresses, but less-is-more wasn’t the mantra she lived by. She’d always dressed and looked differently, she wasn’t about to change now.
Drawing her blonde hair up into a high ponytail, its ends almost touching her waist thanks to the kinks being ironed out, she stepped back with a smile as she gazed at herself in the mirror.
