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Skye’s mom is in her mid-fifties, and her short brown hair is starting to turn gray. She’s a beautiful woman, which explains where Skye gets her good looks.
The back doors open, and Penny races in. I swear that child has more energy than I could ever muster. Will and Connor follow her inside. Will walks over to stand behind the back of the sofa so he can gaze down at his wife and sleeping son. Connor remains by the door, uncharacteristically quiet and brooding.
“Are you Chinese, Aunt Kennedy?” Penny asks me. “I told Uncle Connor I thought you were, but he said no. He said you’reJapanese.”
My gaze automatically flashes over to Connor, who’s watching me. “Connor’s right. Actually, I’m Japanese-American. I was born in the US, as were my parents. But my grandparents were born in Japan. They emigrated to America many years ago.”
“Can you say something in Japanese?”
I smile. “Sure.Konnichiwa.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Connor smiling. He always loved it when I spoke Japanese to him. Late at night, he’d ask me to whisper sweet nothings to him in Japanese.
“What does it mean?” Penny asks.
“It means hello or good afternoon.”
Penny does her best to repeat what I said, but she fails miserably.
“Kon-nee-chi-wa,” I repeat more slowly.
When she tries again, she nails it.
“That’s perfect,” I say, giving her a hug. I look back toward Connor just in time to see him slip out the patio door and disappear from sight.
My heart twists painfully as I watch him walk away. Memories of us together come rushing back, and it hurts so badly I can barely breathe. Part of me wants to run after him, to fix this terrible rift between us. A rift thatIcaused.
“Do you want to come upstairs and see my room?” Penny asks as she slips her small hand in mine. “Want to see my Barbie dolls?”
Desperate for a distraction, I jump at the offer. “Yes, I’d love that. Lead the way, kiddo.”
Chapter 7
Kennedy Takahashi
An hour later, my butt is numb from sitting on the floor in Penny’s bedroom as we play with a few of her dolls. “Sweetie, I have to go unpack now. I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”
Penny jumps to her feet. “Do you want me to help you?”
“That’s okay. I can manage on my own. Why don’t you go see how your mommy and brother are doing?”
We head downstairs, and after leaving Penny with her mom, I head out to the cottage. The truth is, I need a little bit of alone time. For an introvert like me, being in a house filled with people can get overwhelming. Plus, I’m afraid of running into Connor.
Seeing him again hurts far more than I imagined it would. We had so much fun, and that’s what makes this so hard. We were sogoodtogether. We both worked at Carmichael & Son, and we’d slip away from the office every day for lunch, usually just the two of us. While we had plenty of friends, we had eyes only for each other. There are so many restaurants in that part of London, we could pick a new place to eat each day and never run out of options.
We were two peas in a pod.
Inseparable.
Until I had to leave him.
At that time, Connor was already hinting at marriage. He never came out and asked me, but he’d make off-handed comments about how cute our kids would be.
I knew it was way too soon for us to be contemplating marriage. Besides, in the back of my mind, I was worried about what his high-society family would think of me. I’d faced enough discrimination in my life to know that it could be an issue.
I never told Connor that I’d been engaged once, when I was a student at Columbia University in New York. It was too sore of a subject to share. His name was Doug, and he was an economics major, while I was a finance major. Finance and economics—it was a match made in heaven. Or so we thought. We were both twenty-one at the time and in love. I thought nothing could come between us. Boy was I wrong.
When Doug invited me to come home with him for dinner so I could meet his parents, I was ecstatic. He’d already met mine a few times, and they loved him. He was good-looking, smart, quiet, and respectful. There was so much to love.
