Page 34 of A Second Chance Christmas Kiss

She pulled her hand back, her green eyes twinkling. “Your grandparents would also tease you about what a messy eater you were.”

I didn’t care that I was the butt of her joke; I was just happy to see her smiling. “True. I guess I’m still living up to that reputation.”

She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and sighed, leaning back. “What else do you want to tell me about the past?”

I considered how to approach this. As a Navy SEAL, I had negotiated with terrorists; now, I negotiated with some of the top business minds in the world. Experience told me I couldn’t move in too quickly. “What do you want to tell me?”

She hesitated, then blew out a breath. “About the Christmas you didn’t come. I kept calling and calling you. Your grandfather answered. Did he ever tell you that?”

“What? No.” I sorted back through my memories and remembered that he’d made me go to a negotiation between two companies in Aspen, Colorado. He’d told me he was training me. “He kept my phone. I never saw that you’d called.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Of course you didn’t know. Back then, I convinced myself that you had changed. That your grandfather was grooming you for his business and that you knew what he’d said.”

Adrenaline spiked inside me. “I didn’t know. What did he say?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She said the words softly, and I wondered what my face looked like to betray my emotions like that. “The past is the past.”

“Tell me what he said to you.”

She looked uncertain.

“Tell me, please.”

“I told him that my mother was back in the hospital. Remember how she had a remission with cancer? It relapsed that Christmas.”

The news blindsided me, filling me with pain and sadness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I took her hand, blinking rapidly. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

She squeezed my hand, and it looked like she might cry. “I can see that now.”

“Is that why you didn’t talk to me when I came back? Or when I tried to talk to you in Wilmington at your apartment?”

Melody nodded.

“I can’t believe this. What did the old man say?”

She tilted her head to the side and wiped at a tear with her free hand. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to realize that you really didn’t know. Your grandfather told me that you were going to be a busy man as you grew up. That you were going to serve in the military and become a SEAL. He told me that you wouldn’t have time for ‘inconsequential things.’”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it, but it made sense. That was why she had refused to see me. Why she’d married someone else.

“I truly felt ‘inconsequential,’” she said, her voice hitching as more tears slipped down her cheeks.

“My grandfather was a brutal man. He loved me—adored me—but he was brutal in dealing with anything he thought would come between me and the things he claimed were important.”

She sniffed.

Unable to stop myself, I stood from the booth and moved to her side, sitting next to her and enveloping her in a hug. She remained stiff for a heartbeat, then melted against me. Havingher in my arms felt … right. It was the way it should have always been.

I forced back my own emotions. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Melody. That’s why you wouldn’t even come to the door when I went to your apartment in Wilmington after the new year.”

She sniffed and pulled back, reaching for her napkin and dabbing at her tears. “Yep.”

I moved back to the other side of the table, giving her some space.

She leveled a stare at me. “I never realized you didn’t know what your grandfather said, but I knew we couldn’t be together. For so many years, my mother told me that you were too rich for us. That you were too good for me.”

I felt like crap. “I’m sorry.”

She put a hand up to stop me. “If I’ve learned anything after all these years, it’s that life is messy. And we never quite know the truth.”

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