Page 86 of Hold on Tight

He knew, too. He sat heavily in the seat across from hers and said, “You’re not going to say yes, are you?”

He was a good-looking man, with a strong, straight nose and dark hair. Dark brown, almost black, eyes. She’d once felt grateful to be courted by someone as attractive as him.

“No,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have taken his money. I get that.”

“It isn’t that.”

“What is it, then?”

“You’re a nice guy, Aaron. The best. You’ve been so good to me and Sam. And to my dad. You deserve someone who—”

She couldn’t quite finish the sentence.

“Someone who loves me?” he asked wearily.

She nodded.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“I thought I did,” she said.

His face sagged a little, and she had to look away.

“That guy—the one who was here. That’s Sam’s father, isn’t it?”

“Jake,” she said.

He put his fingertips to his forehead, rubbed them back and forth over his temples, and said, “You lovehim.”

She nodded. And thought,I’ve always loved him.

“But you let him walk away.”

Defensiveness rose up in her like a tide. “I didn’tlethim.”

“You didn’t stop him.”

“I tried,” she said. “He told me I’d be better off with you.”

He laughed, a hard, ugly sound. “How do you know he’s not right?”

“Because …” She hesitated. “Look. I know you and my father are friends—”

“I know he hasn’t always been fair, or kind, to you,” Aaron said. “Even though he’s my friend, I see how he underestimates you. And I told you the money had nothing to do with you, but the truth is, I think you’re right that your father thinks it does, and that means it does. And I think you were right to run away from Florida. I just hoped—I hoped you’d be able to separate me from your father, to see us as two different men—”

“I do,” she said. “And it means a lot to me that you would say that, but it doesn’t change my mind. Not because you’re somehow inextricably tied to my father in my mind, but because …”

“Because ofhim.”

“He’s one of the few things I’ve ever chosen in my life. I chose to move here, and I chose to be with him, and maybe my reasons are confused and screwed up, but there’s this deep, strong, inside part of me that feels like those choices are the only things I know for sure about myself.”

“Even if he doesn’t choose you back?”

She nodded. And her heart broke a little, because she knew that was exactly what had happened the other day, when she’d walked away from Aaron and toward Jake. She’d chosen him, and he hadn’t chosen her back. But that didn’t make what she’d said to Aaron any less true.

“Even then.”

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