Page 30 of The Grumpy Billionaire
In the one on my chest he wrote “Reid,” and in the one over his own chest, he wrote “Mara, forever and always.”
He’d done the same artwork in his own yearbook. I’d stopped freaking out then and given him a very long, very serious kiss.
Slowly, I flipped to the back pages of the yearbook, my heart picking up beats as if I were out for a run instead of curled up on my bed. And there in his small block-lettered print were the words I’d never quite been able to erase from my memory—or my heart.
Reid had filled every inch of that page, telling me everything he loved about me, my brown eyes, my soft hair, my voice, holding my hand, the special looks I gave him and only him. He listed some of the myriad things we’d shared together over the years, first kiss, first dance.
Of course, he hadn’t mentioned the most significant “first” we’d shared—on graduation night—our yearbooks had been handed out weeks before that life-changing event would occur.
He’d ended this high school love letter by summing it up in three words, “I love you,” and then added two more above his signature, “Always yours.”
I slammed the book shut and held it to my chest, dropping my head as the tears started. God, how could it still hurt so much?
I wouldn’t be able to do it. I couldn’t walk into Reid’s office, sit down across from him under the lights and camera and pretend that none of it had happened. I’d have to just polish up the resume reel and start searching for job openings.
Maybe the boys could come with me and start fresh at a new school in a new town.
After I recovered from my crying jag, I wandered downstairs. I should really have been down there with them anyway instead of holed up in my room, wallowing in the misery of my past.
No one was in the living room or in the kitchen, so I went back upstairs. In a miraculous turn of events, they were each in their own rooms, studying or appearing to, anyway.
I headed back toward my own room but stopped in the hallway outside the open door to my parents’—strike that—toMom’sbedroom. The light was on, and she was inside, sitting up in her bed.
Was she sick? Most nights she was out at this time with Ricardo.
“Mom?” I peeked inside.
“Come in, sweetheart.”
Oh boy. Her voice sounded weepy. Were she and the Disco Queen on the outs?
I pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Whatcha doing? Hey—you okay?”
My mother was surrounded by photographs of our family. Of her and Dad. The images were spread across the fluffy white comforter, and tears streamed down her face.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Sniffing a humorless laugh, I went to sit next to her and wrapped an arm around her silk-pajama-clad shoulders.
She leaned her head on my shoulder. “I was just remembering… how perfect things used to be.”
“Were they?” I asked in all sincerity. “I mean, is any marriage perfect?”
My parents had never seemed all that happy to me, but then, I was a kid, and frankly my dad hadn’t been around that much when I was awake. There could have been good aspects of the relationship I wasn’t privy to.
“Well, of course not ‘perfect,’ but it was very, very good… once. It really was. Look at him—your dad was a good man in those early days. So kind, so much fun to be with. I’ll never understand what happened, whether it was the stress of the job… or all the political power.”
Mom wiped her wet face with one hand and picked up another photograph with the other. It was of the three of us at Six Flags before the boys had been born, sunburned, beaming, and looking exactly like the happy family I’d believed us to be.
“That’s why you shouldn’t count on anyone,” she said, shaking her head at the image. “They can change on you overnight and become a completely different person.”
Like Reid had. The man I’d seen at the pizza place hadlookedlike my first love, but he acted nothing like the sweet boy who’d stolen my heart.
“Are you saying you don’t think people should ever get married?” I asked.
“Oh, you can get married if you want to—just make sure you don’t love him,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Or at least make sure he loves you more. Never let a man have too much power over you.”
I watched her pull another photo out of the box.
