Page 48 of Promise Me Nothing
I roll my eyes just thinking about it. The last thing I’d wanted to do after getting back to town was deal with the insufferable members of the local yacht club.
But I didn’t really have a choice. Because there’s only one person keeping this family together right now. It’s definitely not my brother Ben, who isn’t allowed at our house. And it’s definitely not my dad, who thinks it’s completely acceptable to attend a yacht club function with his ex-wife, his children, and his new twenty-something-year-old child bride.
So it has to be me.
Most of the dinner had been exactly what I thought it would be. Black tie. Stuffy, unbearable conversation with people who don’t give a rat’s ass about anything but money and status.
That might have been the world I was raised in. It might even be the world I’m the most comfortable in. But that doesn’t mean it’s the world I envision for myself in the future. It doesn’t mean that’s what I enjoy.
In San Francisco, I can be a nobody. I throw on a pair of jeans and a graphic t-shirt, and I’m just another hipster trekking through the city. Anywhere else, I don’t have to be a Calloway. The second son of one of the wealthiest business moguls in the South Bay. I get to just be me. Wyatt. The guy who enjoys riding motorcycles, spending time in the company of beautiful women, and building up my business portfolio.
But at home, I have a role to play.
Caretaker.
The prodigal son.
I think my dad still assumes that one of us – me or my brother Ben – will finally step up and start working for his company. But I don’t see that ever happening. I’m far too independent, and have too much self-respect to ever grovel at the feet of a man who saw our family as inconsequential.
My presence at the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club was strictly for my sister, since it was her first invitation to the annual event. Technically, she didn’t need me there. She’s been to enough Calloway Foundation functions to know how they work. But after I’d told my mother that I wouldn’t be going, Ivy begged me to reconsider.
Imagine my surprise when I saw Pier Girl, her bright eyes just as shocked to see me. I could have sworn something larger was at play. To see each other three times in less than twenty-four hours is… not plausible. In any environment.
This might be a little beach town, but it’s also the real world, not a Hallmark movie, and my earlier wonderings if I’d see her again had been followed with a very reluctant acceptance that it was highly unlikely.
And yet… there she was.
She’s one of those women who leave an impression. Not in the way she looks, though God knows I was trying to recite baseball stats to myself when she’d bent over to pick up her shoes and I’d caught an accidental peek down the front of her dress. She’s a bombshell, and I don’t think she has any clue.
No. The impression she left had everything to do with who she is, not just what she looks like.
My heart stutters as I remember her translating for Ivy. Making sure she wasn’t left out.
Even Lucas, who loves Ivy to death, would never have thought of something like that. Something so simple. So small.
But then, the floor had fallen out from beneath me.
I grit my teeth at the memory.
She’s Hannah fucking Morrison.
How?
How?
I never thought it would actually happen.
That she would be here. In this town.
I should be mad at Lucas.
Fuming.
For his scheming. How he manipulated this. Twisted everything up.
But really, I’m mad at her. She shouldn’t be here. Infiltrating the locations we go. Probably making friends with the people I’ve known since childhood.
I never looked her up. Even after all these years. And there I was, checking her out, wondering – or, worrying, rather – if she was dating Lucas or was free game.
