Page 32 of Love Me Sweet

But there had been something in the air that last week before her mother took off. Sylvie had been worried, though she hadn’t been able to pinpoint why.

She blinked and realized that Andrew was waiting for an answer. “My mother always had a lot of boyfriends.”

“She and your dad divorced.”

Sylvie shook her head. “She didn’t have money for a divorce. She told everyone he was dead. That’s what she considered him to be.”

When Andrew spoke, his tone held heavy condemnation that he didn’t bother to conceal. “She picked one of her boyfriends over you. She left you alone.”

The words punched like a direct blow to the heart. For years, when Sylvie thought back to the time, it was always about her mother taking off. But that phrasing skirted a very important truth.

Her mother had left her.

There was no getting around that fact. The woman had left just as her dad had done. Without one word of explanation. Neither of them had cared about her enough to stay or even to leave a note of explanation.

She’d done the same to Andrew.

When he started to speak, she held up a hand. “It’s not necessary to mention the connection between what they did to me and what I did to you. I get it. And I regret it. Sincerely.”

Andrew’s shoulders were stiff against the back of the cushions.

Sylvie continued. “My parents knew me as well as any people on this earth. I believe in their own way they loved me. But they were also aware of my strengths and my weaknesses. In the long run, what they saw in me, what they felt for me, wasn’t enough to make them stay.”

“You believe I’d have eventually left you, too.”

“Of course.” Her heart swelled in her chest. She forced herself to breathe. “Your father was right. It would only be a matter of time.”

“My fath—”

“Everyone who knew, when they met me, saw us as an unlikely match.” She plunged forward, not about to take a side trip to discuss his dad’s very logical concerns. “You realized that, too, after I’d been gone awhile. That’s the reason you’re here now. You know that once you get to know the real me that you’ll be able to accept that you dodged a bullet, that I did you a favor.”

He opened his mouth then shut it, took a drink of wine.

“I admit that, maybe because of my past, I’m not as open as I should be. That hesitation to let someone fully into my life, extended to my relationship with you.” Sylvie clasped her hands in her lap to still their trembling.

Feeling as if she were about to plunge over the side of a cliff, she took a deep breath then took the leap. “I will let you into my world, Andrew. I owe you that. The woman you’ll get to know over the next few weeks will be me, no subterfuge, without artifice.”

Her gaze searched his face. “That way, when you board that plane back to Boston, you’ll be able to leave in peace, knowing that whoever you thought you loved, it wasn’t me.”

* * *

Andrew was sieged with an almost overwhelming desire to pull Sylvie into his arms and hold her close. He longed to murmur sweet words of reassurance in her ears. But that wouldn’t be fair to her, or to him. And, it made absolutely no sense.

This was the woman who’d walked out on him. Who, by her own admission, had never looked back. If he hadn’t sought her out, he knew as sure as he knew his own name that they’d still be apart. Those weren’t the actions of a woman in love. Those weren’t the actions of the woman he thought he’d loved.

“I appreciate that,” he heard himself say. “To be fair, though you’ve already concluded whatever you felt for me wasn’t love, I promise to also fully be myself when I’m with you.”

It seemed only fair.

“I hate opera.”

Andrew blinked.

Her chin lifted in what could only be described as a defiant tilt. “I said I’d be honest. I might as well start now.”

Taken aback by the statement, Andrew took a moment to add another log to the fire then refilled their wine glasses before resuming his seat.

“I know most people in your social circle adore the Opera and the Symphony, too. Neither do anything for me.” Though she spoke casually, bright patches of color dotted her cheeks and that chin remained stubbornly lifted. “I tried. I was bored.”

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