Curiosity more than anything forced me to open the door.
He looked the same—handsome in a refined and priggish way—why had I never noticed that before?—with blondish hair, greenish eyes, boringish khaki trousers and white cotton dress shirt. His gaze zeroed in on my breasts. I crossed my arms.
“What are you doing here, Colin?”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Come on, Jade.”
“Fine.” I stepped backward.
He strode into the foyer. “I took the red-eye to Grand Junction. I’ve been here since six this morning. It took me a while to find this place. It’s not exactly on a map.”
“The Steel property is pretty big.”
“I’ll say.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“I…I want to tell you how sorry I am.”
“You know, Colin, if you’d had the balls to tell me this before the wedding, or at least at the rehearsal dinner, we could’ve saved a little bit of money by canceling. Not a lot, mind you, but a little.”
“I didn’t really think this was about the money.”
Unbelievable. Colin had grown up with a silver spoon shoved so far up his ass he didn’t know reality. “You didn’t? You know my dad lives a modest life. You know I do too. He spent twenty grand of his hard-earned savings to give me the day of my dreams, and we weren’t able to get any of that back. Not a freaking penny.”
“I intend to pay your father back, Jade.”
“Great. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” I tapped my bare foot. “Did you really come all this way just to tell me that?”
His cheeks reddened. “No. I…I came to tell you that…I think I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
He could not be serious. “Yeah? And what might that be?”
“Letting you go.”
I shook my head, laughing. “This is rich.”
“I’m serious, Jade. I still love you. I never stopped loving you.”
“Then why in the hell didn’t you want to marry me?”
“I got scared.”
“Scared. Okay. And you think I wasn’t scared? Binding yourself to another person is pretty scary thing, Colin. But we had seven years under our belts.”
“Yeah, I know. You were my first and only serious girlfriend. I just started wondering if…”
“If what? If something better was out there?”
He bit his lip.
That fucking bastard.
“Well, here’s news, Colin. We are over. You blew it.”