“You disappeared.”
I barked out a laugh. “Yes, I did. He sent me to a school, a prison more like it, in Europe. I had no phone, no access to the outside world, no friends, and no way to get out. He isolated me.”
I got up to walk, because I couldn’t sit down. “He left me there for two years. He thought it would break me, but I fought back. I listened and learned. I worked out and built up my body so he couldn’t hurt me again.”
“You never contacted me.”
“I left you a note.”
She frowned. “It said you were sorry and to forget you. Your smashed cell phone and a piece of your cuff were all I had.”
He dug into his pocket, holding up the rest of the cuff I had given him. Well-worn and cracked, the clasp missing, all that was left the tattered pieces of leather. “My father caught me writing the letter. I planned to put it under my pillow and take the phone so I could call you. The note said I was sorry, but to be patient and I would get to you somehow. I said I loved you and not to forget me or what we had shared. I wasn’t expecting the uppercut he hit me with, and I was out cold when he dragged me to the car. He obviously tore it up to suit his own agenda and smashed the phone.” He huffed. “When I came to, I was still in the car en route to the airport. I was gone before the camp opened the next morning.”
“Oh, Linc,” she whispered.
“I tried to get in touch with you. I wrote you every day for three months. I finally figured out the letters weren’t reaching you, and I bribed another kid who had freer access than me to take my letter to town and send it. He had his return info on it, and it came back, saying Unknown-Moved.”
She nodded. “Your father made it impossible for us to stay. He didn’t do any of the things he threatened, but he made life hard for my mom. She lost shifts and her work was called subpar in her file. Rumors were flying about how I had stalked you—even following you to the camp when you tried to get away from me. Kim and Lori were being picked on. The whole town was talking about us.” She closed her eyes. “My mom’s cousin out east told us we could move there and he would help. We basically left everything behind and walked away. He had a place in a small town in the Maritimes, and we settled there. The girls went to school, Mom found a job, and I tried to pick up the pieces of my life. We even changed our name back to my mom’s maiden name so your father wouldn’t look for us. We all needed the fresh start.”
I looked at her. “I changed my name too. I didn’t want anything of his. I’m Lincoln Webber now.”
“I missed you every day.”
“My memories of you, of us, were what got me through it,” I admitted.
She lifted her head and pulled on a chain around her neck. The pendant I had given her, now dull, dangled from the necklace. I was shocked to see it, my heart bursting at the thought of what it meant. She had cared all this time. The same way I had cared for her.
“You still wear it?”
“I never took it off. It was the only thing I had that was still real. Well, that and this.” She pulled out a set of keys, held together with a strip of leather I recognized. I took them from her and touched the leather, thinking of her expression when I snapped the cuff onto my wrist, swearing never to take it off. Another promise I failed to keep because of that bastard.
“Why did you come back?” I asked.
She sighed. “My mom grew up here. She missed it.” She swallowed, her gaze on her hands. “She got sick, Linc. She wanted to come back. We had seen the news that your father died, and it had been so long, we figured most people would have forgotten us. The girls were busy and happy in university, and I wasn’t attached to anything or anyone out east, so I brought her back.” Her voice became thick. “She died last year.”
“Sunny,” I murmured and dragged her back into my arms. She came easily, fitting against me. “I am so sorry,” I said, kissing her crown, my eyes damp. “Your mom was always good to me.”
“She liked you. Even after everything, she always insisted there was more to the story than we knew.”
“I’m glad she thought enough of me to think that.”
“What happened, Linc? Why did you come back?”
“My father brought me back just after I turned nineteen. He thought I was broken, that I would toe the line. He didn’t expect me to have done my homework and to beat him at his own game.”
She frowned, confused.
“It was all about money, Sunny. The money my mother left me. My father always led me to believe there was just a little money waiting for me when I turned nineteen. Nothing of significance. But I had seen the paperwork. He had left it out once in error. There were millions, and the way it was invested, it kept growing. He planned on me signing it away to him and then he’d get rid of me. Some job somewhere where I’d be none the wiser and he wouldn’t care what I did, or who I did it with. He could keep an eye on me but be rid of me at the same time. He really thought I was that stupid and that broken. But I knew about the money, and the years I spent in that place taught me a few things. I found out ways to get around the stipulations that kept me locked down with the help of a few friends. As soon as I was back, I contacted my mother’s lawyer, and we were ready. I met with my father just to watch the expression on his face when he realized I knew.”
I stood and paced. “I walked away from him and started my own company. Just like him, I kept myself hidden, but I did the opposite of what he had done all those years.”
“What do you mean?”
I perched on the edge of the desk. “I started buying up properties here in town and gifting them to people he’d been screwing for so long. I used every resource I had and killed every deal he tried to make. News of his double-crossing started to spread. Word leaked out—I made sure of it. I bought every run-down home there was and rebuilt them, employing the people he put out of work. I made rents in the new places lower, and people flocked to them. His places were empty. I picked them up for a song and did it again. I used every dirty trick he had ever employed to take away the only two things that ever mattered to him. Power and money. Without power, the money dwindled until he was struggling and starting to lose everything he had. He died before it happened. I took over the estate and tripled the wealth.”
“The park,” she breathed, already knowing.
“Yes, that was for you.”