I shook my head.
"Well, maybe there's something there that could change things for you.”
"Nothing can change the fact that he told me he loved me and wanted to marry me and then in the span of thirty minutes of talking with his ex, he left me."
She nodded, and I hoped that she was accepting my reasoning.
"She's right. Maybe if you knew what happened, that might change things."
My head whipped around to see Sam standing on the beach a few feet away from us.
“You’re like a bad penny,” I muttered.
“Find a penny, pick it up, then all day, you’ll have good luck.” He gave me a wan smile.
I turned away because he looked too handsome in his tight across the chest T-shirt and khaki shorts. Secretly, I wished for a tsunami to take me, or better yet, Sam, away.
CHAPTERNINE
Sam
I can’t believe I let Max talk me into coming down to the beach to talk to Kate.
I'd been enjoying a perfectly nice day sitting on my terrace, reviewing plans for the club, while Max was inside talking to our managers back in New York, making sure everything was running smoothly.
Movement on the beach had me looking up from the blueprints to see Harper on the beach, and with her was Kate. As usual, the sight of her made my heart stutter in my chest. Longing and frustration mixed. Why wouldn't she let me prove to her that I could be the man she'd fallen in love with five years ago?
I watched as Harper unfurled a blanket and they sat.
"Maybe you should go down and say hello."
I rolled my eyes at Max as he sat in the chaise lounge next to me. "Maybe because I don't like hitting my head against a brick wall."
“If you’re going to use Mom and Dad as your model, Dad would do it.”
I ignored him, sipping from my beer bottle.
"I was surprised at your memory of Mom and Dad when we were little. You remember things differently than I do. Their second chance didn't come easily. Remember, Mom was very resistant to letting Dad back into her life. Hell, if you do the math, you’d realize it took her a long time to tell him we were his even though he was coming around a lot."
We were only five or six years old at the time, so I wasn't sure how it was that Max remembered all of this so clearly. Mostly, I remembered my dad, who we knew as Drew at the time, coming around a lot and really liking him. And then one day, we learned he was our dad, so I suppose Max was right.
"They came together because of us. There was a reason for the two of them to spend time together. Kate has no reason to spend time with me, and she's made it clear that she doesn't want to." Next to me, Max shook his head, and I hated how it made me feel. Like he thought I was a wimp, or maybe he was disappointed.
"It's not easy to have your heart stamped on every time you speak to the woman you love." Why couldn’t he see this from my point of view?
"I'm sure it isn't. But if she's the one, isn't she worth enduring it to win her back? The problem with you, Sam, is that your life has always come so easily to you. You haven't had to work at anything, so you don't know how to. You come up against one little obstacle, and you just give up."
I glared at him. "That's not true."
Max looked at me in sympathy. Maybe it was pity. "It is true, Sam. School, sports, business, women, when have you ever really had to work for any of it?"
"It's not like you had to work."
He arched a brow. Oh, yeah, I forgot about his dyslexia, a challenge he had to deal with every day.
Annoyed, I stood and headed through the back yard and out the gate to the beach. I wasn't looking forward to Kate skewering my heart again, but I didn't want to look like a fucking wimp, either.
As I approached Harper and Kate on the beach, I could hear them talking. If I wasn't mistaken, they were talking about me.