“I was an adult and should’ve known better.”
“You were exploited by an older man. You couldn’t have known better.” His words are tight on his mouth. “Tell me, are you going to spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for this?”
“I … don’t know,” I say. I’ve never thought about it like that. “It’s my burden to bear.”
“So you’re just going to carry this around with you forever?” he asks, incredulous.
When he puts it like that, I realize how ridiculous it seems.
But feelings are real to those who feel them. Unless he knows what I’ve been through firsthand, he can’t comprehend how difficult that would be.
“My baby’s father,” I continue, “he was adamant that he never wanted to be a dad. And he said he found the perfect adoptive mother. He made her sound wonderful … but the day I signed my baby away, I saw him with her in the nursery. He kissed her. He had his arm around her. I later found out she was his college girlfriend … And a year later, he married her.” My lip trembles and little earthquakes run through my body. “So while I walked away with nothing, they walked away with our baby. He got to raise her. Gets to raise her. He got to see every milestone, be there for every first.”
“You had a daughter.”
I bite my lip, not realizing I’d used those pronouns. Everything was supposed to stay secret, including the gender.
“Everything about you suddenly makes perfect sense,” he says. “Who did this to you, Sophie? I want his fucking name.”
My lips press flat. “I wish I could tell you …”
“Then tell me.”
“I signed an NDA,” I say. “If I say anything, there’ll be repercussions.”
He’ll stop paying for my sister’s experimental treatment. He’ll seize the house my mother has come to love the last eight years. There’ll be questions. She’ll want to know why I broke the NDA. And if she finds out about my arrangement with Trey, I’ll break her heart all over again.
“I’ll handle those repercussions.”
“This isn’t your problem.”
“Your problems became mine the moment you signed that contract,” he says. “Let me deal with him.”
I huff. “And what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure.”
They named her Sasha, and she’s beautiful. Wavy dark hair, big blue eyes accented by a thick fringe of lashes, rosy cheeks. In the handful of photos I’ve seen, she seems bright and happy and cheerful. If Trey were to make a fuss of this, if word were to get out that Nolan knocked up a high school girl and adopted the baby, Sasha could read about it someday. I’m not even sure she knows she’s adopted. She looks so much like Nolan …
“It’s too late,” I say. “It’s not like I can get her back. And it’s not like he’ll ever apologize. Even if he did, it won’t change anything.”
Trey exhales, brushing a strand of hair from my forehead. “Tell me who he is anyway. You’ve already told me everything else, yes?”
“I haven’t said his name in eight years,” I say.
“Seems to me there’s a lot you haven’t said in eight years …”
I open my mouth to speak. But I stop myself.
“It doesn’t matter who he is. He’s in my past … and I need to focus on the future … like you said.”
His thumb grazes my lower lip. “Yes, Sophie. You do.”
Trey crushes my mouth with a kiss so tender my eyes burn—until a flood of euphoria rushes my veins.
“I’m falling for you.” The words are weightless on my tongue but heavy in my chest.
“Oh, Sophie …” His mouth curls. “I know.”
Forty-Four
Trey
Present
“I feel embarrassed to ask this as I should’ve done it by now … but this business deal you’re trying to nab, the one that requires you to be a family man … what kind of business is it?” Sophie asks as we disembark my jet and make our way to a waiting Town Car. “What makes it so special that you’re taking such extreme measures to get it?”
We climb inside and wait for our luggage to be loaded.
“It’s a steel and oil company,” I say, taking her hand. I haven’t stopped touching her since we took off a few hours ago, haven’t taken my eyes off her. Instead of her usual weekend jeans-and-t-shirt, she dressed in a fitted navy dress, her hair twisted into a low bun as she wanted to make a memorable first impression. She’s Jackie O. and Marilyn combined and then some. “Landing this would be a record deal for me. It’d go down in history as one of the biggest takeovers Westcott Corp has ever done. Not only that, but it would allow me to control a significant portion of the U.S. oil market, which could influence my electric car agenda. I’m also planning to remedy their environmentally destructive practices and uncompetitive worker’s wages. They’re a parasite of a company, and I intend to fix the error of their ways.”