“SYDNEY!” I CALLED out, closing in on her as she crossed the street. “Sydney, wait up. Please.”

“I told you to leave me alone,” she said without turning.

“You know I’m not gonna do that.”

“You should, Jax. You really should.” She hopped up onto the sidewalk and went to move, but her foot seemed stuck on something, and she lurched forward. I reached her just before she hit the ground, catching her and lowering her slowly to the pavement.

“You okay?”

“My shoe,” she said, pointing behind me, and I turned to see a spiky high heel wedged between a crack in the sidewalk. I tried to pry it loose, but the heel tore off from the rest of the shoe, and when I finally pulled it free, it dangled off the edge, ruined.

“Great,” she said, her voice cracking as she threw her hands up. “Now my favorite pair of shoes breaks? Someone up there hates me.”

“No one could hate you,” I said gently. “We’ll get it fixed. Where were you running off to? Where’s your hotel?”

Sydney stayed stubbornly silent, but when she got the hint I wasn’t leaving, she inclined her head toward the building behind her. “That one.”

“Come on, then. Let’s get you up.” I handed her the shoe and then scooped her up off the pavement so she wouldn’t have to walk barefoot on the dirty sidewalk. She put her hands around my neck, holding on tight as the hotel’s doorman let us inside.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, her voice low.

“We need to talk about a few things. What floor are you on?”

“Wait. Not my room.”

I looked down at her in confusion.

“I mean…” She bit her lip. “I could really use a drink.”

AN HOUR AND a few drinks later, and lightweight Sydney seemed to be feeling no pain. Well, obviously it hadn’t erased the events of the evening from her mind, but at least it had numbed her enough that the tears had stopped and she’d calmed down a bit, even as I’d told her everything. All of it, from the first time I’d ever met Lucas to everything that had happened since I’d been here. She listened quietly, taking it all in, and every once in a while she’d interrupt with a question, which I answered honestly.

I could see her bare feet swinging back and forth from under the table as she pulled a cherry off her drink umbrella with her teeth. “Jax, you don’t really have to marry me, you know.” The alcohol was getting to her now—she was beginning to slur her words.

“No?” I laughed. “Thanks for letting me off the hook.”

“I mean, I always thought we would. Get married. My parents pushed it and your parents pushed it, and I never once questioned that we’d end up together. I just figured it was a matter of time.”

“Yeah,” I said, swirling the whiskey around in my glass, the same one I’d been nursing since we’d sat down in the hotel bar. “Our parents and their master plans for us.”

“Mmm, yes. Thank God for them.”

I grinned at her sarcasm before turning the conversation in a more serious direction. “Do you ever think about… Well…”

“Think about what?”

“What you’d do if your life hadn’t been planned out the way they wanted it?”

Sydney’s forehead crinkled as she cocked her head to the side. “I don’t know. I like working for Davenport Worldwide, so I feel like that was a good decision…on their part,” she said. “But if I could do anything… I don’t know. I think I’d want to be a mom.”

Her words took me by surprise. “A mom? Really?”

“Yeah.” Her cheeks flushed. “I want a family. A husband, kids, the whole shebang.”

“I didn’t realize…”

“Well, we haven’t exactly talked about it. I’m not one to put the carriage before marriage,” she said, and then laughed at her rhyme. “Have you ever thought about it?”

“What, having kids? No,” I said. “Not to say I never would, it just…hasn’t crossed my mind.”

“I wonder if Lucas wants them,” Sydney said casually, and took another sip of fruity martini number three, and the thought of that was an electric shock to my chest. As she set down her martini, she giggled too loudly. “You should see your face right now. You look horrific. Wait, horrific?” She tested the word out, like she was searching through the alcohol haze for the right one. “Horrible?”

“Horrified?”

“That’s the word. Yep, you look horrified. But I wasn’t really asking about kids. I meant, have you ever thought about what you’d do if you weren’t your father’s son?”

Not my father’s son… That was an interesting way to put it, and not something that had ever occurred to me.

“Look at you, asking the hard questions tonight,” I said.

“Maybe I should be a reporter detective person.”

I’d never seen Sydney on anything more than a glass of champagne, and I had to admit, she was amusing. And fun. Some guy out there would be a lucky fucker to be able to call her his. It just wasn’t me.

“The job thing I’m good at—”

“Obviously,” she said. “Except for today.”

“Yeah, yeah. Except for today. But if I could do anything…” I didn’t even have to think about it. The words came tumbling out like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I love it here. Well, in South Haven, just over the bridge. It’s so laid-back and peaceful, it’s got that small-town feel, and…”

“And it’s got Lucas.”

“Yeah. It’s got him. Being back here made me realize that I never would’ve left. Part of me feels angry about that, because I feel like there’s so much lost time to make up for, but then the other part of me wonders if it was all for a reason. Like we had to go through all this shit to appreciate what we have even more.”

“That makes sense. I think it’s also the most romantic thing you’ve ever said,” she said, and then turned serious. “Jax, I’m sorry for causing a scene earlier. You just…surprised me.”

“Uh, I think your reaction was more than justified. You could’ve added a slap in there somewhere and I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

“Nah, I don’t wanna hurt my hand on that strong jaw of yours.”

“Broken shoe, broken hand…we could be having this conversation in the ER right now.”

“This is a better alternative,” she said, and drained the last of her cocktail. Then she held up the glass. “Could I get another one of these things?”

“You sure you want the hangover tomorrow?”

“Ugh. You’re right. A water’s fine.”

I caught our waiter’s attention and ordered one for her and one for me, since I didn’t feel much like drinking tonight. All this talk about Lucas only made me anxious to see the guy, but I wasn’t leaving Sydney without getting on the same page. I owed her that.

“This explains so much, you know?” she said. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it when it was staring me in the face. The way you didn’t want to commit… I felt like I was practically forcing you.” She covered her face with her hands. “God, I almost feel relieved. I thought something was wrong with me. That it was just me you didn’t want, and I was determined to find some way to make this work.”

“That wasn’t it at all, I swear.”

“I know. I mean, you didn’t seem to want anyone else either…”

“Listen to me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You hear me? Nothing. You’re amazing, and you deserve someone who can see that about you and love you the way you love them. Just because that’s not me, doesn’t mean any other guy wouldn’t be jumping over himself to get to you.”

“I am quite a catch, aren’t I?” she said, brushing her hair off her shoulder. Then she caught a glimpse of her bare feet. “Okay, clumsiness notwithstanding.”

“Hey, that makes you more endearing. Just don’t make it a habit or you’ll turn into one of those damsels in distress.”

Chuckling, she accepted the iced water the waiter set in front of her. “I do have a question, though, and I hope it’s not offensive.”

“Shoot.”

“Are you…you know…gay?” She whispered the last word like it was a secret. “I mean, have you always known you were? What about all those women you dated? What about me?” A stricken look crossed her face, and I had no doubt she was thinking of all the nights we’d spent together—and there were quite a few of those. And while they’d been a good time, nothing could hold a candle to even five minutes with Lucas. It was like he’d wiped the slate clean and I could hardly remember anyone who came before him. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell Sydney that, because there was no reason to be an asshole and hurt her feelings. She didn’t need to know I’d been going through the motions the last few years. But she did have a point—was I gay?

“I haven’t exactly figured that out yet,” I admitted. “Maybe? The only person, male or female, that I’ve ever felt strong feelings for is Lucas, and he happens to be a guy, so…”

“That sounds pretty gay to me.”

I caught her sly smile and returned it with one of my own. “I guess it does, huh?”

“Yeah. But you don’t have to put a label on it yet if you don’t know. I was being nosy.”

“S’okay. It was a good question. One I’ll have to deal with soon. But Syd?” Covering her hand with mine, I said, “Don’t think I haven’t enjoyed my time with you. Please get that out of your head right now.”

Sydney chewed her lip again and then nodded. “Okay.”

“I mean it. You’re the best woman I know, and any guy who wants you is gonna have to go through me first.”

“Not a bad idea. From lover to big brother. Wait.” She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds a little gross. Strike that from the record.”

“Stricken. We’ll say overprotective friend—how’s that?”

“Much better.”

She smiled to herself as she drew a heart into the condensation on her glass. “You seem different down here. More relaxed.”

“I am.”

“And happy?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m really happy down here.”

“Good. That’s good, Jax.” She erased the designs on her glass and then wiped her hands off on her dress. “This is so not what I expected to walk into tonight.”

My smile dropped. “I’m sorry—”

“Nope, no more of those. It’s okay. I’m gonna be okay, so don’t you worry about that. And you… I think you’re gonna be much happier now, Jax. I want that for you.”

“I want that for you too.”

“What are you gonna tell your father?”

“I have no fucking idea, but it’s not gonna go over well.”

Sydney’s gaze dropped. “So, you said you knew Lucas was the one back in high school, right?”

“Yeah, that’s where we met.”

“Jax, I…” She paused. “I think there’s something you should know.”

“Okay,” I said.

“The day you came back from South Haven? Your father was at our house, and I overheard him telling my parents that some guy had become obsessed with you and that’s why he had to pull you out before graduation. He was concerned for your safety.”

My jaw went slack, and my heart stopped for a couple of beats. “He said he was concerned for my safety?”

“That’s what he said. And I remember he called the guy Lucas.”

“Holy shit,” I said, my brain close to exploding. But of course my father would’ve said that. Better to have his friends think I had a delusional stalker than to let it get out that his son had developed something more than a friendship with another man. “That’s not… That wasn’t true. Ever.”

“I can see that now, but at the time I was scared for you. That’s why when I heard Lucas had shown up at your house after that, I believed what your father had said. It didn’t even occur to me that you might’ve…returned his affections.”

Hold the fucking phone. “You knew he came to Connecticut?”

A look of shame came over Sydney’s face. “Well, yeah. I saw him once on the front porch. I think we’d had a tennis lesson that day, and your father let me in and told me not to say anything. That it would scare you to know the boy had found you.”

“Oh my God.”

“I didn’t know, Jax. I thought I was helping to protect you.” Sydney’s eyes pleaded with mine for understanding, but it wasn’t her fault. It was becoming clear that anything that had to do with me was engineered by my father.

“I can’t believe he went that far,” I said, more to myself than to her. “I can’t believe he was so scared of who I might really be that he turned the world upside down to make sure I stayed the obedient son.” I pinched the bridge of my nose as hurt, disappointment, and anger fought for dominance. I’d been betrayed by the only blood tie I had left in this world, and for what?

“Fuck, dammit,” I said, hitting the table with my fist and causing Sydney to jump.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything—”

“No. Absolutely not. I was always too scared to tell anyone the truth, and look where it got me. I thought the worst thing that could happen was I would lose everything, and by that I meant my family, my job, the money.” I let out a disgusted scoff. “Now I know that wasn’t the case at all. The worst thing I could’ve lost was Lucas. And I did. But I’m not letting that happen again.” All I knew, all I cared about now, was that Lucas was it for me, and always had been. He was my present and my future, and I’d deal with the rest of it soon enough. There was no amount of money in the world that would keep me tied to the man I called my father. In that moment, the ties that bound me to him were slashed, and I was no longer his son.

Sydney’s eyes were watery. “I hate to tell you this, but knowing your father—”

“I couldn’t give a fuck about him. Not anymore. This time I’ll be gaining something even more important. Someone more important.”

She hesitated. “And he’s worth you, right, Jax? You promise?”

That was the only thing I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. “I promise. He’s worth everything.”