Chapter 4
ADELINE
When I finally remembered how my lungs worked, I dragged in a breath and snapped right back to reality. A reality in which Lu was poking Zach repeatedly on his thigh, lighting into him like the little dictator she was.
When he didn’t react, she pulled her hand back and I reached for her wrist just before she could hit him properly. Immediately dropping to my knees, I scooped her into my arms, thankful she was okay and that neither she nor my ex had gotten hurt.
“You need to watch where you’re going on that thing, baby,” I said gently, holding her gaze for a beat before reaching up to tighten her helmet. “It’s a big responsibility to have a scooter. You always need to be aware of who and what is around you.”
If I’d been talking to Jennifer, she would have taken the gentle chiding to heart, promising me she wouldn’t go crashing into random strangers or tables from now on.
Lu, on the other hand, was full of piss and vinegar.
“He’s the one who didn’t watch where he was going.
You should tell him to be careful. It wasn’t me. ”
As she stuck her lower lip out, I caught sight of Zach still watching us in my periphery and I blew out a slow breath. “Go find Amber and Jennifer, Lu. Mommy will be there in a minute.”
She pursed her lips, displeased, then snatched up her scooter, stuck her tongue out at Zach, and zoomed away. People literally had to jump out of her way as she went. I watched her go for a minute, then pushed back up to my feet and ran my fingers through my hair.
Maybe I should’ve waited another year before I got her that thing.
Either way, however, she had it now and she’d literally run into the very worst person possible. It took another beat, but I finally managed to convince myself to look at him again, trying for an apologetic smile, but I felt it fall flat before it had even fully formed.
“I’m so sorry about that. Lauren is…” I trailed off for a beat, momentarily too distracted by those deep green eyes to think straight. “She’s a lot. I know I shouldn’t make excuses for her, but she hasn’t had the easiest year.”
Zach nodded. His gaze was intent on mine but also unemotional, which I wasn’t sure I had ever seen from him so completely before. Either he really had gotten harder with age or he was just deliberately closing himself off from me.
Both possibilities were equally as likely, I supposed.
“I heard about…” He stopped, then waved a hand out to his side. “Everything.”
My stomach squeezed. He was still so darn gorgeous, so steady and calm. Actually, he was just still everything I’d ever wanted. The same guy I still dreamed about, if I was being honest, which was why seeing him again was such a punch to the gut.
“I’m sure you have,” I said quietly, but I had no idea what to say after that or how to even begin. “It’s, uh, been all over.”
The last time we’d spoken, not counting those few words over lunch with my uncle, had been when I’d told him it was over. It had been the most difficult conversation I’d ever had, but I had done my best to try to convince myself I was making the right decision.
As if I had options. Like I wasn’t painfully in love with my boyfriend, this man right in front of me, but forced to break up with him because my fate on the marriage market was already sealed.
It had been the worst night of my life.
The guilt I’d felt that night had stuck around, clinging to me like a second skin even now, eight years later.
It was crazy. At the time, I’d thought it would go away eventually, but that never happened.
Not when I’d gotten married, or while I’d been pregnant, or even when life as I’d been trying to build it had blown up so spectacularly.
If anything, it was only getting more intense with time. Maybe that’s why this is happening now. It’s karma coming back to get me.
If it was, she certainly had a reason.
“Lu is yours, then?” he asked, his voice devoid of even the faintest trace of emotion.
Those broad shoulders I used to love rubbing just as an excuse to feel him up, even before we’d been together, were so tense, it looked like his bones might crack if he twitched. God, I hate this.
“Yeah, she’s mine. Lu. Lauren, I mean, just turned five, and Jennifer is seven.”
Just saying those words to him hurt. Not because there was anything wrong with the age of seven, but because she was already seven and we’d been together only eight years ago, which meant he would know now for a fact how little time there was between our breakup and her conception.
I almost winced as I said it, but somehow, I managed to keep a straight face.
I loved my Jennifer to bits. Truly. I would lay down my life for her three times over if I could. She’d made me a mom, the so-called honeymoon baby everyone had thought would be a boy.
A boy whose name would’ve been Louis Weatherby IV. But she’s also the baby I was much too young for.
I was only twenty-three when she’d been born, and it had been just over a year after I’d lost the love of my life to my own family’s archaic expectations. I did my best to be the mother she deserved, but sometimes, I felt like she carried the scars of my own inexperience.
Zach just nodded, though, and stared into the distance like he was emotionally not only uninterested in this conversation but also very much disengaged.
Until I followed his gaze. He was looking at Lu railing on Amber, our live-in nanny who was also helping to home school them until the new school year started.
She was just smirking down at the little tyrant, mercifully well versed in handling her temper, while Jennifer hopped around on one leg with a spool of cotton candy in her hand. I sighed, finally looking back at him and moving my hands to my hips.
“Look, I’m only back in Chicago because I got a job here.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said, but the words were like ice.
I swallowed hard, past new pain and old, and then I stared at him for another beat.
Those features had definitely sharpened with age.
That part hadn’t just been my imagination or shock the other day.
He was still completely clean shaven as well, the strong lines of his jaw so familiar that my fingertips ached to brush across them.
Ultimately, however, I didn’t know this man. Not anymore. And judging by how completely aloof he was acting, he had no intention of changing that.
So I turned around and then decided to just… walk away. God knew, I didn’t need another man making my life difficult. Between my asshole husband, my uncles who meant well but were controlling as hell, and my grandfather, I had more than enough of that as it was.
Still, it irked me that he didn’t call me back or try to stop me in any way. In fact, when I risked a glance over my shoulder to see if he’d even noticed that I’d walked away, he wasn’t even there anymore, his spine still completely rigid as he disappeared into the crowd.
I shook my head and admonished my stupid, traitorous heart for being a touch hurt by this. Zach and I were over and we had been for a long time. I’d lived a whole lifetime in the past eight years and I was sure he’d done the same.
Neither of us needed to feel so much as a drop more pain because of the other. By the time I rejoined my family, I certainly hadn’t forgotten about him, but my focus at least was back where it belonged—on my children.
I dropped into a crouch in front of Lu and gently took her shoulders, turning her to face me. “You need to be nicer, baby.”
“I’m only nice to girls,” she said stubbornly, literally digging her heels.
Amber snorted a laugh she quickly tried to stifle, but I heard it anyway. Shaking my head, I pushed to my feet and glanced at her. At twenty-two, she was a fun girl who was very much enjoying early adulthood in Chicago, but she was also fiercely loyal to the girls and me.
Her father’s business had been acquired by my family after it had gone bankrupt when she’d been young, which had made her very much against old-money families in general, but the fact that my grandfather had given her dad a job had redeemed us in her eyes.
“Can we go play now?” Jennifer asked once I was standing again. “We don’t need to leave yet, right?”
“No, we don’t.” I nodded toward the nearest playground, only about a dozen or so yards to our left. “Go on.”
The girls ran off, not needing to be told twice. Amber hauled the scooter over her shoulder and tilted her head toward the market. “Who was the guy?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but apparently, Jennifer was still within earshot and she screamed it for me. “That was Zach!”
Then she raced off after Lu. My cheeks caught fire, burning as if they’d been dipped in acid. “Yeah, she’s right. That was Zach.”
“And Zach is…” Amber trailed off with purpose, obviously wanting me to finish the sentence.
“He’s my—” I cut myself off before I could say the word.
Honestly, I felt like hell. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and not emerge for a long, long time.
Just the thought of having to tell our story right now was too painful to even think about, so I pivoted.
“Jennifer likes to look through my old yearbooks. She still doesn’t believe I used to be young. It’s rather shocking to her, I think.”
“You’re only thirty.” Amber laughed, nudging my shoulder as we headed over to a bench. “You’re not that old.”
“To a seven-year-old, I’m ancient,” I said. “She can’t fathom someone actually having lived for a full thirty years.”
On the other hand, I felt much older. Like I’d lived several lifetimes at this point.
Amber, however, just chuckled and shook her head.
“Yeah, okay. I guess thirty must seem impossible when you’re only seven, but you still haven’t answered my question.
Who is Zach? Obviously, he was someone important? ”
I took a deep breath, recognizing that she wasn’t going to let this go until I gave her at least something. But I seriously couldn’t bring myself to go into the details right now, so I kept it as vague and brief as I could, focusing on the parts that hurt the least.
“We met at boarding school several millennia ago,” I said lightly, hoping that joking about it would help. It didn’t really. “Zach and I just got along really well from the word go, you know? He became my best friend, and we reconnected when I graduated from college and came to Chicago to work.”
“Oh, right. You came here to work at the same gallery you are now, right?”
“Yep.” Getting my old job back eight years later had been a blessing I knew I couldn’t take for granted.
It was a lifeline I’d been praying for, even if it barely paid enough to keep a roof over our heads and to pay Amber to watch the kids for the summer, but it was something and that was better than nothing.
More than I’d had for myself in a very long time.
Eight years, to be exact. “So yeah, that’s the story. ”
“So he’s just an old friend?” Amber glanced over her shoulder, back in the direction of the market.
I didn’t tell her that he was a lot more than that. So much more. What had happened between us was also my biggest regret, but that was the thing about regrets. You had to live with them. Forever.
“He was a friend but not anymore,” I said finally.