Trey rose, but a motion in the doorway had him freezing in place. The hostess, followed by a tall, willowy blonde, in a little black dress that managed to be both elegant and conservative at once. His heart began to hammer. Would she even recognize him after all these years?
Sandy stepped over the threshold, her heels clacking softly on the brick floor. She was smiling at the hostess. “You be sure and tell your parents I said hello.”
Small towns, he thought.
“Yes, ma’am, I will. Your server will be with you shortly. Please enjoy your meal.”
The young woman withdrew, and Sandy turned, her step faltering as she caught sight of him, still standing at his seat. Her face went slack with shock, her cheeks going pale beneath her carefully applied makeup. “Trey?” Her smooth voice was barely a whisper.
She remembered him after all.
He worked up a smile. “No one’s called me that in a very long time.”
They stared at each other, the silence humming with tension and thirty years of unasked questions.
Move your ass, Peyton. Manners saved him as he scooted around the table to pull out her chair. “Please, sit.”
For a long moment, Sandy didn’t move. Trey wondered if she was just going to turn around and leave again. After all his subterfuge, he wouldn’t blame her. But ultimately, she crossed the room and took the seat he offered. As he pushed in her chair, he caught a faint whiff of her perfume or maybe her shampoo—something subtly floral, with notes that reminded him of the sea—and beneath it, a scent that was purely Sandy. He had a ridiculous urge to bury his nose her hair. Instead, he circled around the table and took his own seat.
Sandy held herself stiff as a board, her expression caught somewhere between discomfort and outright panic. Definitely not the reunion he’d fancied. What must be going through her head right now? A laundry list of all the interactions Peyton Consolidated had conducted with the city government through proxies and representatives? All the times he could’ve revealed himself and hadn’t? Or was she thinking of that last night? Of him waiting for hours at the old Hoka Theater in Oxford?
Trey poured a glass of the Cabernet that had been breathing since his arrival and nudged it toward her. “Here, this will help.”
She just shook her head. ?
?I don’t understand. You’re Gerald Peyton?”
“The third. Hence, Trey, back in college.”
“All this time you knew about me, and you said nothing?” There was just a hint of temper beneath the incredulity. Justified.
“No.”
“Why?”
He lifted his own glass, buying time. But what else was there to say except the truth? “You made your choice years ago. I was simply honoring it.” The tone that came out was the cool one he usually reserved for boardrooms. He needed the cool confidence of the billionaire just now to cover the personal weakness of the man.
Her fingers flexed around the stem of her glass and her cheeks flushed. Shame wiped out her irritation. “What must you think of me for how I handled things?”
She’d left him hanging, never even offering an explanation. And what explanation had he really needed? He’d seen her pick Waylan. He’d known he was beaten and that whatever she felt for him wasn’t enough.
Trey twitched his shoulders, restless with the memory that had been too close to the surface since this morning. “You chose someone else. It doesn’t matter what I think. And anyway, that’s not why I asked you here tonight.”
Another faint shake of her head told him she was off-balance. “Then why?”
“I heard about what happened with the church. I want to help make sure Norah and Cam’s wedding still happens.”
A faint pleat appeared between her brows. “Why would you do that?”
“I was with Norah when she saw the church. I know how much this means to her. She’s become something of a surrogate daughter to me over the last couple of years, and I want to see her happy.”
Sandy took a long drink of the wine before meeting his eyes. “So why bring me in? Why not just go directly to her? Or to Cam?”
“Because I don’t want to tell her until there’s actually a plan we know will work. No sense in getting her hopes up if we can’t pull it off. And because I didn’t think their wedding was the right venue for you to find out about me.”
Across the table, she spun her glass between two fingers, eyes fixed on him. “That’s very thoughtful of you. On both fronts.”
“I’m a thoughtful guy.” He meant it as sarcasm.