Trey continued to flip through the book. “So, it looks like the biggest thing is a new venue for both the ceremony and the reception, then making certain that the new venue for the latter will work with what’s set up with the caterers and the florist.”
She settled back in her seat, brows faintly raised, studying him.
“What?”
“I just thought you’d hand this over to your staff and let them take care of it.”
It was Trey’s turn to arch his brows. “Do you think so little of me?”
Her cheeks flushed. “No. I just meant, you’re a busy man.”
“My schedule is keeping me in town for a while.” He’d had Louis arrange it that morning. “And anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about them. I want to do this. Not my staff.”
Sandy shifted, crossing her legs. The motion made her skirt rise up, showing a couple of inches of very excellent legs. She’d always had amazing legs.
“How is it you got to be Gerald?”
Trey made a face. It felt weird—wrong somehow—for her to call him that. He’d never been Gerald with her. That had been part of her appeal. No burden of expectation to live up to the family name.
“When I left Ole Miss, I transferred to the University of Washington. New school, new state, new me. It seemed like it was time for me to grow up.”
“I’ve been trying to reconcile my memory of you with—well—all this.” She gestured to the plush office, the enormous mahogany desk. “I never connected you with Peyton Consolidated. There’s no picture of you on your company website, and you’ve mysteriously managed to stay out of the press.”
“You looked me up?” The idea of it pleased him.
“No one does business in my town without my knowing something about them. I wouldn’t have agreed to all this on Norah’s word alone, though it certainly carries a lot of weight.”
“I like my privacy. Keeping my face out of the public eye ensures that I can keep it.” He tried to tell himself to leave it there. Surface. Professional. But the lure of the past was too strong. “Am I so different?”
She seemed to consid
er the question. “You’re very at ease in your skin. And there’s definitely an aura of power and control you didn’t have at twenty. But you’re still…Trey.”
Something warmed inside him at her words. He rose and poured them each another cup of coffee before crossing to sit beside her on the sofa, close enough he could reach out and touch her. Instead, he handed her the mug and draped his arm along the back of the couch.
“That is the best possible compliment you could’ve paid me. I haven’t been just Trey since college. Since you.” A fleeting smile curved his lips and his fingers itched to toy with the ends of her hair. And damn it, he wanted to be Trey right now, not Gerald. Giving in to temptation, and maybe to test them both, he snagged one silky end, rubbing it between his fingers. “I always liked who I was with you best.”
Sandy went very still but didn’t move away. “Who did you become without me?”
“My father. My grandfather. Someone I didn’t recognize. Someone my wife grew to despise.”
She balked at that, recoiling a couple of inches. Just far enough to tug the hair from his fingers. “You’re still married?”
“Divorced,” he assured her. “Rightly so. I was a lousy husband and father. I rectified the latter after the divorce. And Maura and I make much better co-parents than spouses.”
“What went wrong in your marriage? Was it just that you were a workaholic?”
Were they going to swap war stories of their divorces now? He knew that was a popular tactic among divorcees, but he’d never been one to participate. Still, he found himself continuing to talk. He’d always been able to talk to Sandy. “I didn’t love her. Not the way I should’ve.” The circumstances of their marriage hadn’t been the best, but they’d made do. “I thought giving her a lavish lifestyle would make up for that, but it didn’t. She deserved better than the likes of me, and she’s but one thing on a laundry list of regrets in my life.”
You were the biggest.
“There’s no sense in focusing on regrets. It’s too easy to drown in them. We can’t change the past.”
Was she speaking generally or about them in particular? He knew which he wanted it to be. “Fair enough. I’d like the chance to prove I’ve gained a little wisdom with years.” But it wasn’t wisdom driving him now. Right now, he wasn’t the cool-headed businessman. He was just a boy, sitting beside the girl he’d loved beyond reason.
Keeping his eyes on hers, Trey reached out to take one of the hands resting in her lap. Her fingers were slim and delicate, cold in his, with the barest of tremors. The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered, and her eyes, those lovely hazel eyes that had haunted his dreams, went wide.
“Sandy, I—”