“But you’re already talking about sacrificing for her,” Dre pointed out. “Would you go to Chicago if she wasn’t in the picture?”
“But she is.” Rene didn’t like where this conversation was going. He might have preferred an angry Dre to this sympathetic logic.
“Would you go?”
“Yes.” He hated it but it was the truth. “I should spend some time in all of the satellite offices. I’m going to be the CEO one day. I should study the business for the next several years.”
But that would mean leaving her behind. Or . . . he could spend the summer with her, could test it all out, and then if they were happy, he could ask her to marry him. She could see the world with him. Why did she need . . .
“You just figured something out.” Dre pointed his way. “I know that look on your face.”
“I wondered why she needed a degree if I can take care of her.” He hated that he’d even had the thought. She was smart and ambitious, and he could probably convince her to give it all up for him.
“And that is why I’m going to ask you to wait. She is not ready for what you want,” Dre said solemnly. “I know it’s a risk. She could find someone while you’re away. She could get involved in her career and never come back to Papillon. She’s eighteen. You’re in a different place in your life. If this was a casual hookup, I would say go for it. Get it out of both of your systems and move on, but that’s not what’s happening between the two of you. You and Sylvie are serious. If she’s in a relationship with you, you’ll be married within a year and she’ll start having kids. There’s nothing wrong with that if it’s what you both truly want. But she’s always dreamed of working in DC. I have no idea why, but she wants it. So the question is, do you care enough about her to take the risk of letting her follow that dream?”
The thought twisted his gut, but he was self-aware enough to see the truth in his friend’s words. He might start out with all the goodwill in the world, but what happened a year from now when he was lonely in a new city and his girlfriend was right there and wanted to be with him, too? It would be easy to convince himself that she could finish up college later, transfer to a school close to him, and then when he moved again, another. Or it would be easy to slip up one night and start the family he wanted someday.
She could find someone else. She was beautiful and kind and funny. Any number of men would step up for the right to be with her.
“If the two of you are meant to be together, you’ll find your way back,” Dre said softly. “Let it happen when you’re both ready.”
His mother had married his father at the age of thirty-five. She’d seen the world, had adventures, gone to school, and worked as a professor before she’d settled down and had him. It had been an odd situation back then, but his mother hadn’t given in to societal pressures. Shouldn’t Sylvie have the same opportunities?
Was he ready for a real relationship? Or clinging to what he knew? He cared for Sylvie, but he wasn’t sure he was capable of real love.
“I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I’ll tell her it was a mistake for me to make a move on her before I go away.” He hadn’t meant to kiss her, but then it had felt right.
Dre stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s for the best, and I also think that somewhere down the line, who knows what can happen? Now come on. I’ll buy you dinner this time. But that means we’re eating fast food because I’m not a moneybags like you.”
Rene sighed but managed to smile at his best friend. “Absolutely not. We’re getting a proper meal. I’m leaving soon and I’m going to miss this place.”
Miss the place. Miss the food.
God, he was going to miss the girl.
chapter one
PAPILLON, LOUISIANA
Ten years later
Sylvie Martine sat in the small conference room and reflected on her life choices. It was barely noon, but it had already been a long day.
“He had no right to do what he did,” Leonard Denmore said, anger in his tone. “That was my friend he evicted. And with no cause.”
Justin Hardy’s eyes narrowed. “I had plenty of cause. Let’s talk about your friend trashing my property. Have you even read the lease you signed?”
“I signed that for your daddy, who would never, ever have forcibly evicted a good friend,” Leonard retorted.
They continued on, but the world had sort of faded into the background because she had bigger problems, and they all had to do with the upcoming wedding of her best friend’s brother. Seraphina Jefferys was one of her two best friends in the world. Her younger brother, Zep, was getting married in less than two months, and Sylvie didn’t have a dress or a date. How many weddings had she been to since she graduated from college? Seven. She’d been to seven weddings. She’d been a bridesmaid four times. She hadn’t even come close to putting on a wedding dress, hadn’t gotten a hint of an engagement ring. And Zep Guidry . . . Papillon’s player, never-kiss-the-same-girl-twice . . . was getting married.