Entangled (The Accidental Billionaires, #2)(6)

Hell, I should have gotten over those emotions years ago, after she’d left me for a rich guy.

The rest of my family had been momentarily distracted by Skye leaving so abruptly, but they’d gone back to their previous conversations.

I couldn’t forget her departure quite as easily.

“What did she say?” Seth pressed.

“She seems to think I should know why in the hell she left. How would I know? She took off with a rich guy and left my poverty-stricken ass behind. End of story.”

I’d been pretty torn up about her taking off with a wealthy man and forgetting all about the two of us so damn easily.

Maybe we had been young, but Skye and I had connected in a way that I’d never experienced before and had never found again. Not even close.

When she’d come back to Citrus Beach after her mother had died, years later, I was still pissed off that she’d dumped me so easily. Fuck knew I’d never forgotten her, but I’d been willing to bury the hatchet since so much time had gone by. She was my sister Jade’s friend.

But I’d been surprised to learn that she wanted nothing to do with me, like I’d done something wrong.

“Maybe she did leave a letter or something,” Seth suggested uneasily.

My brother’s voice was much more hesitant than usual, and since he sounded so guilty, I turned my head to look at him.

Seth and I were close. Really close. We’d grown up together with only a year between us. So I knew that look.

I stood and hauled him up with me so we could take it outside.

“You know something,” I accused as we hit the back porch. I finally let go of his shirt. “Somebody would have needed to let Skye into the house if she’d left a note. Did you let her in? Did she leave some kind of communication or not? Tell me. No bullshit.”

“What does it matter, Aiden? It’s over. It was done years ago when Skye left Citrus Beach and married another guy,” Seth replied as he leaned against the porch railing.

“It matters,” I growled.

Seth shrugged. “Okay, maybe I did take the letter she left. Jesus, Aiden. You were all torn up about her leaving. The last thing you needed was a written farewell. I thought you’d be able to get over her quicker if you didn’t have to read a bunch of crap from her. She left you for somebody else. What more was there to say?”

My vision was clouded with rage, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to seriously hurt one of my own brothers. “What did it say?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I never opened it. It wasn’t addressed to me. I tossed it in the fireplace and watched it burn. Looking back, maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. But we were all working our asses off to survive. When I saw your reaction to the fact that Skye had left for San Diego with somebody else, I didn’t want you to have any reminders of her around. So I took the letter before you saw it.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease the tension there. I wanted to punch my brother out for taking that letter, but I knew he’d been trying to protect me at the time. “Did she say anything?”

Seth shook his head. “No. She just said that she was leaving for San Diego with Marco. And that she wanted to give you a letter.”

Marco Marino.

A family friend of Skye’s late mother.

And a bastard I’d wanted to kill when I found out he’d stolen my girl.

Marco was old enough to be Skye’s father, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out that his money had been a big factor in Skye’s willingness to marry him. I hadn’t known him personally, but I’d been damn tempted to find him in San Diego.

I’d wanted Skye back.

But I’d given up because it was obvious she hadn’t wanted me.

And could I really blame her?

Back then, we’d hardly been able to survive. Noah, Seth, and I had barely made ends meet, and we’d had three younger siblings to worry about. But what I’d told Skye was true. If I’d known that her crazy, overly religious mother had threatened to turn her out, I would have found a way to keep her with me.

Seth was shifting around uncomfortably as he said, “What explanation is there for leaving a guy to marry another one with a lot of money?”

I glared at him. “I guess I’ll never know, since you decided to get rid of any reasons she had.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I was angry that she dumped you. And I didn’t see the point in you reading about how she’d left you for somebody who had the money to support her.”

I folded my arms in front of me. “You think that’s why she took off? Because I couldn’t take care of her?”

“What other reason could there be? Marino had nothing going for him except money. And even that ended up being dirty money that he made in organized crime.”

My brother was right. Marco had been put in jail with all the rest of his Italian mob family before Skye had divorced him and returned to Citrus Beach to run the Weston Café. He was serving a life sentence in prison. “Do you think she knew?” I asked Seth. “Do you think she knew that he was in the mob?”

“Doubtful,” he replied. “If she had, I think she’d be in jail, too.”

I scraped a hand through my hair in frustration. “Why in the fuck did she do it?”