Hooking Him (How to Catch an Alpha #3)(23)

“I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me,” I tell her, looking into her eyes. “I just want you to know that we both have pasts. The things we went through led us to who we became and where we are. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy dealing with the fallout from whatever story Max makes up, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. You did what you felt you had to do,” I say, watching her eyes fill with tears. “No tears. For now let’s forget about the article until it’s time to deal with it and just enjoy our cold pizza and this view.”

“Okay,” she agrees, and I lift her hand and kiss her fingers. I let her go and give her plate back before settling in my chair with mine. “I know we’re supposed to be done talking about it, but do you know what’s annoying?” she asks as I lift my pizza to take a bite.

“No.”

“It’s annoying that I haven’t spoken to my parents in weeks, since they haven’t been taking my calls, but I have no doubt that if they catch wind of this, they’ll call me faster than a duck can swim upstream.” She lifts her wineglass and downs a gulp. “That’s annoying.”

“I think you mean downstream.”

“What?” She frowns at me as she sets her glass down.

“Faster than a duck can swim downstream.”

“Does it really matter what direction the duck is swimming?”

My lips twitch. “No, I guess not.”

“Exactly.” She waves her hand around before taking a bite of pizza.

“Why haven’t you talked to your parents?” I ask before lifting my beer to my lips.

“You haven’t heard?” she questions sarcastically. “I ran away from Chicago and ended my engagement to the perfect guy.”

An emotion I’m not comfortable with settles in the pit of my stomach. I shouldn’t be jealous, not when she’s not mine and obviously still trying to come to terms with what happened. Still, there’s no denying that the feeling in my stomach is jealousy. “The perfect guy?”

At my question, she looks at me, and her eyes widen like she’s just realized what she said, and she shakes her head. “He was the perfect guy for them, not me.”

“How’s that?” I ask, not understanding.

“Because I didn’t love him. Because he didn’t make me happy.”

“Why was he the perfect guy for them?” I prompt, and she looks away for a moment.

When her eyes come back to me and she speaks again, her voice is soft and filled with regret. “I don’t think we should be talking about this.”

“Why not?” I should let her off the hook, but I want to know what led her to being engaged to a man she admits she didn’t love.

“Because I kind of like you, and I don’t want you to think less of me.”

“I won’t think less of you,” I tell her sincerely.

“You can’t say that, Calvin. You don’t know the lengths I was willing to go to earn my parents’ love and make them happy.”

“You were going to marry him to make your parents happy? Why would marrying him make them happy?”

“Because he had money.”

“And why did you get into a relationship with him?” I ask, and she looks away. “Anna.”

“The truth is I thought the first time I met him that he was different. He didn’t talk about money all the time. He didn’t seem to care about who my family was. He was nice and easygoing, and I thought I could love him.”

“Why would that make me think less of you?”

Her eyes come back to me, and I can see she’s uncomfortable. “I stayed with him even when I knew I didn’t love him. I stayed because he had money, and that was what was really important.”

“Why did you need to marry someone wealthy? Max said your dad is a billionaire.”

“He’s not.” She snorts. “Between his spending and my mom’s, his part of the inheritance, which was split among him and his siblings, has dwindled down to a little over five million. And considering their lifestyle, that’s a drop in the bucket. No one knows about my parents’ money issues. Everyone just assumes they’re loaded, because that’s the image they project.”

“If they have five million dollars, I wouldn’t say they have money issues, babe.”

“That’s because you’re normal. You probably wouldn’t even consider spending hundreds of dollars on a single dinner out, thousands of dollars on a weekend vacation, or more money than most make in a year on a new car or handbag.”

Hearing that and knowing that’s a life I will never live—and don’t even desire to live—I ask, “Are you normal?”

“I don’t know who I am,” she answers quietly, moving her eyes to the ocean. “I like going out to dinner, but what’s the point of having a nice meal if you don’t enjoy the company you’re keeping? I like vacationing, but I don’t need a five-star resort. And I like nice things, but they don’t make me happy.” She picks her glass back up and takes a sip of wine, then settles back in her chair. “All I want is to be happy—really happy.”

“That’s what everyone wants, Anna, so I think that makes you normal.”