See You Again Page 3

  She lifted her hands, let them fall. “I hardly know. But seeing him again is stirring up all kinds of feelings I thought were long dead and buried. I put him out of my mind years ago. I had to, to survive things with Waylan.” And she hadn’t let herself think of Trey after the divorce, hadn’t let herself even consider the what ifs or regrets.

  “And after Waylan?” Adele prodded.

  “I had Cam to raise.”

  “He’s raised now. Thanks to you and the rest of the clan, he grew into a fine man. So, you don’t have him as an excuse anymore.”

  “An excuse?” Sandy frowned.

  “For avoiding men. Don’t even deny it.”

  “Why would I? You’ve been with me on that train for a very long time.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe we’ve done that long enough.”

  Sandy stared at her. “You can’t seriously be saying I should go after Trey Peyton.”

  “Are you actually letting him help with the kids’ wedding?”

  “At this point, I’m open to anybody’s help to make sure this wedding still happens.”

  “Then I imagine you’re going to be working closely together to pull it off. If you’ve got unresolved feelings, he may too.”

  Did he? Sandy wanted to believe there’d been something more than the echo of memory between them, that she wasn’t just someone he shared an awkward history with. But he’d been so cool and businesslike. Maybe she was foolish to think that anything he’d felt for her could’ve survived the past thirty years.

  Adele nudged the glass, and Sandy automatically took a sip, wincing at the burn of it down her throat. She never had liked scotch.

  “I’m just saying, it’s worth exploring, getting some closure, if nothing else.”

  Closure. Whether Trey felt anything or not, she certainly felt something—not the least of which was a bone-deep guilt at how she’d treated him back then. Maybe Adele was right. Maybe she needed to clear the air with him. He had a right to know why she hadn’t come. So, she’d tell him the truth and relieve herself of that burden, once and for all. And that would be the end of things between them. Again.

  Chapter 3

  “Mayor Crawford is here to see you, sir.”

  Trey absorbed the quick jolt of nerves and pleasure, grateful Louis couldn’t see him through the intercom. Slow down, idiot. She hasn’t come for you. This is about the wedding. But she had come instead of just calling or doing something else to re-establish distance between them. He rolled his shoulders and smoothed down his tie. “Send her in.”

  His door opened. Sandy strode in, offering a quick, careless smile to Louis—the kind of smile she’d once aimed at him.

  Trey tamped down the flicker of jealousy and rose to greet her. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.”

  “You want some coffee?” The last thing he needed was more caffeine jittering through his system, but he needed something to do with his hands.

  “Sure.”

  Louis started toward the sideboard, where a coffee service was always set up, but Trey waved him away. “I’ll get it.”

  His executive assistant threw a startled glance in his direction. Trey did not serve people. “Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?”

  “Not at the moment. Thanks, Louis.”

  Then they were alone, Sandy standing in the middle of his penthouse office. Trey wondered what she saw. He poured the coffee, reaching automatically to add one cream, two sugars to hers before realizing he should’ve asked if that was still how she drank it. He turned to do exactly that and found her staring.

  “You have a very good memory.”

  “We drank a lot of coffee back in college.” Endless conversations over warm mugs, in cracked vinyl booths. “Please, have a seat.”

  She chose an end of the leather sofa. Better than a chair by his desk. Not as good as the middle of the couch.

  Reminding himself that this wasn’t a date, and he was a grown-ass man who wasn’t going to pursue her, he crossed over and handed her the coffee before taking the chair adjacent to her.

  “I wanted to bring by the list of everything that’s been bought, reserved, or otherwise planned.”

  “You got all that together since last night?”

  She pulled a thick binder out of her briefcase and handed it over. “Please. It’s Norah. She has a subdivided, color-coded copy of everything for everyone involved.”

  He laughed. “She does love her organization. My daughter does, too. It’s part of why I’m so fond of Norah. She reminds me of Tess.”

  “I didn’t realize you had children.”

  “Just the one. Tess is twenty-six and a total ball-buster, which I hated when she was a teenager, but I admit I kind of love now that she’s grown.” He waited for the follow-up question about his wife, but it didn’t come. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she really was here just about the wedding. He’d given her no indication that this was anything more. And damn it, it wasn’t.

  Calling himself an idiot, he flipped open the binder.

  Sandy pointed to the first page. “She’s got her dress and has already had her final fitting. The bridesmaid dresses are in. The flowers are ordered, and she’s deferring to her mother on the cake, as apparently Margaret didn’t get to eat any of her own wedding cake, other than the bite for the pictures.”

  Trey glanced up. “I suppose Joseph was too consumed with working the reception.” Norah’s father had always been more concerned with appearances than taking care of the people around him.

  “Something like that.” She angled her head to study him. “You never did like Joseph.”

  “No.” He had no respect for a man who didn’t take action when it was called for. Thirty years ago, Joseph Burke had done nothing to control the rowdy freshman pledge under his control, and Sandy had paid the price.

  Water under the bridge.

  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—”

  The intercom buzzed and Louis’s disembodied voice shattered the moment. “Mr. Peyton, I’ve got Tokyo on the line for you.”

  Silently cursing his assistant, his company, and all his responsibilities, Trey struggled to keep his voice level and professional. “Give me just a minute.”

  Sandy tugged her hand gently free of his and picked up her briefcase. “You’re busy. I need to get back to work myself.”

  “I’ll finish going over the details later today.” At the very least, he was going to secure another wedding planning meeting with her.

  She hesitated. “Why don’t we discuss it over dinner. At my house.” Her lips curved a little. “Less chance of interruption.”

  The boy wanted to whoop. The businessman insisted he should say no. That he should do whatever was necessary to get this back on more professional footing.

  Trey was tired of being the businessman. “What time?”

  “Seven?”

  “I’ll bring some wine.”

  “Seven,” she repeated, and slipped out his door.

  He found himself grinning as he answered the phone. “Moshi moshi?”

  ~*~

  Sandy angsted over what to do for dinner. What to make. What tone to set. What she actually wanted. God, it had been so long since she’d let herself even think about what she wanted. She’d invited Trey on impulse, her nerves still jumping from the look in his eyes as he’d taken her hand. Definitely not business on his mind. That look had given her hope. Though of what she wasn’t sure.

  He’d been so closed off during dinner. Sandy knew she’d hurt him. Deeply. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t really blame him for avoiding her. But, then, why had he come back at all? Why had he chosen to do business here, knowing she was mayor? Norah was persuasive, certainly, but even she wasn’t that good. Maybe he just wanted resolution.

  Well, she could give him that. Adele was right. He needed to know what really happened all those years ago.

  In the end, she opted for casual. His professional accomplishments aside, he was still Trey. Once upon a time, they’d been comfortable together, and it surprised her how much she wanted to be comfortable with him again. She’d missed their friendship all these years, missed the long conversations and the way he could make her laugh. And she couldn’t deny a deep curiosity about how their lives might have turned out if there hadn’t been the barrier of her foolish marriage to her high school sweetheart. Because they’d both felt more than friendship. She didn’t know what she felt now. Still attracted, that was for damn sure, and that was…intriguing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been attracted to a man, the last time she’d wanted to make the effort.

  She changed clothes three times, while the pork chops were simmering and the carrots were roasting. When she started fussing with her hair, she cursed herself as an idiot and deliberately headed back to the kitchen to start the rice. Unable to sit still, and needing to do something other than stare into a mirror and wonder how she could erase the last thirty years from her face, she set the table, pulling out placemats and cloth napkins, and filling a pitcher with late blooming flowers from her garden.

  When the doorbell rang, her heart leapt. Pressing a hand against her chest, she muttered, “It’s just dinner.” But it felt like more as she opened the door and found Trey on the other side, a bottle of wine and a bouquet of irises in his hands. A messenger bag was slung over one shoulder.

  “Hi.” Oh hell. Why didn’t she sound more confident? She wasn’t a shy woman.

  Trey’s gaze skimmed down her, lingering at her feet. His lips quirked. “I dig the purple toes.”

  She looked down and realized she was barefoot. Crap. She’d meant to put some kind of shoes back on. Being barefoot felt somehow more intimate. Well, you wanted casual. “Please, come in.”

  “Something smells amazing.”

  “Pork chops with mushroom gravy.”

  He held the bottle of wine up. “Sauvignon blanc should be perfect. These are for you.”

  She accepted the flowers, not bothering to resist the urge to bury her face in their sweet scent. When was the last time a man other than her son had brought her flowers? Decades. And these had not been picked up at the last second from McSweeny’s Market. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”

  He trailed her back to the kitchen. “Ah, already have flowers, I see.”

  “From my garden.” It seemed somehow important to make it clear that there was no one else in the picture.

  “So, Cam comes by his green thumb honestly.”

  Relieved he understood, she retrieved some scissors and began cutting stems, tucking each iris into the pitcher. “He does. He designed an absolute showpiece in the back and put it in for me a few years ago.” When she’d been so sick from chemotherapy, she could barely leave the house. “So, I can usually have fresh flowers about ten months out of the year.”

  “He did an amazing job with the rooftop gardens at the hotel. I’ll have to come back in daylight sometime to see the full effect here.”

  In daylight. Sometime in the future. Implying he’d be around, for a while at least.

  “You will,” she agreed.

  As she worked, Trey set down the bag and prowled over to the stove, lifting lids and sniffing in appreciation. It looked
domestic and comfortable. Sandy waited for the disquiet to come from having someone else in her space besides family but felt none.

  “Wine glasses?”

  “Upper cabinet to the left of the dishwasher.”

  She watched him as he pulled them out and utilized the corkscrew she’d left out on the counter. He looked…right there, in her kitchen. And that was utter crazy talk. But for just a moment, she let herself dream. This could have been their life had things been different. Sharing a meal and conversation at the end of the workday. That had never been her reality with Waylan, and no one had tempted her to break her solitude in the years since the divorce. Until now.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” The words spilled out before she could stop them.

  Trey’s hands stilled on the bottle. “About?”

  Damn it. She’d meant to wait until later, after their dinner and some catch-up conversation. But the truth was burning in her throat, desperate to get out. “That night, thirty years ago.”

  Something flickered over his face. “Sandy, you don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do. Just listen.” She flattened her palms on the table to keep them from trembling. “It wasn’t what you think.”

  His lips flattened. “I saw you that night. It was pretty damned clear.”

  His announcement derailed her train of thought. “You—What? Where?”

  “When you didn’t show up, I got worried and came to Wishful. To your house. I saw you with Waylan through the window. It was obvious you’d made your choice.”

  So that was how he’d known. She’d always wondered. Crossing her arms, she cupped her elbows. “You’re right. I did choose someone else. I chose my son.”

  A crease appeared between his brows. “What?”

  “I was ready to break things off with Waylan. My bags were packed. I was just waiting on him to get home. I’d been sick as three dogs for days, but I just assumed it was nerves because what we were doing was so huge.” Because she’d accepted that her marriage was a failure, and she’d fallen in love with someone else.

  “You were pregnant?” By the shock in his tone, it wasn’t a possibility that had ever crossed his mind.