About one and a half years ago…
“I come bearing beer and pizza.” Candy hitched up her offerings to display them and Pretty Boy grinned, swinging his front door wide to let her in.
“How can I resist?” He took the pizza boxes from her, leaving her to carry the beer, and led the way through to the kitchen.
His place wasn’t large or ostentatious. He could have lived in a palace off the residual income from his father’s music library, but the place he’d chosen was a spare mid-century modern bungalow with a killer view of the city. The furnishings were an eclectic mix of styles that somehow suited him and gave the place a vibe that was both inviting and zen.
Just like Pretty Boy. She knew she had his easy-going personality to thank for the fact that they’d been able to become actual friends after their fast and furious affair the year before.
Flipping open the boxes, he slid the pepperoni and sausage-laden combo toward her and spun the Veggie Explosion she knew was his favorite to face himself. “You drove all the way to Bertucci’s just for the pizza?” He handed her a paper towel, forgoing plates as had become their habit.
She could have told him she was in the area and downplayed it, but instead she told the truth. “Figured you deserved your favorite on your birthday.”
His slice paused in mid-air for a second. “You remembered.”
“The least I could do after I changed it for you.” The rest of the Elite Protection staff would celebrate with him on Ren Xiao’s birthday, but she’d wanted someone to remember the real day. Especially since Ren had so little family left. She popped the top on a beer, handing it to him, and opened one for herself before clinking the necks together. “To Lorenzo Tate Jr. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” He took a long drink, his throat working.
“Does anyone else know?” Candy asked to distract herself from the sight.
He shrugged. “My uncle. He’ll call next time he sobers up enough to realize he missed it.” He grimaced, thumbing the label on the beer. “I’m now as old as my mother was when she died.”
Candy quickly did the math. “I hadn’t realized she was that young when you were born.”
“Twenty-two. Fresh out of art school. Following the tour of a rock star nearly twice her age.”
She arched a brow at his characterization. “I thought theirs was a love story for the ages. He fell in love with her the first time he saw her from the stage. Isn’t that the story?”
“It’s a nice story,” Ren grinned. “And he did fall in love with her—but my mom started out as a groupie.”
Candy’s brows climbed higher. “They told you this when you were a kid?”
He shook his head. “My uncle told me when I was sixteen.”
Asshole. “Was he trying to be a dick?”
Ren snorted. “Possibly. But it didn’t work. I didn’t care that she was a groupie. My dad did fall in love with her. She was his everything. Even if it took them until they had me to get there. You could hear it in the way his music changed.”
He had a point. The change hadn’t been subtle—a hard rocker suddenly producing love song after love song, pushing to do acoustic sets, eventually leaving his band behind. Candy had never thought about how his father’s music would give Ren a link to his parents. She eyed the guitar in the corner of the living room—the one she’d never seen him touch. “Do you play?”
* * * * *
Present day…
Candy felt the foundations of her world sliding sideways and was too disoriented to tell whether she liked it or not. Ren and Jessica were over. Done.
“When…? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It was just after I agreed to come here and… I don’t know. I didn’t want you to feel pressured…”
Because he was no longer off the market. Because there wasn’t anyone else in the picture and their relationship didn’t have to be entirely in the rearview if she didn’t want it to be.
Oh my God. Candy scrambled off the bed away from him. “Is it because of me? Because I asked you to come? You said she handled it as well as could be expected. Oh God, she freaked out, didn’t she? I broke you up.”
“Keep your voice down.” He looked significantly at the wall that separated them from the room where Scott was changing for dinner. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.”
“I don’t believe that. Oh God, I screwed up your relationship. Of course I did—”
He sat on the edge of the bed, watching her pace. “It was already screwed up, Candy.”
“But you could have fixed it. She would have forgiven you—”
“I didn’t want her to.” He stood, blocking her path and forcing her to stop. “I didn’t want her badly enough to fight for her and I’m pretty sure she felt the same way about me.”
“How could she? You’re so freaking perfect.” All of her frustration poured into the words. It would have been so easy to cut him out of her life completely if he hadn’t been so damn wonderful all the time. He’d made it impossible for her to get over him, even when she could never be what he needed.
“I have flaws, you know. I steal the remote. I kick off the covers. I leave the toilet seat up.”
“I know,” she snapped. She knew him. But somehow none of Ren’s flaws ever seemed like flaws.
Shit. Was this what Charlotte had been talking about today? Was she in love with Ren?
No. She’d just been brainwashed by the happy love vibe at the wedding. People got sappy at weddings, right? Hell, Max had started going to weddings with his sister’s best friend and the next thing Candy knew they were engaged. The love pheromones were in the air at weddings and people lost their good sense. That was all this was.
“Candy.” He started to reach for her and she backed away. “I didn’t tell you this to freak you out. I just didn’t want a lie between us.”
Oh, the irony. She was made of lies.
“I don’t want to get married, Ren. Ever.” She knew she probably sounded like a crazy person with the non-sequitur, but the words kept pouring out and she couldn’t seem to stop them. “I don’t know if that’s what you were hoping for when you came here, that we’d get back together and I’d change my mind about forever.” His expression tightened and she knew she should shut up, but the words kept coming. “I know your parents and grandparents were great, but all I’ve seen of marriage is the messed up Machiavellian crap my parents’ marriage has devolved into. And the way Scott and Eleanor hate each other. And Charlotte’s incredibly bad taste in men. And Aiden’s awful grief when Chloe died. It isn’t good. It isn’t the fairy tale.”
“But it doesn’t have to be bad,” he insisted. “We wouldn’t be bad, Candy. Look at Max and Parvati. Look how crazy in love with his wife Adam is. You aren’t your parents. What makes you think you’d be exactly like them in this?”
She rubbed both hands down her face. “I don’t know.”
But she did. She knew she would screw it up. It was inevitable. And the idea of a lifetime commitment still scared the shit out her. So damn terrifying—but a tiny part of her, buried so deep she could almost ignore it, whispered that he could be right. It could be good. They could be good.
A gong sounded deep in the main house, jolting her out of the moment.
“We have to go to dinner.” She fled into the closet to change, frightened of meeting his gaze for one more minute.