“Rumor? What rumors?”
Sydney shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve just heard stuff around the office. Sharlene Sheppard is now, what? The COO of Sheppard Capital? She’s supposed to be an amazing businesswoman.”
“So?”
“And she’s supposed to hate the Cains. And now you’re supposed to face her down and try to get information from her? This is like braving the lion in her den. It would be normal to be nervous.”
“She’s really not like that.”
“Are you sure? Because I’ve never seen you nervous before.” Her shoulders shifted as she gave a little shrug. The movement did nice things for the little sweater stretched tight across her chest, but even that couldn’t distract him enough to take his mind off her words. “True, we haven’t been together that long, but I’ve never seen anything phase you. When you found out Dalton was resigning and leaving you in charge of a billion-dollar company, you didn’t even blink. You faced down the board and convinced them to name you interim CEO and you didn’t even break a sweat. Frankly, they were eating from the palm of your hand so contentedly, I think you could have asked them to toss out the interim and just be CEO and they would have done it.”
“Your point?”
“My point is, neither of those situations made you nervous.” She softened her words with a smile. “But you obviously are now. So I don’t really know what to do with that.”
“You don’t have to do anything with it,” he muttered, even though he knew it wasn’t the answer she wanted.
He was silent for a long time. Long enough for Sydney to give another one of those shrugs and to finally turn and look out the window. Like she’d accepted that he just wasn’t going to answer. The truth was, even he didn’t think he was going to answer. But then she sighed. The noise was almost inaudible over the sound of the car’s engine and the ambient hum of traffic, but he still heard it.
Her sigh was as soft as a whisper but filled with regret.
Before now, their relationship had been perfect. Great sex untouched by complications, free from the angst and anguish that emotional involvement brought to the table. He’d thought Sydney was perfectly happy with that arrangement. Why would she—why would any woman—want to listen to him whine about his past?
But then there was that sigh. That regret-filled murmur that sounded like a trumpet’s blare. He hated knowing that she regretted being with him. Hated knowing that she was sitting here in the car, wishing she was with the kind of guy who opened up and talked about his feelings. Never mind whether or not there actually were any guys like that in the world. Never mind that he had never, in any of his previous relationships, been the kind of guy who talked about his feelings.
He didn’t like to think that she regretted being with him. So, as he pulled off the highway toward downtown, he admitted, “Sharlene isn’t a formidable opponent.”
“She isn’t?”
“No. Sharlene is—or at least was when I knew her—a genuinely nice person. She’s a good woman. And she never deserved to be involved with anyone like my father.”
Sydney was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, all she said was, “I see.”
He hadn’t meant to say anything more than that, but something about Sydney’s quiet acceptance made his words come out of him in a rush.
“She was his secretary and his mistress for nearly ten years when I was a kid. Sometimes, during the summer or on school holidays, he’d bring Dalton and I up to his office. She was the one who would keep us entertained. She gave us crayons and printer paper for drawing. She even had a little stash of Brach’s candies in a jar on her desk just for us.”
“Let me guess,” Sydney interrupted. “Peppermints.”
He shot her a sideways glance. “The peppermints were for Dalton. How’d you guess?”
“He keeps Brach’s peppermints in his desk drawer. I used to think of it as his one human weakness. You know, before he quit his job and ran off to be with the woman he adored.” Sydney considered him for a minute. “So what kind did you like?”
“The white nougat ones with little jellies inside.”
“I liked those, too, when I was a kid.” She nodded seriously. “So if you have all these great childhood memories of Sharlene—and for the record, she does sound pretty awesome—then why are you so freaked out about going to see her?”
“I’m not freaked out.”
“You’re a little freaked out.”
“I’m not—”
“Do you need me to run through the list again of the things that didn’t make you this nervous?”