He’s still the only one. The one guy I let slip through my defenses. The one guy who shared my pain.
The man I walked away from, before he could have a chance to break my heart.
“I didn’t mean to surprise you,” Hunter’s brow furrows. “I figured after that show, you’d be up here celebrating. Not…”
He trails off, but I can fill in the blanks.
Not moping here, defeated. Not stuck, exactly the same as when he saw me last. Not hiding from the whispers and scorn like some scared little kid.
I lurch up. “I can’t…” I stutter. “It’s not…”
Hunter stares at me, confusion masking his chiseled, tanned face. He probably expected some witty banter, my usual tough barbs, but right now all my defenses are down and I feel like my chest is ripped wide open, heart beating bloody and raw for the whole world to see.
Why tonight? Why him, here, now of all nights?
“Brit?” Hunter moves towards me but I flinch away.
“No!” I stumble back. I can’t do this. Hell, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to face him again, but right now, every instinct in my body is screaming out to run.
“You shouldn’t be here.” I gasp. I turn, bolting for the door, but my foot catches on the gravel and I stumble, scraping my shin painfully against the jagged metal edge of the chair.
In an instant, Hunter crosses the distance between us to hold me up.
“Easy there,” he murmurs, holding onto my arm. A shock of sensation floods through my body at his touch, and despite everything, my heart leaps just to feel him next to me. He holds me to him, tight against the solid warmth of his body, and for a moment I’m caught there, lost in his eyes, in all the memories of the past.
But the past is done. It was over almost as soon as it began.
“Goodbye,” I manage, breaking free from his embrace. I hurry down the stairs, crashing through the bar hallway and out into the back parking lot. Garrett’s truck is parked right by the exit, and I know the keys will be up under the mirror. I scramble in, gunning it into drive and taking off, not stopping a moment, not until I’m a mile away, speeding down the dark streets, and Hunter is just a memory in the rearview mirror.
If only he could just stay that way.
I slam the steering wheel, my cheeks burning with humiliation. What’s he even doing back here? Hunter Covington, Ivy League prince, heir to a society fortune. He should be off playing tennis at the country club, or partying in Monte Carlo, or whatever it is that young, gorgeous men do when they have the world at their feet and a multi-million dollar trust fund burning a hole in their designer pockets.
He could be anywhere, doing anything, and instead, he’s back here in Beachwood?
I shake my head in determination. Just because he’s back doesn’t mean a thing. He’s probably just passing through, the way his family did every summer when I was growing up. The Covingtons had an old horse ranch out on the edge of town, and a fancy new mansion on the waterfront too. They would come for July with Hunter and his brother, Jace; bring their rich friends down too, dock their yachts and stroll around town, cooing over how ‘quaint’ and ‘rustic’ we all were.
That’s not fair, a voice warns me. Hunter wasn’t like that.
No, he wasn’t. I sigh, remembering him back then. I was fourteen, fifteen, too young to really care at first, but even I noticed that every year, he got more gorgeous: growing taller, his muscles filling out. The slim, athletic boy who first bounded around town like an eager puppy turned into a strapping young man, in front of all of our eyes. God, the girls in town would go crazy over him: flirting and giggling if he so much as looked in their direction. And with his older brother along, too…
They were the golden boys, alright.
Handsome. Charming. Wealthy.
Untouchable.
At least, until that night…
Don’t even think about it. I tell myself, pulling the truck into the drive of the beach house. Whatever the reason he’s back in town, he’s still the boy who’ll inherit the whole world, and I’m still the girl with nothing.
Some things never change.