Page 7 of Secrets of the Past (Secrets of Mustang Island #3)

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, head in his hands. “I saw her today and... it wrecked me. She’s still so damn beautiful. Still brilliant. Still... her.”

How could he face her every day? It was going to be difficult.

“You’re not over her.”

He’d lied to himself all these years, telling himself that he was over her. That it was just a young man’s foolish mistake, and then he’d seen her. All five-foot-four, one-hundred-ten-pounds, dripping wet.

But he wasn’t ready to admit to anyone that with one look, all those feelings came rushing back.

There was a long silence between them, heavy with old memories and unspoken regret.

Finally, Paige said, “So what do you want from me?”

“I need to know everything you remember. Everyone who could’ve had a hand in it. Every odd conversation. Every look. Every overheard comment.”

“I’ll think. I’ll go through my old journals.”

“You kept journals?”

“Of course. I was seventeen. I wrote down every tragic romance event. And I’ll be honest with you, Tripp... I don’t think you’re going to like what you find.”

It was a risk he was willing to take. Maybe he’d learn that Nicole did indeed end the relationship, but he didn’t think so.

“I already don’t. I couldn’t help but think what if?

What if we’d stayed together? What if we had a family by now?

What if we had gone to law school together, taken the bar together?

It was our dream. And now here we are, both of us lawyers, neither one of us married, and I find it very hard to trust women. ”

Maybe they were both still trapped in the past, still struggling to climb out from under the weight of what had happened.

“What do you want to do, Trippy?”

It was a name she’d called him all through school, and he hated it. And she knew he did.

“I want to learn the truth. I have to know if she was the one who ended our relationship or if someone else spoke for her. But who could that be?”

“Oh, her mother, your mother, her father, your father, or even one of her friends. We were all telling her that if it was meant to be, you guys would last without being married. Without going to school together.”

It was true. Their families did not approve, and even some of her girlfriends thought they needed to wait. But they wanted to be together.

“Does Nicole know that you’re digging up the past?”

“Kind of,” he said. “She’d saved the old email I supposedly sent and responded to it. I received it tonight. I did not write that email. She told me someone is lying. I agreed with her and asked her out to dinner. She turned me down.”

When she turned him down, it hit like a brutal gut punch, stealing his breath.

They were supposed to keep their distance, opposing counsel locked in a trial, nothing more.

But the truth was, once this case ended, Nicole might need more than courtroom walls to hold him back. She might need a restraining order.

“I would think since you’re on opposing teams, it would be unethical for the two of you to fraternize at all. It’s a murder trial, and the man’s life is on the line.”

He’d thought about that, but as long as they didn’t talk about the trial, they should be all right. And yet it didn’t look good at all. But he wanted to learn the truth.

“We’ll have to be careful, but so far, she’s turned me down. When I present her with evidence, I’m hoping she’ll agree. So now, I have to find evidence that someone sent emails in our names. This was not what we wanted, and the only people who I feel certain wanted to break us up were our parents.”

Paige sighed. “Yeah, her mother wanted her to concentrate on school. And your mother just hated her family because they were white trash and not rich like your family.”

It was true. As much as he hated it, his mother was one dramatic society diva.

Another pause.

“I’m coming back to Mustang Island,” Paige said suddenly. “I need to see you two. Witness the explosion that will soon be coming.”

He hadn’t seen this coming. Still, he remembered how close Nicole and Paige had once been, inseparable, really. Maybe seeing each other again would be good for them, a chance to bridge the years that had slipped by.

“What?”

“I need to be there for this. For her. For you. For whatever the hell this is.”

“You’d do that?”

“I owe it to both of you. And I want to see the truth come out.”

He closed his eyes again, his throat tightening.

“I never stopped loving her,” he admitted. “And I think... I think she didn’t stop loving me either.”

“Then fight for her,” Paige said. “But be careful. You’re in court together. Don’t give anyone a reason to call a mistrial.”

The words slid over him with an ease that unsettled him, as if they belonged to them, tailored perfectly to fit the chaos of what he and Nicole were.

He nodded, though she couldn’t see it.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised. “But I’m not backing down.”

“Then I’ll see you soon, Tripp Masterson.”

He hung up slowly. For the first time in twenty years, the fog was starting to lift.

He didn’t have all the answers yet.

But he had a direction. And a reason.

Nicole hadn’t walked away. Neither had he.

They’d been shoved.

And now, after all this time, he was finally going to find out by whom. Time to learn who had ended their happily ever after before it had a chance to begin.