Page 56 of The Billionaire's Second Chance

“Did you ever love him?” Charlie asked.

I didn’t follow.

“James,” he clarified. “I know my grandfather would have loved that, his heir marryingthe Scott girl.” His mouth twisted. “And your father, too. Sebastian.” James was Sebastian’s friend, after all, before he was mine.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” I said. “It wouldn’t have been like that. You know how he is.Was, I should say.” He wasfaithfulto Edie. To me… “I wouldn’t have had the same claim on him as Edie does. It would have been different. I wouldn’t want that. Idon’t.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Sam,” Charlie said, and my stomach clenched. He knew. He had to. Didn’t he?

The Martin brothers were so similar. Everyone said as much.

But for me…

“No,” I said.

Charlie’s hand was warm and heavy where it rested on the back of mine, his heartbeat so close to the surface that I could feel it through my skin when I lifted my own hand, twisting my wrist so that our fingers laced together.

It was racing.

“It was never James I loved.”

CHAPTER27

Charlie

When the securityguard came at last, it was on stiff legs that I stumbled up from my spot on the floor of the library. I wasn’t a high school student anymore. Outside, a black car idled at the curb. I grimaced. He’d waited a long time.

Not as long as I had.

But tonight, I could wait a little longer.

“Let’s get you home,” I said, taking a step toward the car. “I’ll come with you, drop you off.”

She hesitated. “It’s late.”

“Yes. So it seems,” I chuckled. The sky was dark and velvet gray, clouds and city smog obscuring the stars. I tugged the door handle, swinging it open for her. “Come on.”

“Let’s…” she started, then stopped. “How far is it to yours? Let’s walk.”

“Samantha,” I said. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Then she smiled.

The tension in my shoulders eased, and with it, a knot in my stomach, the same knot that had twisted and twisted every time I’d seen her for a decade and a half.

“Okay,” I said. “Yes.” I closed the door, knocking on the roof. I’d apologize later.

We set off towards my building, the only sounds the traffic and our footfalls. Samantha shifted her bag on her shoulder. There was a lightness in my chest. Did she feel it, too? For the first time, I felt confident that she did.

“Let me carry that,” I said. I looked over to see her smiling faintly down at the ground.

“I can carry it,” she said.

“I know.” I peeked past the lip of the tote–embossed with her monogram in blocky capital letters–at the neat edges of at least a million pages of printed manuscripts. “Youcan. But you don’t have to. All this talk of high school makes me want to carry your books.”