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It really wasn’t, but I couldn’t let her hang up the phone thinking we weren’t okay
when we wouldn’t see each other until the next night. That was too cruel.

“I’m sorry, Ryan,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, and I love you.”

“Me too,” I responded softly, trying to calm her down. I’d never seen her so hysterical before, and it was sort of throwing me for a loop. “Now tell me about the issues you’re having. Is there anything I can do?”

“No,
it’s fine,” she said, sniffling once more. “Everything is being sorted out, but it’s just a lot. There are so many details that go into weddings that I never knew about. And the wedding planner has been amazing, but I don’t know. It’s just a lot.”

I knew
all about weddings and what went into them, Courtney planned them for other people the whole time we were dating, and I’d heard the horror stories. But she’d always made it look so easy. It was what she was best at, but I wasn’t about to bring her up to Trish. They’d met twice, and of course Trish knew the dirty details of what had happened between us, so I tried not to speak positively of Courtney or at all. She was better left in the past.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that things are being ironed out,” I told her, just as I heard a car pulling up in front of the house and headlights scan over the front windows. “Hey, I think the plumber is here. Can I call you later?”

“Call me tomorrow. I think I’m going to have a massage in my room and go to bed early. I love you, Ryan.”

“Me too.
Talk to you tomorrow.”

I hung up the phone at the same time there was a knocking on the front door. I stood up to answer it expecting to see a man with a tool box, but instead, I saw Harper, and by the look on her face, I knew she hadn’t been expecting to see me either.

“Ryan?” she questioned.

“Hi. What are you doing here?”

She shook her head in confusion. “Brandon called. He said there was a plumbing issue, and he needed me to meet the plumber. When I drove up, I figured he was already here, but you’re not a plumber, are you?”

I shook my head and smiled at the thought of messing around with toilets. That so wasn’t me. “No, I’m not.”

Then she giggled. “Good, because I was starting to wonder how a plumber could afford a Porsche.”

I stepped aside so
she could enter the house. “So Brandon called both of us?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. He left me a message asking me to come out here, and I tried to call him back, but I only got his voice mail, so I figured I’d come anyway.”

“He must have called me right after he left you the message, figuring he needed to get ahold of someone.” A knock on the door had us both turning our heads toward the sound. “That must be the plumber,” I said.

When I opened th
e door, there was a man in his sixties carrying a tool box. “Hi, I’m Anthony. I’m here to fix the issue in the downstairs bathroom.”

“Come in,
Anthony,” I said, stepping aside and accidently bumping into Harper as I did. I turned to look at her. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine. No worries.”

I watched her for a few seconds as she appraised her surroundings. She was wearing a green army jacket, so I couldn’t see the butterflies on her arms, and I sort of wished she wasn’t so covered up. The bottom half of her hair was still pink, and I wondered if she planned on wearing it that way to my wedding. I hoped so. It was sort of sexy.

Shit.
What the hell was wrong with me? I was checking her out and talking about seeing her looking sexy at my wedding. I was sick.

“So, are we just going to stand around or is one of
yous guys going to show me where the bathroom is?” Anthony asked in a distinct Philly accent.

“I’ll show you,” I said, stepping forward so I could put some distance between Harper and me.

When I came back into the living room a few minutes later, I noticed that she’d settled onto the couch and had taken off her jacket to reveal a plain white t-shirt, the colorful butterflies on her arms once again on display.

I sat at the opposite end
of the couch and looked over at her. “You don’t have to stay. I’m happy to hang out and wait for Anthony to get finished.”

I was partially willing her to leave, because very inappropriate thoughts were swirling in my head, and I sort of needed them to stop.

She shrugged. “I’m good. I figured maybe you can use some company. Unless you want me to go, that is.”

I really don’t want you to go, but you probably should.

“No stay,” I said quickly. “Some company would be nice.”

“What are you working on?” she asked, leaning toward me
. I caught the scent of her strawberry shampoo and inhaled deeply even though I knew I shouldn’t.

“Just this report for a client.
It’s really boring,” I said, closing my laptop. “What’s new with you?”

She gave me a strange look. “You mean since you saw me last night?”

I nodded. “Yeah, what did you do today?”

She let out a long breath of air. “
I worked on editing some photos for this show I have at a gallery at the end of August, then I went into work and did three piercings and two tattoos, but one took me about three hours, so I’m sort of exhausted.”

“Really, what was it
of?”

“It was this really intricate tribal design that I did for this guy
a few weeks ago, and he was coming back for the color. It spanned a good portion of his arm, so it took a while.”

“H
ow did you get into that anyway? Tattooing, I mean.”

She shrugged. “When I moved out here, I was broke, and I needed a job. My dad gave me a place to live, but I wanted to contribute, and I needed to have money for when . . .”

She trailed off, and I wasn’t sure why.

“For when what?”

“It doesn’t matter. But, hey, thank you for helping me find my dad all those years ago. When my mom kicked me out, I had nowhere else to go, and he took me in without asking one question.”

“Why didn’t you go to Yale, Harper?”

It was a question that had plagued me for years.

She sucked in a breath. “I couldn’t.”

“Why? Was it the money?”

She shook her hea
d, and I noticed her eyes had filled up with tears. “No, it wasn’t the money. I could have taken out loans.” Then she took a deep breath and seemed to steel herself. “The truth was, I didn’t want to run into you.”

“Oh,” I said, knowing that was as valid a reason as any.

“Ryan, I’m going to say something, because I might never get to say it again, and I need to get this off my chest.”

“Okay,” I said, not sure what she was going to tell me, but I wanted her to feel okay opening up to me about whatever it was she needed share.

“You hurt me so bad that summer, and I don’t think you realize that, and I get that it was so long ago, but I don’t think I’ve ever really let go of what you did to me,” she said, and then the tears started flowing.

And I was thoroughly confused. “What
I
did? What about what
you
did?” I asked, trying to keep the accusation out of my tone, but I was sort of pissed. What had
I
done exactly?

She looked up at me in shock, her eyes watery and her cheeks wet. “What do you mean what
you
did. You broke up with me in an email and told me to have an abortion after telling me that we were going to move out together and raise our baby. You just changed your mind and didn’t even have the decency to tell me face-to-face. I had to find out about in a fucking email! And then you wouldn’t return my calls.”

I reeled back at what she’d just shared, because it couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
“No, no I didn’t,” I said, quickly. “I didn’t do any of those things. You’re the one who told me over email that you’d decided to have an abortion.”

She looked at me in horror. “No I didn’t,” she insisted.

“Well, I have the email,” I countered. “I know what you said.”

I’d read that email a thousand times over the years. I practically had it memorized.

“I didn’t have a goddamn abortion, Ryan. I had the baby,” she said, and my world suddenly tilted on its axis. “And you know that because you signed your rights away.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, getting to my feet and raking my hands through my hair. She was a crazy person. She was spouting out untruths, and I wasn’t going to stand for it. “You told me in the email that you had an abortion while I was away on that
sailing trip. How could you have had the baby?”

“Ryan, what are you talking about? I never sent you an email saying I had an abortion.
I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t do it.”

I looked up at her.
“So, what? You just told me that to hurt me when you really had the baby? Where is it now? Why don’t I know about this?”

She was lookin
g at me like I was crazy. “You do know about it. I have a letter from your lawyer that you signed stating you gave up your parental rights.”

“What? What letter?”

The she stood up and faced me. “Oh my God, Ryan! This is so aggravating. Why are you playing dumb? Why?”

“I’m not playing dumb, I swear. I have no idea what you’re talki
ng about. Here’s what I know. During the two weeks I was away on that sailing trip, I got an email from you, and you told me that you had an abortion, and I never heard from you again! That’s it.”

“I called you like ten times,” she growled. “And you didn’t call me back.”

“I was pissed,” I shouted. “I thought you had a fucking abortion without telling me first. It wasn’t something I could forgive and forget very easily.”

She threw her hands up in exasperation.
“Well, that’s not what really happened. What happened was that I got an email from you telling me that you couldn’t be a father and that you wanted me to get an abortion and that we were done. And then you wouldn’t return my phone calls, so I moved out here, decided to have the baby and raise him myself. Then when I was six months pregnant, I got the letter from your lawyer.”

I froze.
“Him?”

“Yes, him
,” Harper said, and she started to cry again, covering her face with her hands.

“Well where is
he now?” I asked, knowing we had to get back to the part about the letter and the email, but this was much more pressing. I had a son that I’d never known about.

Harper looked up at me after a few seconds
, her eyes damp and so full of emotion. “He died seven years ago,” she said softly.

And I think I literally stopped breathing.

Chapter
Eighteen

Harper

Instantly Ryan’s arms were around me as the
tears continued to fall. He gripped me tight, and it was exactly what I’d needed seven years earlier when I’d stood with my dad and watched my son’s small casket being lowered into the ground. And I’d never, ever forget the feeling of helplessness as I stood there wondering why a sweet little boy had been taken from the world too soon and robbed of the love that I had for him. But more than anything that day I’d cried for Ryan and the choice he made and the fact that he’d never know his son.

Tyler was the most amazing little boy. He was sweet and caring and always smiling. I knew Ryan would have loved him if he’d taken the chance to know him, but he’d never wanted that. And because of that decision, he
’d missed out. And just like it had that day, my heart broke for him all over again.

“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice said then, pulling me out of my memories and back into the present where
Anthony the plumber was watching me cry against Ryan’s chest.

I quickly pulled away and turned to face him, wiping my eyes, but it didn’t do any good. It was obvious I’d been crying.

“Is everything all set?” I asked hoarsely.

“Yes, ma’am, and Mr. Cooper gave me his credit card, so everything’s paid up.”

“Thank you, Anthony,” I told him as I walked past Ryan to open the front door. “We appreciate you coming out on such short notice.”

“Anytime, ma’am.”
Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Not in the way you’re thinking.

I shook my head. “No, he didn’t. He was comforting me.”

Anthony
nodded. “You’re a beautiful girl. Make sure he treats you right.”

“I will,” I said, not having the heart to tell him that Ryan and I weren’t together.

When I returned to the living room, Ryan was sitting in the middle of the couch staring at the wall with a shocked look on his face. He looked up at me in surprise, almost as if he hadn’t expected to see me there.