Page 13 of A Return For Ren

Deep down, she’d been thrilled to see them thriving despite everything this town whispered about them.

“You know we dated. I don’t know if Zane told you more or not.”

“Not really. It hasn’t come up. What more is there to know?” Lily asked. “Other than I can tell you’re really bothered.”

“He broke my heart,” she said, starting to sniffle. “We’d dated a few years. He always said he didn’t want to stay here. He didn’t have a great relationship with his father. I knew that. We dated our first year of college. That summer before the second year, he ended it out of the blue. Sharp and quick enough to bleed for a long time internally.”

“You never found out why?” Lily asked.

“No. He said he couldn’t do it anymore. He wasn’t coming back. That we needed to stop wasting each other’s time and move on.”

“Ouch,” Lily said. “That’s mean.”

“It was. It wasn’t like him. So I did what he said. He did the same since he’s got a kid.”

“And that bothers you more?” Lily asked.

She threw back half the glass of wine. “I don’t know. I saw us together having kids. Then he shows up alone with his son.”

“That’s right,” Lily said. “Alone. No woman by the sounds of it. Not even one in Max’s life if he told you no one else would be picking him, right?”

“True,” she said.

“Then take a step and talk to him,” Lily said. “Find out what happened.”

“What happened to what?” Zane asked, walking in the back door. “And you’re drinking wine before dinner. What am I missing?”

Zara finished off the rest of her wine. “Ren is back in town.”

Zane lifted one eyebrow. “And how do you know this?”

“He came in with his son. We’re watching Max for a few months while he is here.”

“Asshole,” Zane said. “How dare he come back here after what he did to you and put his new family in your face.”

“I’m not sure he did it the way you think,” she said. “And it’s just him and Max. His son is six months old. You know what that is like, Zane.”

Her brother opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Yeah. I do. I also know how heartbroken you were when he left. I might not have been here when it happened and it’s a damn good thing I wasn’t.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have cried to Zane or written him letters about the breakup when he was gone, but she felt like she had no one other than her brother and mother.

Her father was pissed off at how cruel the breakup had been. It seemed to come out of nowhere.

Her mother was coddling her and that wasn’t helping much either.

Her friends had all gone back to college so when she returned to campus she’d been depressed.

Many didn’t want to listen to it anymore and she couldn’t blame them.

Her roommates helped her move on, but it was a solid year before she’d date anyone else.

“I don’t need you to stand up for me, Zane,” she said. “But I do appreciate it.”

“Zane likes to do that,” Lily said. “You heard how he was when Reese came back for Poppy.”

Reese McGill, of the McGill billionaires, had a home in Mystic. Or his family did. Reese didn’t work for the family business and rather went out on his own to be a professional poker player.

No one knew he and Poppy Bloom had a one-week fling, but Reese had never forgotten Poppy and decided to return for her.