“If there is anything I can do to help...” Josie’s eyes were dark with concern.
“It’ll be fine.” Or it would, Sylvie thought, once Andrew O’Shea went back to Boston. Back to his world, back where he belonged.
* * *
After a restless night, Sylvie rose early and immediately pulled out her phone. She stared down at it. She didn’t want to call Andrew. She’d moved on. Why dredge up the past? If she opened that door, she feared all the feelings she’d worked so hard to submerge these past months would rush to the surface.
Still, she couldn’t dis him. She couldn’t be that cold. Not to someone she loved—er, had once loved.
Even if fairness and compassion weren’t issues, there was the matter of the ring. It didn’t belong to her. When Andrew had proposed, she accepted the diamond as a symbol of the pledge they’d made.
Today, they would make their peace. She would return the diamond and close the door on that piece of her past.
The truth was, she’d felt like a coward running off in the middle of the night. Fleeing under cover of darkness was too reminiscent of what her father had done when she was four, and what her mother had done nine years later. Except with them there had been no note or texts.
They’d simply disappeared from her life and she’d never heard from either of them again. When she’d left Boston, she told herself what she was doing was different, that it was for Andrew’s own good. She still believed her leaving was best for him.
But thinking it over now made her wonder if that was what her father, and her mother, had believed.
After placing the call, Sylvie spent the remainder of the morning deciding what to wear. Five clothing changes later, she pushed open the door of the Coffee Pot Café. Her fingers clenched and unclenched as she glanced around the crowded restaurant. She spotted Andrew at a small table by the window.
The moment he saw her, he pushed back his chair and stood.
Always the gentleman, she thought with a bitterness that made no sense.
After lifting a hand in acknowledgment, she zigzagged between the tables to him. Though Sylvie had met many people in the months she’d been in Jackson Hole, she was grateful none of them were in the main dining room. The last thing she felt like doing was making small talk.
As she drew close Sylvie realized that, as always, Andrew looked perfectly put together. While he might have left his suit and tie back in the hotel room, he still managed to look elegant in dark pants and a gray button-down cotton shirt, open at the collar.
Suddenly conscious of the casualness of her simple peasant skirt and ribboned lace top, Sylvie lifted her chin and reminded herself this was Jackson Hole, not Boston. They were having lunch at the Coffee Pot, not one of his private clubs.
He pulled out her chair as she drew close. “You look lovely.”
Sylvie took a seat and glanced around. A baby wearing a pink crocheted hat several tables over met her gaze and began to cry.
Andrew didn’t appear to notice the wails. His entire focus remained on her.
“I may have miscalculated.”
He resumed his seat, his brow furrowed slightly. “How so?”
“I didn’t realize the place would be so busy.” Or that the seating was so tight. The table next to them was scarcely two feet away. Though Sylvie didn’t recognize the couple sitting there, that didn’t mean they didn’t know her. “Hardly conducive...”
She let her voice trail off, not surprised when he nodded. With Andrew she’d never had to complete thoughts. From the moment he walked into the Back Bay Bakery, where she’d been working after graduating from a New York City culinary school, they’d been on the same wavelength.
They kept the conversation centered on the weather until the waitress had taken their order. Sylvie ordered a salad, though she wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat. Not with the way her stomach pitched.
Once the waitress left, Andrew’s gaze returned to her and she felt the impact of those gray eyes all the way to her toes. “That was an impressive article on you related to Jackson Hole’s Wine Auction.”
Sylvie traced her finger around the water glass, absently wiping away the condensation. “Is that how you located me?”
“I knew where you were within a week of you leaving Boston.”
Startled, she dropped her hand and looked up. “You knew where I was, yet you didn’t come after me?”
Andrew lifted his own glass of water and took a long drink. “You made it very clear in your text—”
The jaw muscle jumped again as Andrew paused. He appeared to carefully consider his next words.
“You said you didn’t want to see me again.” He spoke slowly and distinctly in a low tone, the words for her ears only. “You made it clear what we had was over.”
“I’m sorry about the text.” The fact that she’d texted him her goodbye seemed to be a particular bone of contention. She had to admit if he’d done that to her, she’d have been furious. More than that, she’d have been crushed. “I really am sorry. I thought if you wanted more of an explanation, you’d follow me. But you didn’t.”
Sylvie wasn’t sure what had gotten into her. She’d been happy, relieved, he hadn’t come after her.
“Audrey collapsed the morning after the party. I was at the hospital when I received your text.” Andrew paused as the waitress dropped off their drinks.
Two tables down, the baby began to wail in earnest.
* * *
Andrew glanced down at the coffee he didn’t want and felt the rage he’d kept contained for the past three months threaten his tightly held control. That day had been the worst of his life. It was as if the world around him had imploded.
He couldn’t believe the woman he loved, the woman he’d planned to marry, had, for no discernible reason, decided she didn’t love him anymore and walked out. Still reeling from that shock, he’d learned a close friend from childhood was terminally ill with cancer. He hadn’t even known Audrey was sick.
The baby’s piercing cry broke through his thoughts. He rubbed the bridge of his nose where a headache was trying to form. Coming here had been a bad idea. A busy café on a Sunday morning was no place for a serious discussion.
He shouldn’t have come to Jackson. Hadn’t Sylvie made it clear by her words and actions that she didn’t want him? Andrew O’Shea didn’t run after any woman, even one he loved. Had loved, he corrected.
He would leave. Thank her politely for her time and walk out the door. Why did the reason she’d left him even matter? The fact was, she’d walked out on him. That couldn’t be undone.
Andrew took a deep breath. “Tha—”
Her hand closed over his. They weren’t soft, do-no-work hands, but ones with strong fingers and clean, blunt-cut nails. A hand with just a hint of calluses on the palm. A hand that smelled faintly of citrus.
“I’m sorry about Audrey.” Sylvie’s voice grew thick with emotion. “She was a wonderful woman.”
The words took him by surprise. “You knew Audrey had cancer? That she passed away?”
Sorrow filled those violet eyes. “Just recently I read the piece on her in the Globe. It was quite a tribute.”
Audrey had been a talented musician, Juilliard-trained, and came from a prominent Boston family. The piece, tastefully