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“It’s not surprising. I look a lot different.”

His eyebrow quirked curiously. “Did you know it was me right away?”

I chewed my lip. “Yes. Well, it was your brother who I recognised first. As soon as I realised he was the groom, I knew you’d be around somewhere. It was quite the shock when I saw you,” I gave a soft laugh. “I’d been away on my annual leave, so I wasn’t involved in the wedding planning. I had no clue who was getting married until I walked into that room.”

“Did you get a fright?”

“Sort of. I was a bit skittish about you remembering me and demanding to know why I’d vanished from your life so out of the blue.” I shook my head at myself. “It’s ridiculous now that I think of it. As if you’d care about some girl you went to school with.”

His expression turned serious. “I do care, and I hate that I forgot you. It was a big deal when you disappeared.”

His words soothed something in me before I asked, “What did you think back then? Were you angry when I left?”

“Of course not. I was worried. I had no idea why you’d gone. Then I eventually put it all together when your sister’s boyfriend turned up at the hotel looking for your address.”

My eyes widened, and a whirl of panic seized my belly. “He did?” Even though it had happened twenty years ago, I felt a momentary flash of fear at the idea of Graham searching for us back then. What Tristan said brought it all back for a brief second, the feeling of fear, the desperation to get away.

“I remember him harassing one of the receptionists for your sister’s forwarding address. He had to be escorted out of the building by security.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“That was when I realised you two had fled to get away from him.”

A lump formed in my throat as I remembered how vital and urgent everything had felt back then. How it had seemed like if Sloane and I didn’t leave right away, Graham would somehow wheedle his way back into her affections, and we’d never be rid of him.

“My sister discovered he’d been lying about having a job and that he was basically spending all day at the pub, even stealing money out of her purse. She also found out that he never gave up dealing drugs after we left town the first time. He ended up getting himself into more debt with a criminal gang. That was why he’d turned up looking for Sloane to take him back, not because he’d turned over a new leaf, but because he had to skip town and needed a place to lay low.”

“That sounds about right,” Tristan said, shaking his head as he listened, his jaw flickering like he found the whole story aggravating, even now, long after it was all over.

“We had very little contact with Uncle Fred back then, and Sloane had never mentioned him to Graham, so he had no way of finding us here. It’s why this was the perfect place for us to go.” I reached out to softly touch his hand, and his gaze lowered to our fingers. “I started going by my childhood nickname, Rinnie, and Sloane adopted her middle name, Anne, as a precaution. We even went so far as to change our names by deed poll just in case, but thankfully, Graham never found us. My sister later discovered that he’d served time for assault. When I heard that, I was just so glad we’d managed to get away when we did. It was only a matter of time before he dragged Sloane down with him or hurt one of us.”

“I’m glad you did too,” Tristan said softly, his brown eyes lingering on my face.

“Well, I’m just sorry for never getting back in touch, even just to say I was safe. I know you were hardly sitting around fretting over me, but—”

“I was. I thought about you a lot,” he said, and I blinked, my heart giving a swift thud at his confession.

“Oh, Tristan. I feel terrible.”

He turned his palm facing up, linking our fingers and my pulse pounded against my ribs. “Don’t. I eventually convinced myself the reason you never got in touch was because you were in a better place and living a happy life, which I now know that you were.” He went quiet for a long moment, taking me in before he said, “You know I was halfway infatuated with you back then.”

My hearted thudded to a halt. Um, what? My mouth grew dry, my brain floundering for something to say. “You … you were?”

He chuckled low, then fell back, resting his head on the grass as he stared back up at the sky, still holding my hand. “I was a horny eighteen-year-old, and you were the beautiful, mysterious girl who’d just arrived in town; of course, I was.”

He thought I was mysterious? Okay, perhaps, but beautiful? The idea was shocking because I’d gone out of my way to be the opposite of beautiful back then. Graham had displayed an unsettling interest in me whenever my sister wasn’t around, so I’d changed my appearance. I cut my hair, wore baggy clothes, got a facial piercing, anything to turn him off. But it hadn’t fooled Tristan. He saw past all that, and even though he was talking about a past version of himself, a youthful lad with an open heart who probably fell for every second girl he fancied, it still made butterflies swirl around in my belly to think he’d once felt that way for me. And of course, the inevitable question that followed was, How did he feel about me now? I wasn’t nearly brave enough to ask.

“That’s very kind of you to say. You weren’t so bad yourself. I mean, back in the day.”

He turned his head, his eyes gentle as they rested on me. “And what am I now, past it?”

Far from it. Tristan was handsome as a teenager, but he was even better looking today, a gorgeous grown man who made me forget what I was thinking half the time he was so attractive.

I took him in, the sunlight catching in his hair, the fine lines around his mouth and eyes that told me he laughed and smiled often, his broad shoulders and muscular physique that said he could still walk out onto a rugby pitch tomorrow and fit right in. The lively spark in his eyes that belied his life experience and wisdom, two things that hadn’t been there when he’d been young and that made him so much more captivating now. But it wasn’t merely his appearance that drew me; it was his innate kindness, the way he gave his whole self to everything he did, how much he cared about the hotel and whether it was a success. All those things combined to make him a man that never failed to illicit a visceral, heart-pounding reaction in me.

And yet, with all these thoughts in my head, I vocalised none of them. Instead, I grinned, my tone teasing when I answered, “It’s sad when people let themselves go.”

He chuckled and used his grip on my hand to pull me closer, so close I could smell his aftershave, feel the heat of his skin. I let out a small gasp as he practically devoured me with his gaze. “It’s too bad you’re more beautiful now than I even remembered. I can’t believe I forgot about those eyes.”