“How do you know her?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Alice looked between us.
Aaron sat very still.
Patrick rubbed his fingers together beneath the table, something he always did when nervous.
“We knew each other when we were young.”
“How well?”
He hesitated.
And that hesitation told me more than his answer would.
“Patrick.”
“We dated.”
“For how long?”
“A couple of years.”
My stomach tightened.
Two years wasn’t a forgotten summer romance.
“How serious?”
Patrick looked at me.
I knew before he said it.
“We were engaged.”
Alice whispered:
“Dad?”
I stared at my husband.
“You were engaged to Aaron’s mother?”
“Yes.”
Something shifted inside me.
Not because Patrick had loved someone before me.
Of course he’d had a life before we met.
But because he’d told me something very different.
