PART 2
“So you asked me out because you felt sorry for me?”
“No.”
He answered instantly.
“Absolutely not.”
“Then why?”
“Because I noticed you. Not just the dimples when you smile, your beautiful brown eyes, or your long, natural eyelashes.”
He paused.
“Yes, Mia, I thought you were beautiful.”
“But I’d also seen what you did when you thought nobody was paying attention.”
My eyes began filling with tears.
Luke gave me a faint smile.
“Then I went back a few days later, saw you again, and thought I’d regret it if I didn’t talk to you.”
I lowered my eyes to the letter.
“So when you said, ‘Well… you’re beautiful’…”
“I meant it.”
“And when you asked for my number?”
“I wanted your number.”
There had been no joke.
No dare.
No hidden camera.
No catch.
But I still had one question.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Luke looked down at the floor.
“At first, I didn’t think it mattered. Then, I realized how insecure you were about us.”
I winced.
“You kept asking why I wanted you. By then, I was afraid that if I told you I’d noticed what happened with that woman first, you’d decide I was dating you out of pity.”
I almost laughed.
That was exactly what I’d assumed only minutes earlier.
“Then my mother made everything worse,” he continued.
I looked down at the letter again.
“Is that why you wrote this the night before our wedding?”
Luke nodded.
“She came to see me.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked one last time whether I was sure.”
My jaw tightened.
Luke continued.
“Then she said I’d spent our whole relationship convincing you that you were good enough for me and asked whether I wanted to spend my marriage doing the same thing.”
I stared at him.
“What did you say?”
“That she’d gotten it backward.”
His eyes locked with mine.
“I told her that being with you had made me wonder whether I was good enough for you.”
My eyes burned.
“Luke.”
“It’s true.”
He pointed at the pages in my hands.
“That’s why I wrote it. I realized there was still something about us you didn’t know, and I didn’t want to marry you with a secret between us.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me?”
His shoulders fell.
“I planned to.”
On the morning of our wedding, he’d briefly seen me before the ceremony.
I had been nervous, overwhelmed, and still struggling with the reality that my sister wouldn’t be there.
Luke had the letter with him.
But he pictured handing his grieving bride several pages beginning with the confession that our first meeting hadn’t actually been accidental.
“I lost my nerve,” he admitted. “I told myself I’d explain after the wedding.”
“And then?”
“Then we got married. We traveled. We came home. Life happened.”
He looked almost embarrassed.
“At some point, the letter got packed away with everything else.”
I shook my head.
“You idiot.”
“I know.”
“Your mother knew?”
“She knew I’d seen you before.”
“And all those times she acted like she couldn’t understand why you were with me?”
Luke’s jaw tightened.
“That’s one of the things I regret.”
“What?”
“Not stopping her sooner.”
He told me that after the dinner when Diane questioned whether he was “sure” about me, he had confronted her.
When we got engaged and her comments continued, he became even firmer.
“If she couldn’t respect you, she wasn’t going to have much access to our life.”
I thought back to how abruptly Diane’s remarks had started fading away.
Now I knew why.
“You should have told me.”
“You’re right.”
“You should have told me about the bakery too.”
“You’re right about that.”
I stared at him.
“You’re making this argument very difficult.”
He smiled.
“I’ve been married long enough to know when I’m wrong.”
