Page 110 of Worth the Risk

“Hey,” I murmur but don’t look her way. Every single one of the people sitting at this table can read how I feel about her clear as day, but that doesn’t mean I want her to as well.

“Hi,” Sidney says as she takes a seat and accepts the beer my dad offers her.

A beer.

Sidney drinks beer?

“I tried to get out of this,” she murmurs under her breath. “The last thing I wanted to do was make you uncomfortable.”

Now I feel like more of a dick.

“It’s fine.”

“Do you think my boy here really has a shot at winning?” my father asks.

“Jesus, Dad,” I mutter as Grady and Grant begin the catcalls.

“You’re the ones who signed him up,” Sidney says with a shake of her head. “You don’t get to talk shi—crap now.” She blanches as the kids giggle down on the lawn.

“No worries,” Grant says. “Sadly, they’ve probably heard it more times than they should have.”

Small talk ensues. The weather. The kids. The influx of tourists to Sunnyville for the harvesting season.

My attention is on Sidney, even though I still refuse to look at her.

How she interacts with my family. How she slips right into the conversation as if she’s always belonged. How Luke comes and sits on her lap and she wraps her hands around his waist and rests her chin on his shoulder. How, every so often, she’ll say something that makes him giggle.

All the while, I sit and brood and watch and listen, trying to figure out how this all fits into my life.

If it could.

If I want it to.

It always comes back to how I’ve already been left once, and I refuse to put Luke or myself in the position to be left again.

And then the focus turns back to Sidney.

“So why journalism?” Emerson asks as she leans forward, hands propped under her chin, eyes kind and genuinely interested.

“Probably for the same reason you all do what you do. It’s a passion. I love helping to tell stories or be part of the narrative.”

“But a parenting magazine?”

She looks down to the label of her bottle and then back up with a smile. “Fashion is where I’d like to end up in the future. Being an editor of a fashion magazine is my dream job.” She shrugs. “What can I say? The opportunity came up to help save the magazine, and I took it.”

“That’s wonderful, dear. And when the contest is over? Do you have other plans for the magazine? Will you be moving on to an editor position?” My mom fishes as my brothers glance at each other.

Sidney looks at me and then my mom and draws in a shaky breath.

She doesn’t need this shit. The Malone inquisition.

And neither do I.

Without caring what my family thinks, I shove my chair back abruptly and stand. “Can I speak with you inside for a moment?”

Sidney’s flustered by my request, that much I can tell, but she makes a quick apology to everyone at the table and follows me into the house. I head for the living room—the farthest room from where everyone sits on the patio—and wait for the squeak of her shoes on the hardwood floors to come to a stop.

He knows.