“I’ll never hurt your heart. You’re my forever, Brooklyn.” He smiled up at me.
I was pretty sure he looked as happy as me. “Get up,” I said with a laugh. I wanted his arms around me.
Instead of standing, he pulled out what he’d been hiding behind his back. And I was relieved it wasn’t a jewelry box. “And since you’re now part of my family, I thought maybe you could adopt some of my family’s traditions.” He handed me one of the foil packets he was holding as he stood up. “I know you like to eat healthy. Sometimes you need a little comfort food though. And whatever you don’t eat you can feed to the birds.”
I pulled back one of the layers of foil and laughed. “I don’t think ducks like hotdogs.”
“But they do like bread.” He tore a piece of bread off his hotdog bun and tossed it in the water. Sure enough, one of the ducks swam over and grabbed the bread in his beak.
I smiled as I watched the water ripple where the bread had been. The duck slowly swam away to find more food.
“You need to eat something,” Matt said. “Please.”
I looked up at him. And for the first time I could see how worried he was about me. I could feel him staring at the dark circles under my eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had lost some weight. The last few days had been terrible. I smiled to help reassure him, and then took a bite of the hotdog. “Oh my God, this is so freaking good.”
He laughed. “I thought you might like it.”
“Where did you even get this?” I looked over my shoulder at the empty path.
“The best hotdog vendor is just right over there.” He pointed down a path in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t see any farther because of the trees. “There’s so many things about this city that I can’t wait to show you. Stick with me and this will feel like home in no time.”
I tried to hide my smile as I took another bite. I had no problem sticking with him. The issue was that it was hard to stick to someone who wasn’t allowed to be seen with you in public. “So you told your mom about me, huh?”
He nodded.
“How did that go?”
He smiled. “Good. She saw you at the funeral. She said you were pretty.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I was expecting a bigger reaction than that. I couldn’t be someone that his parents approved of. But then something hit me. He’d told her after the news broke. He told her after everyone believed I was related to the Pruitts. I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.
“But we mostly talked about how we can get you out of staying with the Pruitts,” he continued.
“Wait. Aren’t your parents friends with them?”
“No, not really. They used to be in business together, but then they had a falling out.”
Interesting. “Is your mom the only person that knows about us?” I was happy he finally told someone. But it made me a little sick to my stomach that he only fessed up after he realized I was related to a monster. A rich monster, but still. And I was happy that Matt wanted to ditch class with me this morning. But I wasn’t an idiot. He’d given Kennedy the note to give to me so we wouldn’t be seen together. And we were in the middle of central park because no one at school was allowed to know I was seeing him. All of it was twisted. And it resulted in my stomach twisting into knots. I was his girlfriend right here right now, but I wouldn’t be at school later today. He’d keep his love for me hidden.
“I told Rob too. Technically he borrowed James’ car yesterday so we could find you. And that combined with the fact that he overheard our conversation on the phone…I didn’t have much of a choice.”
He didn’t sound mad. But he also seemed to purposefully avoid the word love again. I was worried I knew why. It felt like my heart was beating too fast. I didn’t want him to take it back just because I was a Pruitt. I didn’t want anything to change. But everything already had. I’d given him a condition for being my boyfriend – to not break my heart. Maybe he had a condition too – we’d be in a relationship only if I could get away from the Pruitts. “Did you tell Rob why you’re keeping our relationship a secret?”
He lowered his eyebrows as he looked down at me. “You know I can’t.”
Honestly, I didn’t. That was the whole problem. I knew there was some secret that Isabella was holding over his head. I knew it would hurt James if it came out. But that was all I knew. “Didn’t Rob ask why?”