Free The Reunion by Jennifer Haymore Page B

breakfast,” he agreed, setting the tray on her lap. “Come on. Eat. Or I’m going to have to feed you.”
    She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Maybe you should. The old Nathan used to like feeding me. Maybe it’ll prove to me you’re you.” She hesitated, then amended, “The old you.”
    “Eat,” he said firmly. He took her fork. “And while you’re eating, I’ll tell you a story.”
    “A story ?” She closed her eyes in a long blink, then pinched her arm, hard. “Yeah. Feeding me aside, I’m definitely in an alternate universe.”
    He scooped up some egg on the fork and brought it to her lips.
    “All right, all right.” She grabbed the fork from him and ate the bite of egg. “Yum.” She frowned at him. “You learned to cook?”
    “A little.”
    “Weird.”
    “Okay, shut up so I can tell you this story.”
    “Fine.”
    “But you have to keep eating.”
    “Fine!”
    “Good.” He watched her take a bite of bacon, and then he began. “Once upon a time, in a land not very far from here, there was a spoiled rich kid who knew exactly what he wanted. He’d known riches his whole life, but he wanted more. He dreamed of piles and piles of gold and treasure.”
    “Sounds like just about all my friends,” she muttered.
    “Shh.”
    “Okay, okay. Go on.”
    “He wanted a fortune beyond his wildest dreams, and he was willing to do just about anything to get it. All his friends in his school had even more money than he did, and he was a competitive kid. He was determined to show them that when he grew up, his pile of riches would be greater than theirs.”
    “Mmm-hmm,” she said over a mouthful of food. “Tough ambition when one of those friends owns a frigging island .”
    He ignored her and continued. “So he went to the most prestigious, most exclusive college he could find, where he met tons of other rich kids whose wealth he felt compelled to surpass. But then he met a girl.”
    “Ah. The girl is always the foil, isn’t she?”
    “Shh.” He frowned at her, then continued. “She was different from all the other girls. She’d come to this prestigious, exclusive college through hard work and determination, not because her parents paid her way in. She was a poor girl, yet she stood head and shoulders above all the rich girls.”
    “Couldn’t be me,” she announced. “I’m short.”
    “It’s a metaphor,” he said.
    She shrugged and took another bite. Impossible woman.
    “He was immediately attracted to this girl,” he continued. “She was funny and so damn smart she knocked the socks right off of his feet. She aced all her classes and tutored others. She was fun. She charmed everyone.”
    Zoey put down her fork and was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t decipher.
    “Most of all,” he continued, “she was the most selfless and giving person he’d ever met. Instead of wanting to take everything she could from the world, all she wanted to do was give back, to make it a better place. She was a true hero in the midst of all this materialism that had made up the boy’s world to that point.”
    “Was she now?” Zoey said softly.
    “He fell in love with her.” His voice had turned sandpaper rough. “He’d never met anyone so perfect, who impressed him so much, who made him so happy he could hardly stand it.”
    “Nathan,” she whispered, but he held up a hand to stop her.
    “But even though he loved the girl, he still had his lifelong passion for growing his personal wealth. He wanted it all. The girl and the riches. But the Fates decided he couldn’t have it all. He had to choose.”
    She stared at him, food forgotten.
    “He was so greedy and selfish, this boy, that he tried to make the girl follow him. He tried to tempt her into his world of craving riches and wealth. What he didn’t comprehend was that the girl had her own dreams that were separate from his own.
    “So he went away to pursue his dreams, and she went to pursue hers. Years went by, and the boy