Elly still didn’t really understand. She couldn’t think when he was so close to her, the smell of his warm skin drifting her direction as the sun set just for them. She had to stay focused. “Keith, I’m glad to know this about you, but I’m still not entirely sure what this has to do with us.”
Keith slowly trailed his fingers up and down her fingertips. “I know, I’m getting there.” He took a deep breath. “Elly, the secret that I’ve kept from you, which grew into an obsession with keeping you from leaving me was that … I’m sort of, uh, well-off.”
“What?”
“I’m rich, Elly. I’m very, very wealthy.”
She almost burst out laughing. “Keith, you drive a Subaru.”
“That’s because I don’t want to park my Mercedes downtown.”
Her smile faded. “What?”
“Elly, my family has a legacy. I’m one of four heirs to Cary’s Meats. It’s worth about forty million dollars.”
Elly sat back, her brain whirling. “But … you drive a Subaru.”
Keith busted out laughing. “This is why I can’t live without you. Because I want my life to be real, to matter. You should see my cousins, and my sister for that matter. They lead ridiculous lives in these huge, terrible houses. They don’t talk to their spouses. Two of them have never even worked in a deli. Or really worked, period. They know how to write checks, how to hire ad agencies, how to puff up the stock prices. And that’s fine; we need them to do those things. But I didn’t want that life. I saw what it did to my father. I saw what getting into that life meant for me, with Paige. So I left New York and moved here. I wanted to run a deli. My grandfather’s blood runs in these veins. I love running the deli, making sandwiches, creating flavors. Elly, I want to carve. I’m not a businessman, and I don’t have any desire to be. I have broken away from my family, with the exception of my sister. I still hold my share in the company, and my bank account seems to always be growing, but all I ever wanted was just to make my own way in the world. I don’t want to lean on my family’s good fortune. I want it to be preserved and taken care of; I will not be the man who drains it. I have seen what money does to people. What it did to Paige. And what she did to me.”
Elly frowned. “But I’m not Paige. Also, I’m pretty sure that ‘I’m too rich’ isn’t a turn-off for most women. I would probably be the first woman in history who dumped a man for being too wealthy. And I wouldn’t have! Not because of your money, but because I like being with you. It was unfair of you to assume anything other than that.”
“I know. I just wanted to give us some time. Time to get to know each other without this money hanging over our head. It changes the way people treat you, you’ll see. I didn’t want anything to stand in the way of our relationship, and I thought that knowing about the Cary fortune might be a distraction.”
Elly shook her head, a curl brushing her chin, her blue eyes filling with tears. “Do you really think so little of me? That I would ever use you for your money?” She was angry now. “You see me working every single day to make Posies a success. You know I didn’t grow up in a house with very much money, how could you think that I was anything like Paige?”
Keith rubbed his head. “I didn’t. I don’t. At first, I just didn’t tell you because I wanted to let things play out naturally. But then it was one month … two months … and then it was too long. It became something I was keeping from you, and we were so far into things together that I didn’t know how to tell you that I’d been keeping this part of my life a complete secret. I became paralyzed with fear that you would leave me once you knew. It was stupid, I know that now.”
She frowned. “It’s not the secret I thought you were keeping.”
“I know. I should have put that together that you would leap straight to cheating, because that’s what you know. We both have our scars, Elly. Your husband cheated on you and my fiancée used me for my money. And cheated on me. Sort of. She was married to the man she lived with. Which I guess makes me, what, the mistress? Ugh.” He buried his head in his hands. “I’ve made such a mess of everything. We were going along so perfectly, and then I just kept digging myself deeper and deeper by hiding things.”
“And this was why you never let me visit your house?”
Keith crawled behind her. Elly leaned against him, so easily, like falling into a warm bed. He traced his fingers down her sleeve. “Do you remember the first time I took you here? To this garden?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember that we went through a yard? We entered a side gate beside a house, on a brick pathway?”