Luke looked down at the letter.

“At first, I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Then what changed?”

“You kept asking why I wanted you.”

I winced.

He continued.

“By then, I was afraid that if I told you I’d noticed what happened with that woman first, you’d think I was dating you out of pity.”

I almost laughed.

Because that was exactly what I’d assumed.

Then his expression changed.

“My mother made everything worse.”

I looked at the letter again.

“What did she do?”

“She came to see me the night before our wedding.”

Luke told me Diane had asked him one final time whether he was sure.

Then she said something that stayed with him.

She had asked whether he really wanted to spend his marriage constantly convincing me that I was good enough for him.

I stared at him.

“What did you say?”

Luke looked directly at me.

“I told her she’d gotten it backward.”

My eyes filled.

He pointed toward the letter.

“I wrote this because I realized there was still something about us you didn’t know.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to me?”

“I planned to.”

He had carried the letter with him on our wedding day.

But he’d seen me overwhelmed.

Nervous.

Still grieving the fact that my sister wasn’t there.

He had imagined handing me several pages beginning with a confession that our first meeting hadn’t been accidental.

And he lost his nerve.

He told himself he’d explain after the wedding.

Then life happened.

The wedding.

The honeymoon.

Coming home.

Bills.

Work.

Years.

And somehow, the letter disappeared into a box.

But there was another part of that letter I hadn’t read yet.

And this time, it wasn’t about the bakery.

It was about my sister.