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who would ultimately stand her up. She reached over and touched his hand consolingly. “I’m sorry. There’s a good explanation for that.”
    “Damn it. Why wouldn’t she tell me she wanted to call the whole thing off instead of up and running away?”
    Andrea’s point exactly. Sean could have leveled with her before the day of the wedding if he had doubts.
    “I had a sinking feeling when she called this afternoon that she wasn’t going to go through with it.”
    Guilt twisted in her belly. Tell him, she told herself. “You misunderstand—”
    “I don’t blame her,” he said, shaking his head. “She wasn’t in love with me. She was only marrying me because her father was holding money over her head. I shouldn’t be burdening you with all that. I’m sorry. You have a way about you, did you know that? You’re easy to talk to. I’ll bet you hear a lot of strangers’ personal problems.”
    “Actually, I do,” Andrea said, thinking that a perfect segue into her confession.
    The waitress arrived just then with their meals. Andrea seethed in frustration and anxiety while she waited for the food to be put down and for the waitress to ask if they needed anything else.
    “Am I taking someone’s seat?” Blake asked, looking around.
    “Not at all.”
    “Well, I guess I’ll have to call my mom and tell her Sarah’s backed out. She’ll be crushed.” He rubbed his brow.
    “She knows about the marriage arrangement, doesn’t she?”
    Blake shook his head. “My mom fell into a deep depression after my dad died. When Harold—Sarah’s dad—came to her with a proposal involving a new technology he’d recently bought, it put a sparkle back in her eye and brought her out of her funk. See? There I go unloading on you again. I’m sorry.”
    “No, it’s all right. I’m a good listener.”
    “Well, this technology means a lot to her. It was something my dad dreamed of doing before he died, and so she’s driven to see his vision to fruition. This is the happiest I’ve seen her in four years. I’m afraid of what’ll happen to her if the business deal with Harold falls through. I let her believe that Sarah and I are madly in love. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have partnered with him.”
    Something told Andrea there was more to the story that he wasn’t telling. Though she was curious, it wasn’t her business, and she wasn’t the prying sort. “It sounds like your mom needs to find a new business partner.”
    Blake exhaled hard. He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “If only she could. I don’t trust Harold Gentry, but no one else has anything like this technology. You know how you can meet someone and just know there’s something shady about them?”
    The same way she could meet a man and know she could fall in love with him. Andrea took a drink to soothe her parched mouth. “Why can’t your mom buy the technology outright?”
    “He wants a partnership with her so he can get more shares of her stock and eventually edge me out and take over Clarity Telecom. He’s got four offers on the table, and if she backs out of the arrangement, he’d sell it to one of her competitors out of spite, even if it meant making less money.”
    “I see. He sounds like a real charmer. So if you don’t get Sarah to the church on time, your mom’s plans go down the tubes.”
    “Yep. I’d do anything for my mom.”
    “Even marry a woman you don’t love?”
    Blake coughed into his napkin. “What makes you think I don’t love her?”
    So he did love her. “I—I don’t think that, actually. You seem quite smitten.”
    His gaze glided away and settled on his water glass. “I care for her. I respect her. I’m committed to going through with the wedding, apparently a lot more than she is.” He snapped his eyes up and stared at Andrea so intensely, she thought his eyelashes were going to catch fire. “No,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. He returned his attention to his meal.
    “No,