He tells me sitting on the back porch under all those honest Montana stars.
He tells me in the straightforward way he's learned to tell me things since we stopped keeping score. No managing, no editing, no deciding in advance what I need to know. Just the truth laid out flat on the table between us.
"The engagement to Victoria wasn't only strategic," he says. "I mean — it was. It was absolutely a business arrangement. She wanted the Cross name and the access that came with it. I wanted a buffer from my father's pressure to produce an heir on his timeline." He pauses. "But we were together. For about eight months. Before I found out about you. Before the arrangement."
I wait.
"We ended it the moment you came back," he says. "The night of the catering event. The night you spilled wine on her. I told her within forty-eight hours. It was done. Clean."
"Eight months," I say.
