Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
She hums. “Interesting.”
I glare at her. “What’s interesting?”
She shrugs. “That line of thought sounds like Alec thinking.” She huffs. “Well, no. If I’m honest, it sounds like Cheryl thinking. That woman was always in his ear telling him Oliver was going to take what was his. Convinced him that Oliver was out to get him—as if everything Oliver earned wasn’t by hard work alone.” Her face falls. “And then I made it worse when I cheated on Oliver with Alec.”
I pull back. Surely I misheard her. “You mean you cheated on Alec with Oliver.”
“I suppose I cheated on them both, but I was with Oliver first. No one knew. I knew what my mother and Alec’s thought about him, and I was a little embarrassed. He didn’t care, though. He loved me regardless of whatever horrible limitations I put on our relationship—and trust me. I was horrible.”
I feel sick. No wonder Oliver was always trying to convince me he was the villain. He’d had years of being knocked down if he dared to think differently.
“You know the worst part?” she asks. “When Oliver found out, after the miscarriage, how long I’d been dating Alec, that Alec and I had been talking marriage in the future all that time, he didn’t even seem surprised. It was a blow, but almost like one he was expecting.” She shakes her head. “He’d been put second over and over again. First by his father when Alec was born, and then by that whole family when he was forced to move in. And then by me. Worst of all, by me.”
“He hurt me,” I whisper, and for the first time I realize it wasn’t because he paid Chuck off or because he lied to me. He hurt me when he didn’t come after me. He didn’t fight for me. But after all he’d been through, how could he have known I wanted him to?
“If it matters, you hurt him too,” someone says. I turn and see none other than the bride herself walking up behind us. “For what it’s worth, I’d like to lock the two of you in a room for twenty-four hours so you were forced to work through it. I bet you’d both come out of it better. Not to mention together.”
The implications of Rose overhearing this conversation click into place for me. I glance at my fake engagement ring and then back to her. “Rose, I . . .”
“Relax. Alec just confessed the whole deal.” She pulls up her skirts and takes a spot in the grass.
“Your dress!” I squeal.
She waves me off. “Not my first choice or even my third. Mom picked it out, and I have no intention of keeping it after tonight.”
Portentia shifts to angle herself toward Rose. “Can you teach me that?”
“Teach you what?”
“The way you are with your mother. The way you let her do her thing so she can be happy but somehow without ever giving up your own free will.”
Rose beams. “I would enjoy that more than you can imagine.” She turns her attention to me. “Now, back to Oliver. Let’s make a plan to fix you two up, shall we?”
My stomach feels hollow. “I think it’s too late for that, Rose.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “He has the courage to come to you eight years after you two split and tell you how he feels when he thinks you’re marrying his brother, and you don’t even have the tits to fight for him a few hours after he lets you go?”
“I just . . .”
“What do you have to lose?” Portentia asks.
Oh hell. “I’m terrified I might lose him. All over again.”
Rose grins like she already knows she’s won. “Imagine how he felt when you showed up on his brother’s doorstep and he had to decide whether to contact you or not.”
“Should I go now?” I look down at myself. “He liked this on me enough to take it off me once tonight. Maybe we should try for number two?”
Portentia squeals in delight.
Rose wrinkles her nose. “First of all, what? Second of all, never mind. I don’t want to know. And third—” She takes a breath. “Not tonight. I think he and Alec should settle some things first. Then you take your turn.”
“How should I do it?” I ask. My stomach is vibrating with a combination of terror and excitement. I want to beg. Tell me how to make this work.
“Well, first you should know that I first heard about you eight years ago when I got to play personal shopper for the pretty girl who was making my ice-cold brother all ooey and gooey inside.”
“That was you?”
“Personal shopper?” Portentia asks. “Can someone please explain?”
“Let’s start at the beginning,” Rose says. “It’s the only way to come up with a proper plan.”
CHAPTER FORTY