Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
But I should have known with her history that she’d see it as an excuse for me to end things. And I didn’t do a good enough job of explaining because I was afraid she’d just insist she wanted me without thinking it through.
Like I knew her mind better than she did. Fuck. I’d made the decision without actually talking it through with her. No wonder she’d just ended it entirely.
I felt sick.
Because while an hour ago I was so certain suggesting a break was the right thing to do, now I felt like I just self-sabotaged.
Gripping my head, I stumbled into a kitchen chair.
Why couldn’t I tell her I loved her?
Because you’re a chickenshit. You’re terrified.
People you loved either disappointed you or they left you.
“Fuck.” I was so fucked in the head.
Allegra’s tear-streaked face appeared behind my eyes every time I closed them. I’d hurt her. I’d devastated her. Why hadn’t I thought about how this would seem to her? To a woman who had been abandoned and used … I’d done this all wrong.
Dread swamped me.
My phone blared from the kitchen table, making me jump.
Reluctantly, I pulled it toward me and saw it was Sarah calling. The woman had a sixth sense.
I answered, putting the phone on speaker. “Sarah.”
There was a beat of silence, then, “What’s wrong?”
“I fucked up.” I exhaled shakily. “Sarah, I really fucked up. I’m fucked up, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Talk to me,” she said in that calm, gentle voice. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Thirty-Five
Allegra
By the time I arrived at my parents’ beach house, I’d had time to think. Clearly, my parents said something to Jared last night that targeted all his insecurities. Enough so that it had obliterated months of evidence that proved I was all in and not going anywhere.
And then I’d just proven them right by throwing my ring at him and driving off all snotty and butt hurt, my mother’s Italian fire flaring to the fore. Instead of thinking rationally and trying to understand why Jared had suggested the break in the first place, I’d done him a disservice by immediately assuming he wanted the break for him, not for me.
A man didn’t look at you the way he looked at me if he was faking it.
My husband was in love with me.
I’d never been more certain of anything until today.
Jared was in love with me … and maybe last night he finally realized that. And it scared the shit out of him and then my parents said something and it just all got twisted up in his head, and he thought he had to offer me a way out?
Jared might come across as this solid, stalwart Scot who didn’t need anything but his farm … but Jared’s heart had been broken before most of us even knew a heart could be broken.
I must scare the absolute shit out of him.
Staring up at my parents’ vacation home, the pull to turn around and drive back to my husband was intense. But first I needed all the information. I needed to know what my parents had said to make him think I might not want him for much longer.
The door to the house opened just as I got out of the Wrangler. Aria stood there, arms crossed, as I hurried up the porch steps. “I thought you weren’t coming.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been crying.”
“I need to talk to Mamma and Dad.”
“Okay. What’s going on?” Aria pushed open the door, stepping aside to let me in.
Instead of answering, I stormed past her, through the spacious hall and into the open-plan kitchen-living room that faced toward the sea.
My parents were seated at the dining table with North.
Great. I didn’t exactly want an audience for this, but I wasn’t stopping for pleasantries.
“What did you say to Jared last night?” I demanded.
Dad’s expression tightened as he shot a look at Mamma. So she was the culprit, huh? Not surprising. I focused on her. Mamma took a sip of wine with an insouciant European shrug, and I wanted to empty the contents of her glass all over her. “What did you say?” I yelled.
“Allegra.” Aria came to stand beside me. “Calm down.”
“If Mamma came between you and North, would you calm down?”
My sister shot Mamma a horrified look. “Mamma, you didn’t?”
In answer, my mother released her wineglass and stood up, but only to brace her palms on the table. She pinned me with her dark stare. “You are a spoiled child playing house, and that man needed to know who and what you are before you ruined him.”
It was even worse than I’d thought.
“Mamma!” Aria snapped. “That’s completely unfair!”
Tears burned in my eyes.
“Is it? She put us through hell as a teenager, and she lives a life as a vagabond with no clear focus, from what I can see. Your sister had opportunities others would die for. She could have been a model or an actress. Instead, she marries a man so she can stay in a country just because she is afraid to be far from her big sister.”