Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I wish.
If I hadn’t been watching her closely, I would have missed it—the ever so slight slump of her shoulders at what she perceives as my rejection, before she straightens them again, and pretends a fascination with her bracelet.
“Mom.” I wait until she looks up at me. “I’m not shutting you out. I promise. It’s just that Colin and I have gotten ourselves into a bit of a mess with Immigration Services …”
Her eyes widen in alarm, and I rush to reassure her. “It’s fine. We’re handling it. But we’re trying to keep everyone as far away from the situation as possible. Should they choose to interview you and Dad, the more you can plead the Fifth the better.”
She’s silent for a long minute, considering this, and then she finally nods. “But if there’s anything your father or I can do, you’ll let us know?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now. What about the Rebecca situation?”
I let out an exasperated laugh, even as my gaze flits to the door, making sure Colin is still out of earshot in my dad’s office. “I already told you—”
“That you weren’t going to shut me out,” she cuts in, trapping me in my own words. “What’s going on there?”
“Nothing. No, it’s the truth,” I say before she can get on my case again. “Colin and Rebecca are still engaged.”
“They’re engaged?”
I wince. “Did I not mention that the last time we spoke?”
“No, Charlotte, you did not. I can’t believe—how could he propose to her while he was still married to you?”
“I don’t think it was a proposal so much as an agreement. But regardless, they’re going to get married for real, just as soon as he and I can get un-married for fake.”
“And how do you feel about the situation?”
“How do I feel about the situation?”
“Nobody enjoys an echo, dear.”
I open my mouth, a saucy comeback on the tip of my tongue.
Then I shock her and me.
I burst into tears. Not the dramatic, chin-wobbling fake tears from that day in the immigration office, but real, true tears.
The kind that come from the deepest part of you, the kind that reveal your most forbidden secrets.
“Charlotte.” My mom makes a tsking noise as she sits beside me and pulls me to her.
I let her. I let her hold me against her chest as I cling to her upper arm with one hand, my other clenched into a fist as I will the tears to stop, but they don’t.
Instead of badgering me to explain my breakdown, she merely holds me, smoothing my hair back occasionally as she lets me cry it out.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I say brokenly, when I can finally manage to get words out.
“Yes, you do, dear. Yes, you do.” She pats my head as she says it, and she’s right.
I know exactly what’s wrong. I know exactly where these tears are coming from.
All this time I’ve been so focused on trying to get Colin to like me, that I haven’t bothered to guard myself against a much more destructive reality: that I could come to love him.
“I feel like I can’t stand it,” I whisper. “When they’re together, whenever he goes to see her, it feels unbearable.”
“Have you told him?”
I make a clogged, snorting noise since my nose is plugged from the crying.
“So that’s a no then,” she says.
“That’s a definite no.”
“I think maybe you should,” she says, easing me gently back into a seated position. “Colin deserves to have all the information. He deserves to know that you care.”
I shake my head. “It wouldn’t be fair. I can’t just swoop into his life after ten years and turn it upside down. At least not more than I already have. He’s already had one Spencer screw up the good thing he had with Rebecca when Justin wrote that stupid prenup. I won’t make things even worse for him.”
“And you think telling him how you feel would make his life worse?”
“I know it would,” I say with miserable confidence. “He doesn’t feel that way about me, Mom. I mean, he doesn’t hate me anymore, so that’s progress. I’d say, at best, he’s hovering in the tolerance range.”
“You’re a fool to let a man like that get taken right out from under your nose.”
I rub my temple. “I guess the doting, sympathetic portion of the evening is over.”
“You’re good together. For each other,” Mom says, taking my hand and giving it a hard squeeze. “Why do you think I threw that party? Why do you think I was so determined to make him a part of this family? It’s because I saw the very same thing your brother saw back then. Potential.”
“Respectfully, you guys are nuts. Back then, Colin and I barely even saw each other when we were in the same room.”
“Ten years ago, perhaps. But now? I see you seeing each other,” she says with a smug expression.