“Sorry,” he mumbled and put away his phone.
Well, that took care of that. He had to be right about Hadley’s motives. If he wasn’t, then he’d just ruined the best thing ever to have happened to him, and he was too smart to have ever done that.
…
Hadley’s first instinct once she’d woken up the next morning was to crawl under the bed and hide until she could come up with a decent cover story about why her eyes were puffy enough from crying to use as a pool float. That wasn’t happening, though, for two reasons. One, she was done lying to her family to keep up her perfect image. Two, and more importantly, it was Adalyn’s wedding day and she was due at the main house now to help her sister with her hair and makeup.
Every part of her ached, right down to the scar in the middle of her foot where she’d gotten six stitches when she was twelve, but still she rolled out of the bed that smelled like broken dreams and Will’s soap. What a total fool she’d been. After living the fake-it-until-she-made-it lifestyle for so long, she’d obviously lost her ability not to lie to herself. She’d wanted to believe Will actually cared, maybe was falling for her the way she’d already fallen for him.
Hads, you are an idiot.
But she didn’t feel like a fool. Everything ached too much for this to be about pride. Blowing her nose, stuffed from hours of teary misery, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and did her best to be bent but not broken. It was her sister’s wedding day. She could pull it together for Adalyn.
After a quick shower, she was back at the main house walking into the bedroom she and Adalyn had shared until Hadley had left for college. Her sister sat on the queen bed that had replaced their two twins on opposite walls. She was still in her PJs, hadn’t showered judging by her wicked bedhead, and was smiling from ear to ear while their mom and Aunt Louise stood there, jaws open and eyes wide with shock.
“What happened?” Hadley asked, hurrying in as all thoughts that didn’t center around Adalyn got shoved into a deep, dark hole. “Is it Derek? Do I need to grab one of Gabe’s shotguns and track his sorry ass down?”
Her sister giggled and shook her head. “Nope, I sent him on his way this morning. I woke up, realized that the life I wanted for me didn’t have him in it.”
Of all the things Hadley had been expecting to come from her sister’s mouth, that was pretty much the last. Looking over at her mom and aunt, she sent out the silent question of what the fuck? Both women just nodded.
Hadley plopped down onto the chair opposite Adalyn’s bed, her brain playing catch-up with what must have been a helluva night. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more positive about anything in my life.” Even though it didn’t seem possible, Adalyn’s smile got even bigger. “I realized somewhere in my second pint of panic ice cream last night that I love the person Derek could be. That’s just not fair to him or to me. Everyone deserves to be loved for who they are, not who they might be in the future.”
And to think she’d been acting as if Adalyn was still the eight-year-old who needed to be protected. “You just might be the smartest person I know.”
“It’s been an enlightening week.” Her sister grabbed a still-steaming mug of coffee. “So the plan is to go ahead with the reception—well, party now—so that the photographers can shoot it for the wedding venue brochure. It seems a real waste to have everyone home and with all our dresses and tuxes available and not turn this into a win for the business Knox and Weston want to launch.”
“What about you?” Aunt Louise asked.
“I’m twenty-six, newly single, and, according to my sister, the smartest person in the world—”
Hadley interrupted with a chuckle. “That wasn’t exactly what I said.”
“Close enough.” Adalyn grinned at her. “So the opportunities are endless. Who knows, maybe I can get a job as the chief financial officer for this up-and-coming charity consulting company I’ve heard about.”
“That would be amazing.” And Hadley meant every single word of it.
Adalyn hopped up from her bed at the same time that Hadley bounded up from the chair, and they met in the middle of the room and hugged in one of those mind-meld events that only sisters could have when you said about a million things without uttering a single word. By the time they broke it up, they were both happy crying and, looking around at their mom and Aunt Louise, they weren’t the only ones.
“The photographer
is going to be here in a couple of hours,” Adalyn said, wiping away a tear. “Go get dolled up in your bridesmaid dress. We have a party to kick off. Be sure to tell Will that we wear cowboy hats with tuxes around here.”
Every single champagne bubble of happiness filling her chest popped at once and Hadley flinched. Looking at the hopeful faces and smiles, she almost gave in to that little voice that told her to make up some excuse as to where Will was, to keep the perfect image intact. However, those days were gone.
Releasing a deep breath, she let the truth out. “Will’s gone.”
“Where did he go?” Aunt Louise asked.
“Back to Harbor City.”
“What happened?” her mom asked.
Bringing her family up to speed wasn’t fun, but it was so much better than feeding them a bunch of excuses. By the time she told them about tossing the rental car keys to Will and telling him to get lost, there was no doubt from the grim expression on the other women’s faces that they were most definitely in agreement that she did the right thing.
Of course, the only problem was that she still hurt as if there was a gaping hole in her chest where Will used to be. For the past year, he’d been a constant—driving her nuts, teasing her, turning her on, making her laugh, surprising her, and yes, showing her the man she’d finally fallen for so hard that she’d never even realized it was happening until it was too late.