What does she even look like now?
Is she still a book nerd who won’t wear anything less revealing than a full grandma bathing suit?
Is she more than a fragment from a nightmare I vowed to forget?
Oh, I’ll give her empathy, all right.
But first I need to see her face-to-face.
3
ALL THE LEVERAGE (HATTIE)
What. Is. Happening?
Those are the only words floating around my brain as I slump down on my couch. Margot crouches in front of me, flicking the pages of one of my old books under my nose.
Old book smell.
Sweet Jesus.
Better than smelling salts for sweeping the shock from your brain.
If I was born in one of those Regency romance novels I pretend I don’t love, I’d totally be one of those bookish wallflowers.
Actually, maybe the truth isn’t so far from that. Arranged marriages happened in those times, too, right?
Where someone older and richer and more powerful just decided your whole future and the poor heroine had no choice but to go along with it.
I have a choice, though.
I need to remember that.
Inhaling sharply, I try to think of something more coherent thanoh God, oh God, oh God.
Not easy.
MarryEthan?
Being asked to marry anyone on a whim would be bad enough, but when it’s Ethan fricking Blackthorn?
“Keep breathing,” Margot urges gently.
Excellent advice, really.
I take one of the books, which is an old leather-bound copy ofPride and Prejudice—how fitting—and inhale again.
At least my lungs work.
Now I just need to flog my mind back on track.
My bestie looks down with worried blue eyes. She touches my arm.
“Will it help if you drink something? Water? Tea? Hot chocolate?”
I struggle up into a sitting position.
“It’s my place, Margot,” I point out. “I can get my own drink.”
