“Brynlee, what’s wrong?”
“I’m in love with him,” I whisper.
“What?”
I can’t breathe. Falling in love with Rhett was inevitable. I knew this, but I never expected it to be this soon. “You can’t say anything, Darla. Please.”
“Tell him.”
“No, I can’t! I can’t tell him until he tells me. It’s too fast. It’s too soon. Oh my God.”
Her hand takes mine, and I look into her green eyes as I gasp for air. “Breathe.” We breathe in and out together, and my heartrate falls back to a semi-normal rate. “Why can’t you tell him before he tells you?”
“A lady never tells a man what she feels until he tells her first, darling. You don’t want to come across as clingy, otherwise you’ll push him away.”
“What the hell?”
“Mama. She’s still in my head. She… There are these things she’d drill into me, and I can’t shake a few of them. This is one of them. Please, Darla, don’t tell him. I’ll give you an extra twenty grand. Please, please,” I plead with her, tears filling my eyes as the panic rises again.
Shaking her head, she leans back and chuckles. “You don’t have to pay me extra. I just don’t understand this”—she waves her hand in a circle in front of me—“panic.”
“I can’t tell him because we’ve only known each other for a few weeks. I know you’re his friend before mine, but I can’t say it until I know he feels the same. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, but I willdieif I tell him I love him, and he doesn’t say it back. It’s a whole self-worth thing that’s really complicated. Just… please? Please, Darla?”
“I won’t say anythin’. My God, you’re about thirty seconds away from needin’ a paper bag.”
Yes, yes, I am. “Okay, something else. Let’s talk about anything else.”
“You were engaged before you came here?”
Groaning, I close my eyes and rest my head on the back of the couch. “Yes. I was engaged to Kevin Sandoval. Have you heard of Sandoval Whiskey? That’s him.”
“What?”
“We were supposed to get married in about five months.”
“What happened?”
I open my eyes and smirk at her. “Pippa Rocha happened.
“What’s a Pippa Rocha?”
“The twenty-two-year-old secretary he’s screwing.”
Jaw dropping, Darla leans forward. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. In the world I came from, it was pretty much accepted. Wives and girlfriends had access to money, and as long as they got the expensive houses, vacations, and gifts, it expected they’d look the other way when the men cheat. It’s a weird form of compensation, but the worst part? Me leaving him is likely a bigger betrayal than his affair. Even though it’s the third time I caught him with her.”
“Seriously?”
It’s humiliating to admit, but I’ve already started. I explain how the first time I caught them, he convinced me it would never happen again. And Mama pushed me to be with him, so I accepted it.
The second time, I was hell-bent on leaving. I had my bags packed and ready, but Mama got her cancer diagnosis, and Kevin was there. He never left my side. He paid her medical bills, which was amazing because she’d split from her latest rich husband.
“I’ll forever be grateful to him for that. And he was there when she passed, which was quicker than we expected. But then I found out he was screwing Pippa,” I say, popping my Ps. “Again. That was it.”
“What did you do?”
The way Darla stares, her eyes as wide as saucers, reminds me of watching reality television. The drama captivates and sucks you in, but the difference is, this is actually real. My life.
