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It won’t.
My reputation, everything I’ve worked for, was burned to the ground yesterday. In a city like Boston nothing matters more than your reputation. And in a job where your sole purpose is to create happily ever afters for wealthy clients, the ability to control the narrative, to spin the press in a positive light, and to keep one’s knees shut, is imperative.
I know he means well, and I know he cares about me, but he can’t possibly understand everything I lost yesterday. I’m sure Marion will stand beside me and weather the storm—she’s never given me pause to think that she wouldn’t—but I can’t possibly let her hand over her company to me when my name alone will destroy it.
“Where are we?” I ask, my voice scratchy in my throat.
“Bristol. I had Frank bring you here. You wouldn’t answer your phone yesterday. What happened?”
I try to think back to the day before, but I honestly don’t remember my phone ever ringing. Not after I… “Oh, I think I may have broken it.”
Cash bites back a smile. “Yeah, I broke a few things yesterday too.”
“You did?”
Cash sighs. “Yes, I was going out of my mind for you.”
I shake my head and roll my eyes to stop the tears from pouring down again. I’m a disaster and I genuinely don’t want to be. I want to be the woman he met on the plane—confident, secure, and happy. Or at least that was the woman I was once we shared our first kiss. It’s like Cash thawed my heart. The heart that Steven flash-froze the night he told me about his affair. Just the thought of him makes my heart pound.
How could he have the audacity to feign being the victim after the things he said to me that night? After he snuck around for months with another woman. And how do I make it stop? How do I make the spinning stop? I just want to step off the damn carousel and walk off into the sunset with Cash. Right now, it feels like that is such a ridiculous concept. Like it’s a daydream that is so far out of my grasp it’s almost laughable.
Cash takes both my cheeks in his hands and his eyes dart back and forth, trying to get through to me. “Talk to me.”
As I shake against his touch and suck in my top lip, my breath comes out shallow. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me you know we can do this together. Tell me that you believe me when I say I’ve got you and I’m not going to let them destroy you. Tell me that we’re okay.”
I close my eyes, trying to distance myself from his words and the desperation in his voice.
I can’t tell him what he wants to hear in this moment, so I change the subject. “How did you get Tessa to let me come here?”
Cash frowns and pulls away from me. Instantly, I miss his touch, but I don’t reach for it.
“You’d have to ask Frank. He can be very persuasive.”
“I should call her. She’s probably freaking out.” I lean over to look at the side table and then remember that I don’t have a phone. “Shoot, my phone is broken. Can I use yours?”
“You don’t need to call her. She’s here.”
I look around the room like an idiot. Obviously, she’s not in this room.
“Here as in Bristol. She rode in the car with you last night,” Cash supplies. The irritation, or perhaps hurt, is evident in his tone.
Unable to face his disappointment on top of my own, I push myself out of bed. “I need to shower. Do you know if they packed me anything?” I keep my eyes on the floor.
“In the corner.”
A duffel bag that I recognize as my own sits near the door. I stare at it and then look back at Cash, but I still don’t have the words. He wants promises that I can’t provide, answers that I don’t have, and love which feels almost impossible for me in this moment.
The hurt I feel from my mother’s betrayal cuts to the bone. I’m empty. The idea of allowing anyone to hurt me like that again, of giving anyone that kind of power by loving them, scares the shit out of me.
Every person that was supposed to love me—that it would seem almost innate for them to—has turned their back on me. My father, my mother, and now my husband.
Time and time again, I’ve given my mother a pass. But this one is too personal and too public. I didn’t only lose a husband through all of this; I lost my mother. And whether she was ever a good one or not, it makes this world seem awfully lonely.
As I walk to the bathroom with my bag, I hear Cash’s soft voice, “I know it all seems like a lot, and you think you’re drowning, but I won’t let you. Whether you let me in or not, I’m going to be here, Grace. You are not alone.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, pausing at the door, trying to hear his words and trying to accept them.
