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And when she came too, she knew it was over for her.
"Aren’t you going to invite us in, Lacey? This is Mrs. Kennedy right here, and this is her grandsons’ house."
Lacey shook her head and offered them a meek, troubled smile. She couldn’t hide her emotions properly any longer.
"Of course, I’m so sorry." She moved aside to let them in, and Mrs. Kennedy immediately made her way to a lounge Lacey hadn’t even had a chance to scope out before. It was a rather nice room, very feminine, and she knew the brothers kept it so for their grandma.
"You’re the other Holland girl, aren’t you?" Mrs. Kennedy said as she sat down in a floral-upholstered Victorian chair. "The one with the company and the villages?"
"That’s me," Lacey said halfheartedly.
"Well, you’ve done a fabulous job of connecting two otherwise unlikely ends of the world, my dear, while also helping those who need it. Very commendable. Very commendable."
Lacey looked up at the high praise. She wasn’t accustomed to it in Jenna’s company.
"I was just telling Mrs. Kennedy how cute my little cousin is," Jenna smiled.
Right.
"May I offer you something to drink?" Lacey asked, standing up from the seat she had taken opposite the Kennedy matriarch.
"Oh, you sit. I’ll get something. I suppose I should learn my way around here pronto,” Jenna said.
Lacey curled her lips, stopping herself from asking why because, deep down, she already knew why.
"Oh, silly me, cousin. You don’t know about the latest events. I was looking at my ticket to... just another country, and I felt this tiredness, you know? I’ve been saving lives every single day of my life. I’m tired, and I got to thinking. Maybe I wanted kids, and then you know me. Once I get an idea in my head, it’s all systems go."
"So... you’re..."
"I looked up Paloma Windgate. She thought I was perfect. I met with Mrs. Kennedy over lunch, we had a good catch-up, and I’m going to get married. To a Kennedy and become a ranch wife. I think it’s best this way. I know Joshua, Case, and Tyler. They know me. Who has the time to sort through an array of dates these days? It’s the perfect solution for all of us."
Words would just not come out of her mouth, no matter how hard she tried.
"Well, say something, silly," Jenna nudged her. "I mean, it's actually also thanks to you. Your little game of fake wife made me think I’m actually the real deal, so what was I waiting for, right?"
"Right," Lacey said, finally. "Right. Right." She kept nodding. "Umm... can you excuse me for a second?" She said, then turned and fled.
Thankfully, her bags had been packed since the night before. She found her car keys, took her bags, went out the back door, got into her car, and drove away.
On route, she called her assistant to make sure her next trip was planned, and then she hung up.
It really was okay. She had been a fake wife, and honestly, she totally believed Joshua, Case, and Tyler would actually write up that five-star review for her if she asked. It could be a great joke between them.
But the real thing was sitting in their house, all chic and coy at the same time. Jenna knew how to play things. And she definitely won this round, even if Lacey proved her little self-inflicted challenge.
It was fine. She wasn’t going to start crying. She had ninety minutes to pull herself together before she got back to the Holland residence.
She started crying five minutes into the trip back home. And of course, just like her luck, it had started to rain demons. It could have been worse. She could have been going in the opposite direction, up a mountain road.
Thankfully, the roads she was on were well lit and solid. So she wasn’t going to die just yet.
She had been driving for a good forty minutes before she skidded the car to a halt. In front of her, in the middle of the road, in the angry pouring rain, was a huge pickup truck flashing its headlights at her.
Oh god. She was going to be murdered instead.
She pulled over, and so did the truck.
She didn’t need much else to know that the three men who emerged from the truck were Joshua, Case, and Tyler.
