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“I’m not ungrateful,” I said, my voice cracking. “I just need you to accept and love me for who I am.” I looked at Sephie, then my mother, then back to him. “Which is not my sister. Or my mother. I will never be them,” I said, the admission cracking open something inside of me. “But I will be me. Unapologetically. And I’m going to surround myself with people who accept that. You can decide if you’re one of those people or not.”
“I am,” he said quickly. “Oh, honey, I am. I hope you’ll give me a chance to make this up to you. I didn’t mean to make you feel this way, and maybe I need to take some of my own advice and get help too. I will. I promise I will.”
He reached for me, and I nodded, allowing him to hug me. It was stiff, but I wrapped my arms around him too, letting the sincerity of his words register.
“We should talk more,” Mother said. “Look at what holding everything in does to a person.”
I laughed through my tears, rolling my eyes as I shared a look with my sister. Holding things in had been what we were raised to do—as all proper southern ladies were.
But not anymore.
She was right.
It was better to let it out.
And to let it go.
CHAPTER18
Jim
Iwas happily ignoring reality, petting Binx on my couch with all the blinds drawn when a pounding at my front door scared him off. He scurried out of the living room, retreating to his tree post thing in the other room.
“Some guard cat you are,” I chided him, not bothering to get up. I didn’t want whatever anyone was selling.
“You’re not even answering the door anymore?” Ridge’s voice sounded through the entryway, and seconds later he rounded the corner.
“I don’t want company.”
“Tough shit,” he said, sinking down on the chair opposite me. “You look like shit too.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s been two days, man,” he said.
“Is that all?” I asked. It felt like a month had passed since I left the hospital. Since Anne called and told me what an asshole I’d been, what a coward I’d been for not fighting for her harder.
“Are you going to get up and fix this shit with your girl?” he asked. “Or are you going to make me give you one of those rom-com pep talks?”
I cocked a brow at him. “You don’t do pep talks.”
He shrugged.
“And I can’t,” I said. “She deserves a life where she doesn’t have to justify who is in it. Doesn’t have to battle her father at every turn. She deserves someone with endless wealth and possibilities—”
“Yeah,” Ridge cut me off, leaning over the coffee table between us and snatching the engagement ring I had sitting there. “You’re right,” he said, nodding as he examined the ring in the box. “She wasn’t ever really worth the hassle anyway,” he continued, and I furrowed my brow at him. “Putting up with all that upper society, VanDoren popularity bullshit would be a nightmare. No woman is worth all that—”
“She is,” I snapped, standing up because the adrenaline was too much to take sitting down. “She’s wortheverything,” I said. “You’re my best friend, but I will knock you the fuck out if you keep talking about her like that.”
Ridge smirked as he stood up, staring at me with a knowing look.
“Oh,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Yep.”
“I need to go.”
“I’ll drive,” he said as I tossed on some shoes and we both headed to the door.
