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I got in my ride service and tried to be pleasant. I hated small talk, but I didn’t want to lose my rating. I could see myself in the window—finally fashionably skinny, borderline malnourished.Imagine that.
The perfect figure, and I only had to be nearly killed to get it.
But the poison hadn’t taken my brain.Just my stomach and my ridiculously sentimental heart.That was gone, too.
I exited the vehicle two blocks from Amanda. I couldn’t accidentally bump into her if I was getting out of a ride. Instead, I had to fake it, and I was good at that. I’d always been a terrible liar, so I didn’t even bother with a ruse. I’d tell her the complete truth, but not mention why I was there to tell her that truth.
I was my father’s daughter, unfortunately. And I could do this.
There she is—beautiful, with subtle and smoky shadow and a pretty berry lip shade. I steeled my back and walked into the room. Her source hadn’t arrived yet, so I showed up early enough. I’d plotted our meeting for a week, practically spying on the woman. Michael would be proud of me. I blinked.No, hewouldn’t.He didn’t like me, and I was bad for his business. He wouldn’t want to know anything about my plans.
That’s okay. I don’t need his approval.
“Bridget Radford.” She gasped. “You’re back in town. And look at you. You’re gorgeous.”
I smiled. The game was on. I wouldn’t tell her anything about my sisters, but I could make her a lot of money, and in return, she’d put my business out there to the world. She also wouldn’t ever know I played her.
“Amanda.” I gave her a half-smile. I shouldn’t like to see her in this farce. “Look at you. You never age.”
We are off.
Two weeks later,as I did sit-ups in my somewhat furnished living room, Hope texted me.Brilliant timing.
Ah, so she did occasionally still watch that vlog. I wasn’t sure. Amanda was significantly richer and thoroughly happy to tell the world to invest with me. My appointments were booking out for weeks. If I kept it up, listened to what people wanted, and verified how much risk they wanted to take, and advised them accordingly, my own fees and the money I made from the companies would be reasonable and up front. No one would ever think they were being screwed.
Thanks. I wrote her back.Any day now.
She’d give birth to her third girl any day. My third niece, and the fifth total child among my sisters. And they were all gorgeous kids.
No. I wasn’t thinking about babies and how cute they could be.
I’m so huge. I think I’m bigger than I was with the twins.
She wasn’t. But I wasn’t going to tell her so.
Text me and let me know when you’re in labor. I’d been there for the twins, but I wouldn’t be able to be there for this one—not because I didn’t want to be, but I’d just launched the business. Once the new little one came, I’d travel over to meet them and love on my nieces.
In the meantime, I built the next steps of my life. I started doing things that frightened me regularly. I’d wasted too much time watching life through windows and then thinking about Michael. I couldn’t need anyone again, not like I needed him. I had to be able to trust myself to handle things that were hard and scary.
Opening my business wasn’t hard—it was something I should have done years ago. It was time consuming and sometimes aggravating but not difficult for me. I was even certain of its success. Other things, however? They scared the shit out of me.
One, I planned to run a marathon, which made it a two-fold achievement. I hated running.Almost time to change to push-ups. Secondly, though, it would prove my body wasn’t ultimately failing me. That I could find a way to get enough protein in me to manage a big run.
I also intended to learn to scuba dive and take a vacation by myself. Both ideas terrified me, so I would just do them. I signed up for lessons and was starting that night.
I had to have new parts to make up for the ones I gave to Michael. I was starting to form them now.
It wasfunny how busy life could get sometimes. Before, even at my busiest, I had time to obsess, but with enough work, I didn’t have that time anymore. I hired two assistants to handle thework coming in for the last three months, and they proved really helpful.
I almost lost it when I’d come back from Maine after seeing baby Lexa when I’d found how much work waited for me. With the assistants, at least the stuff that didn’t require me would be handled by someone else.I need to hire another broker, too. Just as soon as I worked out a marketing plan, I would. The women coming in wanted to deal with me. They liked the idea of working with the girl next door. A lot of them told me they related to my annoyed expressions in the blogs and magazines years ago. I was their favorite redhead.
Really, that probably surprised me the most out of everything. I always felt lost in those photos, like I was the tree stump Hope and Layla both posed around.
But maybe more people felt like tree stumps in life than I’d realized.
Another achievement was my scuba certification—a huge accomplishment, since I panicked my first time down. Really, I lucked out with the best instructor in the world. He didn’t rush me, and he gently eased me into the experience. In the end, I’d done it.
I should book a diving vacation. Maybe Mexico, at an all-inclusive resort where I could dive the whole time? It would ease me into vacationing alone, like my instructor eased me into going under the water with only a tank for air.
