Not by much, but still, I notice it.
And his mother standing behind him like this place is so beneath her that she may catch age and reside here in the next two minutes.
She’s not far off.
“Meirna,” she notes, her voice this fake sound of concern and distress. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
“Why?”
It’s not Bronte who used me to save Bobby’s face and was about to get me involved in a loveless marriage.
Because Bobby doesn’t love me.
He just needed the idea and stature of me to raise himself up. To get himself out of the trouble he’s currently in.
“What do you mean, why?” she presses, her face skewed and no amount of Botox can hide the crow’s feet slightly protruding along her eyes. “You werekidnapped. You were tricked into?—”
I raise a palm to get her to shut up and glance around for Bonnie, who’s not sitting behind the reception desk.
I may not be an employee here that could get fired over it, but I don’t need my personal life sprinkled around Silver Pines because it will reach everyone’s ears by the end of the day if Catherine keeps spewing the truth in this lobby.
“This conversation is inappropriate to have here.” I grind out. “And I’m not having it now.”
Bobby steps forward, almost sheepishly, as if I’m going to lash out and jump him if he gets too close.
I justmight.
“Meirna,” he mutters. “I know there are a lot of things that have happened—a lot ofuntruethings. I love you, baby. I’d never hurt you.”
“Save it, Bobby. It’s over.”
Catherine steps forward as if I’m out of line and purposely left him at the altar. “You made a commitment. And, as a woman, you follow those commitments because they don’t come along every day.” Her face softens, but it’s still fake as hell to me. “Meirna, I know this has all been hard. I can’t imagine what you went through and the betrayal you must’ve felt when you realized…it wasn’t Bobby you married, but our troubled son. He…he hasn’t been in our lives because of things he did to our family and…it was hard on us, but?—”
“Your soncheatedon me andhasbeen cheating on me for God knows how long,” I carp back low and underneath my breath. “So, yeah, it felt like a betrayal.”
“It’s not true,” Bobby objects solemnly, looking at me like I just said he couldn’t have a puppy or tickets to a Yankee game. “None of it. I couldn’t do that to you. We had plans—afuturewe talked about often. Why would I do that if we’ve built so much?—”
“Mob. Image. A failing company,” I impart flatly. “Everything about us was fake.”
His brows clip tightly together, and I’m literally surprised that he’s putting this much effort into this.
Since Catherine is here, I’m guessing she’s making him do it.
“My parents are millionaires, Meirna,” he claims. “If I needed the money, I would have gone to them for it. Not a mob.”
I lift my shoulders because I don’t know the logistics only the text messages I’ve seen.
Nonetheless, I’m not going to stand here and argue about it all day.
In fact, I’m not going to waste another minute talking to a family that didn’t want me in the first place because I wasn’t good or rich enough for their perfectmillion-dollarfamily.
“Like I said—” I cross my arms along my chest. “—I’m done talking about this.”
Catherine inches closer and the woman doesn’t know how to read a room. “There was a wedding that didn’t happen and we saved your face by stating you had a vicious case of food poisoning from the restaurant we ate at for your rehearsal dinner. However, this needs to be dealt with and moved along. It’s yours and Bobby’s reputation at stake now.”
Color me confused, but I thought once you were married, you couldn’t get married whilebeingmarried.
Oh, wait, youcan’t.
