“Yes. My heart surgeon retired, so he was free to ask me out finally.”
“Dr. Clarke?”
“Yes, he’s such a doll.”
And he’s likely twenty years younger than her. I sigh, feeling a surge of irritation welling up in my gut. “Well, you might have mentioned that. Now, I have to go by myself, which isfarmore embarrassing than going with you.”
She wrinkles up her nose at me. “Is it?”
“Of course, it is,” I snap. “People think it’s sweet that we go together.”
“That’s only what they say to your face,” she says, making a clicking sound with her teeth. “The truth is, you were always going to stand me up tonight because, in a few minutes, you’re going to realize you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life and you’re going to rush to the airport to try to catch your man before he takes off with all those fit women to Greenland.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I scoff. “You really think that I’m so silly and jealous that I’m going to rush off and beg him to come back just because he might end up with someone else?”
“No,” she says. “The silly and ridiculous part has been how you’ve been behaving over the last month. But you’re about to pull your head out of your arse because generally that’s what people do when the doomsday clock on your relationship is about to strike midnight.”
“I’m not… there’s just simply no way… It’s too late.”
Then why is my heart beating so fast right now?
“It will be if you don’t hurry.”
“He’ll never take me back,” I say. “Not after how I treated him.”
“Of course he will,” she says, plucking a tube of lipstick off her table and popping the lid off. “You’re going to find him and tell him the truth, which is that you got very scared.”
“I wasn’t scared. I was furious.”
“Liar,” she says, smearing the red lipstick on her bottom lip. “You were terrified that if you stayed with him, you’d let him replace your brother as the person who calls the shots in your life. But the irony of it is that, by dumping him, you proved you’ll be just fine with a strong man by your side. Although, because you’re too stupid to have figured it out, it could very well be too late by now.”
I sit back down on the bench, feeling my entire body grow slightly weak at the revelation. “Oh my God, you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” she says.
“If you knew this, why would you keep it a secret? Don’t you think this would have been information that would’ve been useful to me, say, a month ago?”
“I’m rather busy, I can’t go around fixing everyone’s love lives all the time,” she says, standing and walking over to the mirror to double-check her lipstick. She smacks her lips together, then pops a finger in her mouth to wipe away the excess. “Besides, for once I thought I should leave you to it, so that you could figure something out on your own for once.”
“Such a disappointment. I always gave you credit for being smarter than this.” She walks over to me and pats me hard on the cheek while I close my eyes to avoid the view of her cleavage. “Now, you better get going. I’m hoping Dr. Clarke and I can have a few moments alone before we head down to the ball.” She waggles her eyebrows at me and grins.
I start to wrinkle up my nose, but she says, “Don’t be like that, dear. You’ll be my age someday too, and, with any luck, you and William will be together to enjoy a quick shag before you head off to these dreadfully boring events.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. Arthur has a car waiting out front for you, and he’s asked Ben to drive you since he’s really the best one at high speed car chases.”
I sit, my entire body feeling numb as my mind races through everything she’s just said. “Wait. Arthur?”
“Yes, total one-eighty when he found out what Will did for the family. He also may have felt bad because someone gave him a stern talking-to about interfering.”
She means her.
I smile for a second, then my heart jumps to my throat at the thought of rushing to him. “But I broke it off with him. He’s never going to take me back.”
“You need to learn the difference between a little fight and a real reason to end things,” Gran says. “What you and your young man had was called a fight. And, well done for standing your ground because that will do you well for the future, but poor show on breaking it off with him entirely and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
“But he—”
