“You don’t seem to realize that it’s over,” I said, swallowing the sick knowledge that it was true.
How could it be? It had been only yesterday I’d sat on the beach and watched him surf, digging my toes into the sand, sipping on coffee while knowing I was the luckiest girl in the world.
“Please don’t do this,” Frankie hissed. “Let me fix this.”
“There’s nothing to fix,” I said.
My voice seemed to come from a great distance away.
“You don’t love me enough. Nothing else matters.”
And Frankie instantly went to pieces, wringing his hands anxiously, his eyes looking half-crazed with worry.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I do love you enough! I can’t deny I fucked up! But it was a total mistake. Just a foolish attempt to—to relive the past. I can’t—believe I did this to you. Caused you this pain. It was disgusting of me.Disgusting!”
I said nothing. The anxiety in his eyes made me want to vomit. I couldn’t bear his regret or his pity.
Poor old, reliable Jillian, everyone would think. Unless I did something to change their mind, show that I wasn’t an object of pity.
Frankie would be wracked with guilt about how he had hurt me, because he knew exactly how much I loved him.
“It was kind of like something I had to get out of my system,” Frankie pleaded as Cash snorted derisively. “And now that I have, it’s all over. I promise.”
And, suddenly, I knew I couldn’t be an object of pity one second longer.
“Stop!” I bit out. “I do not accept your apologies. No, you don’t get my forgiveness.”
“Jilly, please—“ Frankie begged, his eyes startlingly filling with tears, but I turned to go back into the house.
“Find somewhere else to stay. I don’t want to look at you.”
CHAPTER 11
Frankie
“What are you doing here?” Mari asked suspiciously when I went to the Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley B&B and asked to book a room for the night. “Where’s Jillian?”
My throat felt dry as a bone.
This was going to be all over town. I didn’t think Cash was going to keep his mouth shut.
And what had he meant bywaiting for you to screw up?
I had been a fucking idiot.
Itcouldn’tbe over. Not like that. Not all my happiness.
“I’m—just checking things out,” I said weakly. “For a surprise for Jillian.”
Mari looked suspiciously at me as she smoothed her Regency era gown and patted her elaborate updo. “All right. Only room open is the Honeymoon Suite and you’ve stayed there plenty of times before.”
If I could only explain to Jillian, if I could only getfiveminutes with her without Cash around, to properly apologize and show her it would never happen again!
A lot could happen in five minutes. . .
For a few minutes I had lived my secret, illicitwhat iffantasies with Christabelle.
And now I could see what a stupid dimwit I had been.
