“This is what I saw,” Betzy explained.
Yep. It was all there. Just as evil as she remembered.Worse,she realized as she read over the longer pieces of text. Not all were quotes from her ex-boyfriend. Some were mere observations about her behavior. Each trait, when combined with the others, created a long list that matched up with dozens of wealthy spinsters who never married.
The article tore open her greatest fear with razor sharp, fire hot veracity. She really would be alone forever, wouldn’t she?
“I can see why you did what you did,” Grandma said. “This is infuriating! And just how in the world did they get hold of that marriage contract? That’s clear back from the time you were kids.”
“Huh?” Betzy reached over and flicked the page. And there it was. The exact document they’d typed up twenty years ago. Sawyer’s messy signature with the wavy ‘y’. And hers on the line beneath it.
She groaned. “We said we’d get married when we were twenty-eight. Guess how old I am right now?”
“You’re twenty-eight,” Matthew said while fiddling with the coffee pot.
“Could I have made myself lookmorepathetic? They’re making it look like I was actually holding him to it.”
“Aw, honey,” Grandma started to say, but even she knew this was beyond fixing.
The lights were flickering. At least from her perspective. And the air around her was getting thick and hazy. Betzy put a hand up.
“I just need to get back in my bed for a minute.” If a minute meant the rest of her life.
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Betz,” Mom said.
“Itis,” she assured while climbing off the chair. She shuffled her aching body away from the table, trying to see past the hectic haze in her head. “Just…give me some time please. Help yourself to coffee.”
As she made her way to the bedroom, Betzy overheard Mom announce that Daisy would be appearing on one of the morning shows.Great.
Score one for Grandma, who’d somehow known Betzy’s plan was the worst idea ever. Score another one for Grandma, since she’d warned Betzy that Sawyer might actually be among the dirt bags of the universe, something Betzy still couldn’t fathom despite the evidence she’d seen in black and white.
She climbed back into bed in her still-dark room, pulled the covers high over her head, and let the pain have its way with her.
It felt like someone was shredding her heart with a cheese grater. Piece by tiny piece.
If Sawyer planned to go off and conspire with the enemy, why hadn’t he just waited a few months? Why commit to doing something and then mess it all up? Why act like he wanted to defend her when what he did instead was make everything a million times worse?
On top of it all, Sawyer had broken her heart. Ruined her trust. And destroyed her hope for a happy ending.
If Sawyer Kingsley wasn’t the man she thought he’d been all along, the man who allowed her to still have faith in men outside of her own family, what did she have left to hope for?
* * *
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Camila asked through the phone line.
“I think it’s thebestidea,” Betzy answered as she made her way up the ramp and onto the jet, phone propped to her ear. “It’s what James did, and look how well that turned out.”
“True,” Camila said through the line. “I just worry that you’re going all alone.”
Betzy appreciated her sister-in-law’s concern. “Maybe I’ll request a male personal chef. A single Italian who somehow knows how to massage stress knots out of a broken woman’s back.” She lifted her sunglasses to rest on her head and took a seat in one of the leather lounge chairs. Her eyes moved to the wet bar where her favorite seltzer water chilled.
“You’re not broken,” Camila assured. “You’ve just got a few cracks.”
“Whatever I am,” Betzy said as a fresh ache tore through her chest, “I want to hurry and move on to the next phase. The healed instead of the healing. The mended instead of the cracked.”
A sigh came through the line. “Betzy?”
She pressed the phone more snugly against her ear. “Yeah?”
“We all have cracks,” Camila assured. “But we’re like clay jars, right?”
