Because I know that if he’s already on the edge of breaking his promise to me, this would have him jumping off ready to immerse himself into shattering it entirely. And I refuse to have him do that. I will not be like his father.
The world pauses, and the only thing I can hear is my frantic heartbeat in my ears and slamming against my chest. It begs for an out, for something other than this part of myself that is now being revealed to a bunch of strangers.
I am married.
I’ve been running from my husband this whole time. Not boyfriend.Husband. Legally bound to one another.
My head snaps to Mitchell as my drink simultaneously falls from my hand and shatters on the floor. Glass and champagne splatter all over the front of my dress. That’s when the nausea settles deep in my belly, making me clutch it in fear of throwing up everywhere.
Mitchell looks down at it unphased. Then he looks back up at me, and I swear there’s a ghost of a smile hovering on his lips.
He knows what he just did.
He knows what he did.
Tyler stares blankly at the mess by my feet. His eyes slowly move up and meet mine, and I know there’s no hiding the truth that’s all over my face.
“Sunny?” he breathes.
“Oh, didn’t you know, Tyler? I figured if you two are sharing scars, you’d at least share a first name basis. I guess I’m wrong. Her name hasn’t always been Sunny. Isn’t that right, Lauren Sunshine Crawford?”
The panic rises in my chest as I search for the right words to say. I need to say something. Something to crack the silence that sits before me. To stop all the stares burning into me as everyone waits for me to explain myself. Explain that I’m a wife to another man. Explain that I’m not who I said I am.
I shake my head and do the one thing I can think of; ignore the whole thing. I bend down to start cleaning the mess I made. Literally and hypothetically. The champagne sticking to my hands, the glass making me bleed.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur as the wait staff surround me, trying to clean it up.
I know I can’t clean up the mess around me, so I try to focus on the one Icanclean. Even as the pieces of champagne covered class cut my hands and make them bloody, I’d take that over the confusion and pain that sits in Tyler’s eyes right now.
The secret I clung to so fiercely ever since I left my hometown is now aired out to people I don’t even know and to the one person I didn’t want to know.
Mitchell did this on purpose. He did it to make me crack. To not only make me look bad, but make this whole scene look bad.
He knew Tyler would put me on a pedestal tonight to look like his equal. His partner. A woman who will help make decisions rather than submit to his own. But this, this makes me look like a cheater. A whore. A woman who is a mere mistress. A liar.
Not his equal.
Not his partner.
And he knew that would make Tyler damn near crack, too. He’s been trying to break Tyler. And I’m scared this may have worked.
“Sunny. Sunny.” I hear his voice above me. A calm in this mess of chaos.
Sunny has always been my name. Since the moment my parents took me home. They called me that as soon as they realized I was not a Lauren. It just was never legally changed until I left Ryan. Because I felt like that name, Lauren Sunshine, died with the person I was the day I left him. She needed to be left in the past, which is why I finally legally changed my name to Sunny Mason. I reclaimed myself. And I changed my name in hopes people wouldn’t find a past behind it.
Masoner is my maiden name. I needed something different. Something of my own. Something that he wouldn’t be able to track down. But something that still remained close to my heart without letting him strip me of everything.
I feel Tyler’s hands gently grab underneath my arms to pull me up from the ground. He uses a napkin to staunch my bleeding hands.
“Funny how that works,” Mitchell laughs in his glass and walks away from the mess he created.
Before I can even think, I’m chasing after him, ready to fight him. The anger fills me to the point where it blinds me. I feel Tyler’s hands on me again, curling around my waist, stopping me in my desperate attempt to give Mitchell all the pay back he deserves for all the wrong he’s done in his life.
“Sunny.” Tyler’s shaking his head. “It’s not worth it. Don’t let him have that hold on you. Now, we need to talk.”
I slowly swallow down my anger which now turns to pure nausea at Tyler’s words and tone.
I’m going to be sick.
