Her gaze caught Lothario pulling Scotty’s sweater off the chair again. “Seriously, stop having sex with Scotty’s sweater.”
“That’s not what I wanted you to say.” Scotty rubbed his forehead.
“What do you want me to say?” Marlee asked. “It’s fine?”
“Just say what you’re feeling.”
Staring at him, she really tried to see the man she’d fallen in love with. But that man was gone—he had been for a while—and she wasn’t the woman he’d fallen in love with, either.
She opened her mouth to speak. Then she closed it again.
How was she supposed to be done with the guy who had been there for her since she was twenty? They’d spent a decade together. A decent decade. There were good parts to that decade.
“Scotty, I…”
Her throat started to close up, her chest went tight—and not from an asthma attack. No. This was the panic portion of their breakup.
“You said you loved me more,” she said on a breath. Just last night, he’d said that very thing.
He dropped his gaze to the table, not responding.
They sat together in the silence of their broken relationship.
“I meant it. I just don’t think you love me very much anymore, either,” he finally said.
No, not really, but she figured they’d get back to that. She’d figured that’s what a relationship was—two people who fell in and out of love over and over again. They just hadn’t gotten around to falling back in love yet.
Marlee couldn’t draw a breath. Four hundred guests to notify. The task would be mammoth. She had to call her wedding planner ASAP. Her lungs had seemingly collapsed against her ribs, the pillows of relief deflating to spikes ofholy shit.
Keep it together, Marlee.
“You want a relationship break, or you want to move on?” she asked. Clarification at this point was a good thing.
A relationship break would be like twenty-four hours, and then they’d still have a wedding. The moving on? Totally different. Besides, wasn’t a break just something people said to ease the bandage from the wound of an eventual breakup?
A vein in his forehead pulsed. It always did when he was agitated. Which she did not understand at all at the moment, given that he was the one messing everything up.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
“This isn’t a break,” she said. Scotty was way too decisive for that. “You’re ending us.”
It wasn’t a question, because she knew the answer.
“Yes.” The word hung in the air around Scotty’s lips.
“Seriously, Lothario, leave the sweater alone,” she said firmly. The dog clearly had no idea her life was in a free fall and it was not the time to have a fling with angora. He was getting more action during her breakup than she’d had in weeks.
There seemed to be no feeling in her body. She couldn’t get her limbs to move. Her lips were numb. Her fingertips had no feeling.
This was happening.
What was she going to do about all the filet mignon they’d already purchased for the reception? The cake she’d picked out? The final hair trial with her stylist scheduled for that afternoon? She glanced toward the French doors of their townhome, itching to get inside and start making the calls that needed to happen. And what did that say about the state of their relationship?
“There are four hundred people coming.” She leaned forward, pressing her palms against the glass-topped patio table. “You didn’t think to tell me this yesterday? Or last week? Or last month? Or whenever it hit you that you didn’t want to spend forever with me?” She stabbed her finger at her own chest.
“It’s not that cut and dry.” Scotty fidgeted with his mug. “I had to get my own feelings straight.” He shook his head, then quickly added, “But there’s not anyone else, I promise.”
She stared at him like he’d shown up to their wedding in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
