“Hi,” I managed, shifting my grip on my coffee to keep it from dropping straight out of my suddenly numb fingers.
Jane barely slowed down until she was right in front of me. “Please tell me you’re attending the gala?”
“Yes,” I said, absolutely on autopilot. “I received the invitation. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I’ve heard it’s shaping up to be the event of the year.”
While I was still searching for an excuse to politely turn down the exclusive invitation, I felt something break deep inside of me. I didn’t really know what triggered it, but it was like every wall I’d carefully, meticulously built around my heart just shattered under their welcoming smiles.
Right there on the street. In front of the Westwood wives.
My throat tightened so fast it hurt. My vision blurred before I could stop it. Deep down, I suspected that the trigger had simply been them. Three women who’d recently thrown caution to the wind and had each fallen in love with her respective Westwood, and now, each of them was living her happily ever after.
I could’ve had that too. If I wasn’t so broken.
“Oh,” Jane said softly when the first sob tore through me.
“Oh no,” Eliza murmured under her breath. “Where’s the car?”
“I’m fine,” I tried, but the lie was so obvious, it was almost embarrassing. I was very much not fine and the fact that my voice cracked only made it that much more obvious. “I’m so sorry, I don’t?—”
“No apologies necessary,” Jane cut in, reaching for me. “Eliza is right, though. We’re not doing this on the street. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”
Before I could protest, they were moving. Collectively. With me right at their center like they were my protective unit. I was guided—stuffed—into the back of a sleek black car, my latte disappearing from my hand before it was passed back as the door shut behind us.
“Go,” Jane told the driver without missing a beat. “Just drive.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A moment later, the wheels were turning, all of us piled into the back, the layout more like a limousine than a car. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I supposed. But my brain felt like a void.
It was all I could do, trying to process how my life had spiraled from getting coffee to being kidnapped by the Westwood women in under sixty seconds. Eliza sat beside me, her hand gently finding mine and giving my fingers a light squeeze.
“You’re okay,” she said quietly. “You’re safe now. I’ve always found the American press rather invasive on my visits here and it’s much worse for Jesse, isn’t it?”
With those words, I broke. These girls didn’t owe me anything. They barely even knew me but they’d acted without hesitation, closing ranks around me as if I belonged.
“I’m in love with him,” I blurted, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.
“Well, yes,” Jane said lightly. “We gathered that. Didn’t you and I have this talk just the other day?”
“Yes, but I fucked it up,” I admitted, my voice shaking. “I fucked it up completely and I feel like such a stubborn fool for it.”
“Tell us what happened,” Kate said from her seat next to Jane, calm but firm. “We might be able to help you, but we can’t do that if we don’t know what’s going on.”
“What happened with my ex-fiancé messed me up more than I realized,” I started, staring down at my hands and waiting for the sobs to subside enough that I could speak coherently. “After everything that happened, I thought I was doing myself a favor by keeping Jesse at arm’s length, but all I managed to do was ruin it.”
Eliza squeezed my hand again. “Things are rarely as hopeless as they seem.”
“Maybe, but I just don’t know.” I let out a shaky breath. “I’ve never chosen anything for myself before I moved to Chicago. Everything I did was always what was expected and safe, but then with Jesse…” Trailing off, I wracked my brain for the right words to describe the situation, but when I couldn’t find them, I just said it straight. “I thought he only needed me for show. I really thought this was all just convenient, but he told me he was in love with me and he stole back my dog. From another country.”
“To be fair, that does sound like him,” Eliza murmured. “Not the falling in love bit, though. Definitely not that part, but the international dog theft? That’s right up his alley.”
A weak laugh escaped me even as tears slid down my cheeks. “I still pushed him away. I was so afraid of getting hurt that I ended up breaking the heart of the one man who’s ever truly loved me for me.”
Jane reached for her phone, showing us that she needed a moment as she pressed dial and pushed it against her ear.“Hello? Yes, this is Jane Westwood. I need that gown moved up to today. No, not tomorrow. Now. I’ll send the details.”
As she kept making arrangements I didn’t quite understand, Kate huffed out a quiet breath and turned to me. “This can be fixed, Jacqueline. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that. I’m not exactly what your family is used to, so even if Jesse will somehow forgive me?—”
