Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
I met his gaze. “You found out about me and Mark.”
He shrugged. “I found out the day it happened.”
“Really?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. “That was weeks ago.”
“And I wanted to show up weeks ago.”
“And yet …”
“I would have,” he said quickly, “but Derek told me he’d kill me.”
I snorted. “That sounds like my brother.”
“He was right. He usually is.”
Derek had been right. I’d needed the time to decompress from the shit with Mark. It was hard enough, seeing Ash now. I would have blown a gasket if he’d shown up right afterward.
“Why are you here?” I demanded.
“Go to lunch with me.”
Lunch. Ash and I had had a standing lunch date for years. Back when I’d been in love with him and he’d been my best friend. Back when things had been shockingly less complicated and so much sadder. Lunch was a death trap.
“No, thank you.”
“Then, dinner,” he pressed.
My heart flipped. Oh, how I would have died for him to ask me to dinner a year ago. I wished that it could have been enough. That any of it could have been enough.
I turned my back on that perfect smile and the little dimple that showed in his cheek. It was much harder to turn him down when I was looking at him. “I can’t. I have a meeting.”
“You have a meeting tonight?”
“I’m not going out with you, Ash.”
His hand came to my arm, and he turned me to face him. “Amelia, I know that we handled this all wrong in the past. That was my fault. Please let me try to make this right.”
I extracted my arm from his touch. The past had proven time and time again that this was never going to work the way I wanted it to. If I said yes today, then I’d never take that meeting. I’d never talk to a developer about opening another boutique in Charleston. I’d never leave my hometown and start over.
So, I shook my head. Ash Talmadge couldn’t derail my plans. Not again.
“I can’t,” I choked out. “Please … just go.”
Ash looked like he wanted to say more. His hand hovered toward me as if he was going to try to change my mind. He could. I was certain of it. Ash had a persuasive flare that was unparalleled. He was a businessman. He got what he was after. I was the current pursuit, and I wanted to give in. I wanted it so badly that it ached. Yet I stood my ground.
He must have seen the resolution harden in my face. Because he finally nodded.
“Good luck with your meeting. Maybe another time.” He straightened his suit and shot me one last searching look before stepping out of my office.
I sank into the chair behind my desk and buried my head in my hands. Today was a nightmare. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d fucked up horribly.
Ash Talmadge was the one person I’d always wanted. I’d wanted him for as long as I could remember. Seventeen-year-old me would have berated me endlessly for denying him a date. That innocent girl had wanted nothing more than for him to notice her. I remembered it like it was yesterday.
But I couldn’t go backward.
Even if I wanted to.
2
Savannah
December 20, 2008
The text message made my eyes sting. I blinked fiercely a dozen times to keep the tears from collecting in my lashes. I’d been in hair and makeup all day. The debutante coordinator would kill me if I had tear tracks down my face. Even happy tears weren’t allowed this close to my debut.
But the text was still there.
we have to break up i don’t care bout this deb stuff sry
My now ex-boyfriend of six months, Brad, who had attended every debutante event with me since the start of the season, was acting like, now, he didn’t care. This was the biggest night of my young life when I would be introduced to high society at the Christmas Cotillion. And now, I had no escort.
“Amelia,” the coordinator, Mary called. “Amelia, we’re still waiting on Brad. He should have been here already.”
I took a steadying breath and reached for my pageant smile. I’d won Miss Savannah only six weeks earlier. I was well on my way to Miss Georgia in the spring. Even if I hadn’t had all the deb practice, I was skilled in holding back my emotions.
“I’m trying to find that out,” I told her carefully.
Mary pursed her lips. “This will look unfavorably on you. Your escort should be prompt.”
As if that were my fault.
“I understand. Let me figure out where he’s at.”
What I meant was, Let me find a suitable replacement for my introduction and the inevitable waltz, which Brad and I had been perfecting for several months. Dick.
I stepped away from the half-dozen other girls in similar white dresses and long white gloves and dialed my brother.