Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor: Best Man's Conquest / One Night with the Best Man / The Bridesmaid's Best Man. Michelle Celmer
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Автор: Michelle Celmer
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781474069007
isbn:
Knowing that, accepting it, seemed to lift the weight of the past ten years from her shoulders. She felt free.
Until the meaning of it, the repercussions, dropped on her like a ten-ton block of solid steel. Then she just felt like she wanted to barf.
She’d been basing her life’s work on her own experiences, her own failed marriage. All this time she held herself up on some sort of pedestal. She’d been wronged, she was the victim. The real truth was, she had been just as responsible.
She was a statistic. Just like everyone else.
Even worse, she was a fraud.
Half of what she’d written in her book had turned out to be untrue, and the other half was skewed so far out of proportion it was hardly credible.
How many times, as a form of therapy, had she suggested her patients write down their feelings in a personal journal, or in a letter that they would later shred? To accept and validate their emotions. Which is exactly what she’d done. Then she’d sent them off to a publisher and printed them for the whole world to see.
And the really frightening part was people had actually listened. They had taken the ranting of a hurt, embittered woman and made them sacred.
What had she done?
And how could she justify doing it again?
She had a contract. She’d taken an advance. It was too late to back out now. To say, oops, I was wrong. What I said before, just ignore that. This is what you should really do.
She didn’t even know what this was. What if she never figured it out?
“You look disturbed,” Dillon said, genuine concern in his eyes. “I thought you would be happy.”
“I am,” she lied, because to admit what she was really feeling was a humiliation she just couldn’t bear. And she owed him a huge apology. “I’m sorry for all those things I wrote about you.”
He shrugged. “Like you said, you didn’t write a single thing that wasn’t true.”
“May be, but I had no right to publish it in a book. If I had issues about our marriage, the only person I should have talked to was you or my shrink.”
“I guess we’ve both made our share of mistakes. What do you say we forget what happened in the past and start fresh. Right here, right now.”
He had every right to hold what she’d done against her. Instead, he was willing to forgive and forget. And she would be wise to do the same. “I’d like that.”
He looked at her for a second, just looked at her face, as if he were seeing it for the first time. She wondered what he saw. If he could tell how conflicted she felt.
“You want to get out of here?” he asked.
“And go where?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
He was right, it didn’t matter. As long as she was anywhere but here, torturing herself.
She couldn’t run from the past any longer, and she couldn’t change the fact that her life was in total chaos. But this was a vacation, darn it.
She would worry about fixing this mess after the wedding. Tonight, she just wanted to forget.
It can be very tempting, particularly on lonely nights, to look up your ex. But the more you fall back on your old ways, the harder it will be to truly move on.
—excerpt from The Modern Woman’s Guide to Divorce (And the Joy of Staying Single)
It began as a walk on the beach. The air was warm and a full moon hung low in the sky, lighting their way. They didn’t say much. Just strolled quietly side by side. Then Dillon suggested they walk to the village for a drink, and alcohol in any form sounded pretty good to her.
When they got there they found themselves in the middle of a Mexican carnival. Colorful lanterns and twinkling lights lined the street, and the air was scented with a mouthwatering combination of sugar and spicy fried food.
They snacked on authentic Mexican treats, drank salty margaritas and danced to a live salsa band. The evening was a blur of bodies, bumping and grinding, laughter and fun. Ivy couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt more relaxed and…alive. Hadn’t it always been that way with Dillon? The man excelled at having a good time.
It was well after midnight when they headed back to the villa. They were halfway there before she realized Dillon was holding her hand. She’d obviously been impaired by the alcohol, because she liked the way it felt. She didn’t pull away. Not even when they went inside. If someone saw them that way, they could get the wrong idea. Or may be it was the right idea. Either way it could get very messy and complicated for both of them. But mostly for her.
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