Mr. Shelby looked at me. “You may want to check your face. It seems your mascara is running.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, excuse me for crying. This is very difficult for me.”
“That’s understandable,” he said softly, sounding surprisingly human and handing me a tissue.
I pulled out my compact and stared in the little round mirror at my bloodshot hazel eyes. I looked so tired and beat. I used the tissue to wipe the blackish-gray rivers from my cheeks and to touch up my raccoon eyes with the Samsonites under them, then fixed the long brown strands of hair that had insisted on falling out of my French braid. Fortunately, my clothing had stayed pretty much intact; I’d opted for a long-sleeved, covered placket blouse tucked neatly into fashionable black slacks.
A knock on the door made me glance up, eager to see who we’d been waiting for.
“Come in,” the lawyer said.
When the heavy walnut door creaked open, my jaw dropped. There, standing before me, was my high school sweetheart, though he somehow looked like a stranger. Speechless, I stared at his beautiful face. His rain-soaked black locks fell around his shoulders in silken ebony waves. My eyes slid up his towering body, gliding over his high cheekbones and the dark stubble shading his sharp jaw.
I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. My breath froze in my throat, and my stomach clenched. The last time I’d seen the man was when he’d stood me up on my wedding day, five years prior. Now, all that loneliness rushed right to my head again, leaving me lightheaded. All over again, I felt like that broken girl in the fluffy white gown, shooing guests away from the ceremony that was not meant to be. I had no idea how to react to such an unexpected intrusion. I couldn’t breathe, and the attorney’s office seemed to suddenly grow smaller and hotter.
He just stood there, staring at me with those baby blues, those eyes I thought I’d spend the rest of my life getting lost in. He was casually dressed in a white T-shirt that stretched over his broad shoulders and tucked into a tight pair of jeans. He was all grown up, far more muscular than the last time I’d seen him. He was more manly, more masculine, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to punch him right in the jaw, just to make him feel the pain I’d felt on the most horrible day of my life. I’d never been more humiliated, shocked, and devastated. It had felt like a bunch of Romans had taken a battering ram and hit my stomach a thousand times. When he’d run away like a coward, when he’d abandoned me, he had, quite literally, knocked the wind right out of me.
We’d spent days, hours, minutes, and countless seconds talking about our new life together, and it was all supposed to be perfect. We’d planned the perfect wedding and the perfect reception. I’d even found the perfect wedding gown, and Nadia had pinned up my hair and perfectly draped my dangling curls around my tiara. We were supposed to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, but he had prevented that. I would never forget those questions that ran across my mind for months after that dreadful, embarrassing, heartbreaking day: Why wasn’t I good enough? Pretty enough? Smart enough? Sexy enough? What’s wrong with me? Aren’t I enough of a woman? I had collapsed into my mother’s arms, sobbing, and the memory of that stung all the more now that she was gone.
“Ashly,” Jake softly said.
As anger flooded through me, I lunged at him and slapped him in the face. “You! You betrayed my love and trust. You’re nothing but a spineless, gutless, pathetic coward, Jake! You dumped me, your fiancée, and didn’t even bother to call to check on me or see how I was,” I said sternly, hoping my slap had stung him as much as his betrayal had stung me.
His frown deepened. “I apologize. Truly. From the bottom of my heart.”
I just stared at him in disgust.
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.”
“Yeah, you could say that. My mother hated you after what you did to me, so I don’t see why she’d leave you anything, and I couldn’t blame her, you lying son-of-a—”
“Look, I’ve got no idea what I’m doing here either. I’m just as confused as you are,” he said, cutting me off.
“If you’ll have a seat, Mr. Connors,” the attorney said, “we’ll get started.”
My heart rate doubled, then tripled, until I thought might just burst out of my chest. Seeing him again was too much, too painful. Nausea rose from the pit of my stomach. I decided that if I had to vomit, I’d aim for Jake’s shoes. I stood and reached for my purse. “No, I don’t think I can do this. Sorry.”
“Uh…would you like to reschedule?” Mr. Shelby asked.
“I think that would be best,” I said, my voice cracking like an adolescent boy’s.
As I started to walk to the door, Jake gently reached for my arm, and I shuddered from his touch. I hated that he could still make me feel that way, especially since I despised the man.
“Please…” he begged.
“I just can’t,” I said, throwing those dreadful words back at him, the three little words he’d spat at me on our would-have-been wedding day, instead of the “I love you” he should have said.
“I’d like to see what your mom wanted to say to me.”
“So let me get this straight. You’ve gone and screwed up your life, and now you’re broke, so you’re hoping my dead mother left you some expensive vase that you can pawn the second you get your hands on it?”
“Haven’t lost that sarcastic edge, have you?” he said.
“I’ll tell you one thing I have lost.”
He cocked a brow, as if daring me to say it.
“I’ve entirely lost my desire to date pretty bad boys from the wrong side of town.”