by Nicola Marsh
Not anymore.
The pressure in his chest expanded, compressing every organ until he could hardly breathe. Had he been naive in not thinking it would come to this? That his astute grandmother wouldn’t see through him, like she had his entire life? That she wouldn’t call him out on it?
But that’s the thing; Izzy should’ve confronted him, not Harper. He loved his grandmother more than life itself, but what she’d done was unforgivable. Harper didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of Izzy’s blunt home truths; his fiancée didn’t deserve to be treated that way.
Ex-fiancée.
“Fuck,” he muttered, striding toward the table where he shoved her makeup and robe into her bag and zipped it up, trying not to remember sliding the robe off her, the silkiness of her skin beneath it, burying himself in her . . .
He couldn’t have this reminder of her in his place, taunting him, a testament to what a prick he’d been. It wasn’t like he’d get any sleep tonight anyway. So he grabbed the bag and headed back out, knowing when he got to Harper’s house he couldn’t go in like he yearned to do and try to convince her he’d never meant to hurt her, that he did care for her, that it was worth risking a second chance.
He wouldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t give her false hope, because one thing she’d said had struck home.
Do you know you’ve never said you love me?
He thought he’d made his feelings clear. He thought she understood he’d never opened up to another woman.
But he knew he’d been lying to himself, the part of him hell-bent on self-preservation avoiding making the ultimate declaration of commitment.
He’d never said those words to his mom before she died, and that’s a tragedy he had to live with every fucking day.
Maybe he was incapable of verbalizing his love? Because he did love. He’d loved his mom, he just hadn’t said it in so many words, and then she’d died in his arms and he still hadn’t said it. He loved Izzy, but he rarely spelled it out.
And he loved Harper.
The realization slammed into him and he pulled over fast, earning a honk from the driver behind him.
The engagement party had freaked him out, then Harper had come at him with those accusations and . . . he’d done nothing. He’d sat in this very seat like a dummy, making her think she’d never been anything more than an adjunct to making his grandmother happy.
He should’ve fought harder.
He should’ve tried to convince her he could love, that he did love her.
Instead, he’d talked himself out of it, convinced himself he only cared about her, that it was better this way because he’d never wanted to get married in the first place.
And he’d lost her.
Harper wouldn’t want to see him now, of that he was certain. So he’d drop off her bag, give her some time, and head to the one place that would ground him.
With a frustrated thump on the steering wheel, he pulled back onto the road and drove the remaining twenty minutes to Ashwood. He saw her car in the drive when he parked outside her house, but the front rooms were dark. Had she gone to bed? Was she taking a bath to wash away all traces of him? Did she expect him to come after her and wanted to show she wouldn’t answer the door?
It didn’t matter; he wouldn’t be bothering her regardless. She deserved better than some jerk who didn’t have a fucking clue what he really wanted trying to convince her she’d made a mistake and they should give their relationship another go.
He snatched her bag from the seat and stomped to her front door, where he dumped it. He’d text her after he left so they wouldn’t have a chance of running into each other. He’d made it halfway down the drive when a car swerved into it, almost running him down. It screeched to a stop and the engine had barely shut off before the door flew open and Harper’s mom got out, glaring at him like she wished she’d flattened him.
“What’s happened? Why aren’t you with Harper? She needs you right now. She sounded distraught . . .” Lydia trailed off, and he saw the exact moment concern morphed into anger in her eyes.
“You’re the reason she’s upset.”
A statement, not a question, and he gave the slightest of nods.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
Lydia slammed the car door and advanced toward him, her arms rigid by her sides, her hands clenched into fists like she wanted to slug him. “I thought your grandmother must’ve upset her, but you wouldn’t be out here unless you’ve done something to upset my daughter too.”
Manny didn’t want to have this conversation, but if it made it easier on Harper he’d take the heat off her, because he knew once Lydia made it inside she’d start interrogating, and that’s the last thing Harper needed.
“We broke up,” he said, hating how each word drove a stake through his heart.
Lydia gasped, shock making her stagger a step back. “What? I thought you might’ve had an argument . . .”
“No, it’s more than that. Harper chose to end our engagement, and I respect her decision.”
He refrained from saying, You should too, because it wasn’t his place. He had no say in Harper’s family, not anymore, and they’d hate him as much as she did when they discovered the truth shortly.
Lydia shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “I’ll repeat my earlier question. What did you do?”
More a case of what he didn’t do—convince Harper what they had was the real deal despite the brevity of their relationship, show her how much she meant to him, tell her he loved her—but it was too late for any of that.
“I think this is a discussion you need to have with Harper.”
“I will, but I want to hear it from you first.” Lydia jabbed a finger in his direction. “I had my doubts about you from the start, Mr. Too Good To Be True, but I quashed them because I’ve never seen Harper so happy. I wanted to believe in the fairy tale because she did. And I respected her decision because you seemed like a stand-up guy.” She jabbed her finger again, her eyes glowing with resentment. “But you’re nothing but a liar, because you conned my daughter into falling for you. I have no idea why you proposed so quickly. Maybe this is what you do, your MO, using women for goodness knows what reason.”
Lydia sucked in a breath and drew herself up, formidable in her fury. “But I’m here to tell you Harper isn’t like other women. She’s special and far too good for the likes of you. So get the hell away from my daughter.”
Manny wanted to make a stand. To convince Lydia he wasn’t the bastard she thought he was. But he had no right to try and convince her of that, when he agreed with her opinion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the only thing he could say as he walked away, her glare boring into his back until he got in his car and waited for her to reverse out of the drive so he could escape.
64
Harper heard her mother’s tires squeal in her driveway. Considering her dad often teased Lydia about driving like a ninety-year-old, her mom must really be concerned about her, so she peeked out the blinds in the lounge room.
To see her mom in a standoff with Manny.
Harper shrunk back from the blinds instantly; stupid, considering Manny was facing her mom and couldn’t see her. She hated that her first reaction was to recoil from him, and the tears she’d shed during and after her mom’s call prickled her eyes again.
She didn’t want to shy away from Manny.
She wanted to run to him and bury herself in his arms and forget everything.
Opening the door quietly, the first thing she saw was her overnight bag on the mat; the second, Lydia stabbing her finger at Manny. Harper couldn’t hear what they were saying, though it looked like her mom was doing all the talking. When Manny walked back to his car her mom watched him, then got back in hers and reversed so he could leave, before pulling back into the drive, parking, and heading for the house.
Lyd
ia didn’t know the half of it, and Harper doubted Manny would’ve told her, but by the looks of it, her mom had given him an earful anyway.
Harper opened the door wider, picked up her bag, and waited for her mom, who took one look at her and flew across the few remaining feet separating them.
“Darling, I’m so sorry.” Lydia enveloped her in a hug, and for the second time in an hour Harper burst into tears. “It’s okay, sweetheart, cry it out, then forget that bastard.”
Lydia never swore, so her mom must know they’d broken up. Harper should’ve known Manny would own up to it. He was that kind of guy.
What kind of guy is that? her conscience screamed. The kind of guy to dupe you into believing a vacation fling meant more? The kind of guy to ingratiate his way into your life, meet your parents, hang out with your friends, when his proposal was nothing but a sham? The kind of guy who thought marriage was some warped way to gain kudos with his grandmother?
Maybe her mom coming over now wasn’t the best thing. Rehashing what had happened would only exacerbate her pain, and she wanted to forget, not relive, the nightmare of this evening.
But Lydia wouldn’t leave without discovering exactly what had happened and voicing her strong opinion, so Harper wriggled out of her embrace. “I’ve got gin and Tim Tams.”
“Make it tea. I have to drive home, unless you want me to stay?”
The last thing Harper wanted was her mom hovering over her all night and then facing her pity in the morning, so she said, “Thanks, Mom, but I’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t sound it on the phone, and you don’t look it.”
Harper flinched. After her crying jag, she’d gone to the bathroom to wash her face, seen what a mess she looked with streaked mascara, and removed her makeup, so this was the first time Lydia had seen her vitiligo patches.
Realizing her faux pas, Lydia touched Harper’s cheek. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant you’ve been crying.” Her mom’s thumb brushed the outer corner of a patch high on her cheekbone. “I wish you’d told me about what you’ve been going through.”
“I’m dealing with it, Mom,” Harper said, sidestepping so her mom’s hand fell, not in the mood for recriminations over something she couldn’t change. “Now let’s go have that tea.”
Lydia followed her into the kitchen and gently pushed her into a seat at the table, before picking up the gin bottle next to the half-demolished first packet of Tim Tams. “Maybe a small G&T wouldn’t hurt?”
Harper nodded and reached for another chocolate rectangular slice of comfort. “I saw you ran into Manny.”
“I should’ve run him over,” Lydia muttered, dumping ice cubes into two glasses before sloshing gin over them and adding tonic. “He said you’d broken up. That you ended the engagement.”
“Yeah, it was the only option.”
“Why?”
“Because he only proposed to make his grandmother happy.”
Harper took the glass her mother held out and sipped the gin, before taking three big slurps. G&Ts didn’t exactly compliment chocolate, but she’d take all the comfort she could get right now.
“I’m confused,” Lydia said, sitting and placing her glass on the table, before reaching for a Tim Tam. Her mom had her priorities right. Chocolate before alcohol. “I got the impression the old lady didn’t like you, so why would Manny marrying you make her happy?”
“Because it’s her dying wish or some such crap and he thought popping the question before she went in for her surgery might make her fight harder.”
Lydia’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”
“Pathetic, huh?”
Lydia chomped down on the Tim Tam, demolishing half in one bite.
“His grandmother told me all about it after everyone left. How unsuited we are, how he only proposed because he thought that’s what she wanted, how I needed to do the right thing and end it.”
Harper took another slug of gin to ease the tightening of her throat from articulating exactly how little she meant to Manny. “So I confronted him, asked him if it was true, and he confirmed it.”
Lydia laid the other half of the Tim Tam down, her eyes filled with sorrow. “I had my doubts about the speed of your engagement, but he seemed like a decent guy, a man worthy of you.”
“Turns out he’s a jerk. Who knew?”
Harper’s forced laugh sounded hollow and way too sad, and Lydia dragged her chair around the table so they were almost knee to knee. “I’m just as angry at him as you are, sweetie, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a minute. I saw the way Manny looked at you, and it’s pretty hard to fake that depth of caring.” Lydia hesitated, took a sip of her drink, before continuing. “Colin never looked at you like that, and I never saw you glow around him the way you did with Manny. So although his grandmother is an interfering cow, are you sure there’s not more to this?”
Harper hated the flare of hope her mom’s words elicited. “What more can there be? If he loved me, he would’ve fought for me. He would’ve tried to convince me I meant more to him than some weird pawn in his dumbass game to impress his gran.”
He would’ve said he loved me, she thought, but Harper didn’t want to tell her mother every single detail of her heartbreak.
“I don’t want to make this harder for you, but the man I confronted in your yard looked shattered. And he wouldn’t look like that if you’d been nothing more than some ploy to help that dragon recover.”
“Whose side are you on?” Harper shoved the Tim Tam packet toward her mother. “Here. Have a few more of these. The chocolate will make you see sense.”
“Have the five you’ve eaten helped you see sense?”
Harper tipped the rest of her drink down her throat. “From where I’m sitting, things are looking pretty damn clear, Mom. I fell for a charmer who proposed for all the wrong reasons. I made the mistake of loving him, and I’ll have to deal with that the best I can . . .”
“Oh, sweetie.” Lydia reached out to hug her again, but Harper was done with the tears and she held her off.
“I really appreciate you coming over, Mom, but I think I need to be alone to wallow for a while, you know?”
“I do know, considering I wallowed way too much after I kicked your father out of the house. But the thing about wallowing is, you eventually have to face up to facts, and I don’t want you making the same mistake I did.”
“What mistake?”
“I took too long to come to my senses, but it was different for me because I was married to your father and he never let me forget that. But in your case, if you let Manny go too easily, I’m afraid he’ll move on and you’ll lose him forever.”
Harper shook her head, unsure if it was the gin or the sugar overload clogging her brain. “But don’t you hate him? Isn’t that what you want?”
“What I want is for you to be happy, and I know you can’t see a way out of this right now, but as your mother I owe it to you to try and think logically, not emotionally.”
Harper needed another G&T, but she slumped in her chair, exhausted to her bones. The faster her mom got whatever she had to say off her chest, the faster she’d leave.
“If Manny would go to such lengths out of worry for his grandmother, he must love her a lot.”
“Not helping, Mom,” Harper muttered, folding her arms.
“From what you said, his father died young, his mom died fifteen years ago, and his gran is the only family he has. So in a way it’s admirable he’d go so far for her. It also means he’s had no male influence in his life, he’s surrounded by loss in his job every single day, and perhaps he felt helpless when faced with losing Isadora too?”
Lydia shook her head. “Proposing may not have been the smartest thing he did, but it came from a good place, love and loyalty to the only woman in his life until now.” She touched Harper’s arm. �
��Because I think he loves you too, sweetie, and he has a hard time expressing real emotion. He got everything jumbled up, wanting to prove his love for his grandmother, but sacrificing his love for you in the process by not telling you the truth.”
“Mom, you’ve been watching too much Dr. Phil.”
Hearing her mother spouting a bunch of psychobabble made Harper’s head hurt. Or that could be the gin on a stomach devoid of anything but chocolate.
“The other thing is, I think you’ll kick yourself later once you realize you let an old woman dictate what you should do.” Lydia drew her shoulders back. “I raised a strong woman, and my daughter wouldn’t let anyone tell her what she should do. She’d believe in herself and fight for what she wanted rather than throw in the towel.”
Harper loved her mom’s passionate support, but what would be the point of fighting for a man who didn’t want her enough?
“I really thought you’d be on my side.”
“Honey, your father and I are always on your side. And the sensible thing to do would be for me to lecture you against Manny, to call him every unsavory name rattling around my head, and to whisk you away for a weeklong spa retreat to help you get over him.” Lydia pressed a hand to her chest. “But the heart knows what the heart knows. And I think deep in your heart, you love Manny, and all I want is for you to be happy.”
Hating that her mother was right, Harper huffed. “Don’t you want to castrate him just a little?”
“He only needs a little castration? In that case, honey, forget everything I said and find yourself a man to satisfy you.”
“Mom!”
Lydia laughed, a blush staining her cheeks. “Hey, at least I made you smile.”
“So that’s what that weird upward thing my lips are doing is.”
Lydia cupped her cheek. “I love you, your father and I both do. So maybe sleep on it tonight, and I promise you’ll have a clearer head in the morning.”
