A knock sounded on her door and her sister’s voice called through. Dang, she thought she might have some privacy, at least for a little while. Guess not. She closed the stickers into her book, ran to the living room and stuffed it under the seat cushion of the couch. No need to let Brooke see it. She’d get a lecture.
“Open the door,” Brooke said. She knocked again. Pounded, really. Sheesh. Panties in a wad, much?
“Just a second.” Remi padded across her floor in her bunny slippers, grabbed her mug, then went to the door and slid the chain lock.
Brooke burst in. “Remi? What are you doing?”
“Making cocoa. Want some?” She lifted her mug.
“No. It’s a million degrees out. What makes you think I want hot cocoa?” Brooke enveloped her in a hug. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Remi said, backing away from her older sister. Brooke was everything that Remi was not. Tall, fashionable, and suave. She could have been a runway model had they grown up in New York or Los Angeles, instead of the middle of Iowa. She turned every man’s head as she walked by. Some women just knew how to be beautiful. Remi didn’t get those genes.
“Fine? Aren’t we going to talk about what happened today?” Brooke looked at her with pity in her eyes.
Remi shrugged. “I changed my mind. That’s all.” She padded over to her overstuffed chair and plopped down.
“I know.” Brooke folded her arms. “Everyone in the chapel heard you yell it as you bolted down the aisle.”
“I didn’t yell. I announced.”
She frowned. “Don’t you think once you’re in your wedding dress and standing in front of the minister that it’s probably not a good time to change your mind?”
Remi stirred her chocolate. All the marshmallows were now melted foam on top. “It’s better than after the I do,” she mumbled.
Brooke’s gaze softened and she sat on the couch. “What happened?”
Remi’s gaze fell to the lump beside her sister that hid her crush book. “Nothing happened.”
“What do you mean? You were ready to marry Tavon yesterday. What made you change your mind today?”
She lifted her mug to her lips, letting the hot liquid pass over her tongue. Brooke wouldn’t understand. Tavon was a nice guy. He was polite and punctual. He brushed his teeth three times a day, and put money into a retirement fund each month. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Tavon except…he wasn’t Colton.
A large sigh came from Brooke. “Come on. Tell me.”
“I don’t love him.”
Brooke made a face. “You loved him yesterday.”
Ugh. Her sister was going to make her say it. Remi shook her head and stared down at her lap. “Not really.”
“What? Why would you say that? You dated him for a year and a half. You said yes when he asked you to marry him. What did you do all that for if you didn’t love him?”
Remi traced the outline of Hogwarts castle on her mug with her index finger. “I—I wanted to love him. I tried. But it never really took.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know. He just never gave me that feeling. You know. He was nice. But there were no sparks.”
“And you’re just saying something now?” Brooke grunted and slapped the seat cushion. Her crush book made a crinkling noise and Remi cringed. Luckily, her sister didn’t notice.
“I thought maybe things would take off if we got more serious.”
“Honey,” Brooke said, giving her a flat look. “You should have told me. I feel like I pushed you into saying yes to him.”
“A little.” Her sister had been a bit aggressive about the whole dating and marrying thing. But that was part of Brooke’s charming personality.
“Now what are you going to do?”
“Drown my sorrows in hot chocolate.” She took a long swig of the cooling liquid.
“Are you really sure it’s over with Tavon?”
Remi nodded. They’d already talked. Tavon wasn’t even that broken up about it. Maybe he had continued to date her like he continued to change the oil in his car. And after dating for so long, you get married. It was just what people did. “I’m sure.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning over. Her super-secret, super embarrassing crush book made another noise. Great. There was no way she didn’t hear that. Brooke lifted the cushion and pulled out the scrapbook. “What is this?”
Remi lunged for it, but Brooke held it high, and since Brooke got all the tall genes, Remi couldn’t grab it. “Give it.”
“No.”
Remi huffed and wiped at her Five Nights at Freddy’s t-shirt. “You made me spill my hot chocolate.”
Disgust wrinkled Brooke’s nose. “That’s okay. Looks like you were collecting stains on there anyway.”
In defense of her shirt, it was amazingly comfortable. The kind that you slipped into when all you want to do is curl up with a good book and forget life. So what if it had a few stains. They didn’t make the shirt any less comfortable.
Brooke flipped through Remi’s crush book, and heat crept up Remi’s ears. “It’s nothing,” Remi blurted out.
“Oh, it’s something all right.” Her sister gave her a sidelong glance. “Colton?” She kept flipping, a frown growing on her face. “This is some homage.”
“Just give it.”
Brooke’s gaze bounced from Remi to the book and back again. “This doesn’t have anything to do with what happened today, does it?”
A scoff flew from her throat, and Remi sank back down into her chair. She wasn’t going to acknowledge Brooke’s stupid question. It was incredibly unlikely that Remi would ever see Colton again. He was a famous movie star now. She was a low-rung computer programmer who worked from home.
“Oh, sweetie.” Brooke sat down and set the scrapbook on the seat next to her. “You’re still in love with him?”
Well, of course. He was her first crush. He’d been there for her during the worst time of her life. He was kind, and funny, and always knew what to do to cheer her up. And now he was a movie star. How could she not be in love with him?
Instead of saying any of that, Remi just scoffed again, but she couldn’t help the tickle in her throat, nor the embarrassing way her eyes teared up.
“Have you talked to him?”
Remi about swallowed her tongue. “Talked to him? Are you kidding me?”
A look of compassion crossed Brooke’s features. “I thought you maybe still kept in touch.”
She waved a hand. “No. He’s a big-time actor now.”
“Remi,” Brooke said, staring at her. “You just left your fiancé at the altar because you’re still in love with Colton. You have to face it. You have a major hang-up. It’s not going to get better. You have to purge him from your system.”
“Purge him?”
“Yes. You have to talk to him. You need to come to realize that he’s no longer the person you think you’re in love with. You have to figure out that he’s changed and you’ve changed. Things are different now.”
“Well, I don’t know how to do that. I can’t call information and get his number.” She rolled her eyes. The suggestion was ridiculous. Not to mention, if she ever did speak to Colton again she’d die of embarrassment because of what happened the last time she saw him.
Brooke crossed her legs and pulled out her phone. “I know what to do.”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“I’m calling Jules.”
Remi jumped up and tried to grab Brooke’s phone, but once again her genetics failed her as Brooke stood tall, extending her hand up in the air. “Don’t you dare,” Remi said.
“Jules will know how to get in touch with her brother.”
Remi gave up trying to get her sister’s phone and decided that abject mortification was best. She plopped down on her chair, set her Harry Potter mug on the end table and buried her face in her hands. “No, no, no,” she said on repeat as her sister began talking to Jules.
It wasn’t that Jules was a terrible person. She wasn’t. Brooke was friends with her in high school. Maybe they even hung out still, she wasn’t sure. It was just that Remi didn’t really want to get back in touch with Colton. Not after all that happened. She’d much rather bury herself in blankets and just dream about what might have been had Colton even once acknowledged Remi was a woman, and not thought of her as just one of the guys.
“Thanks, bye.” Brooke hung up the phone, and Remi jerked her head up. She hadn’t even heard what her sister had said. Why had she zoned out? She stared at her sister, expectantly.
“Jules won’t give out his number. She said he’d kill her if she did. But she did tell me where he and her father are for the next week, and you’re never going to believe it.”
A funny feeling crept into her chest. “Where?”
Brooke clapped and pointed at Remi. “The Billionaire Club.”
Wait…what? The resort she and Tavon were supposed to fly to tomorrow, for their honeymoon? She sat there in a stupor.
“Don’t you see? This is fate. You have to go and talk with Colton. Either you’ll reconnect and it will be great, or you’ll find out that neither of you are the same people, and you can finally stop this obsessing.”
Remi barely heard her sister over the sound of her humiliation roaring in her ears. “I can’t. Tavon was supposed to go with me.”
“Tavon didn’t even want to go on a honeymoon. What did he say it was? A waste of money? You’re the one who paid for it all, anyway. Right?”
“You want me to go on my honeymoon…alone?”
Brooke paused, then shook her head. “I’ll go with you. It’s all set up. Why not go?”
Because she’d rather experience death by spontaneous combustion than run into Colton at some fancy resort that was meant to be her honeymoon destination. “I can think of a million reasons,” she said, her voice flat.
“Come on. You’re already packed. It’s all paid for. And I just finished that huge advertising campaign. I’m due for some time off.” Brooke grinned. “Hey, maybe I’ll meet someone. You never know.”
She knew. Brooke always met someone. It was her superpower. Meeting guys who fell all over her. Remi, on the other hand, would either strike out completely and not even get to see Colton, or worse, she’d see him and have a repeat of what happened five years ago, when she’d finally gotten up the courage and decided to confess her feelings to him.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Brooke stood and squared her shoulders. “Get up. We’re doing this. You never know. Maybe you and Colton are meant to be together.”
Remi should have ignored her sister. She shouldn’t have let those words worm their way into her brain and make a nest there. But a small part of her actually hoped that things might turn out differently this time. That things might go her way. And that was her first mistake.
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About the Author
Victorine and her husband live in Nebraska with their four children and two cats. She loves all things romance, and is currently addicted to Korean Dramas, which are super swoony and romantic. (She highly recommends Crash Landing on You on Netflix.)
When she’s not writing, she’s designing book covers for authors or making something with her extensive yarn collection.
A Deception of Massive Proportion: A Romantic Comedy (The Billionaire Club Book 3) Page 17
