A Date to Play Fore - Heidi McLaughlin Page 0,24
I love you, I’m glad you were smart enough not to actually get married.” My mother sits beside me and drapes her arm reassuringly around my shoulders.
“Gee, thanks Mom. I’m glad you have such faith in me. I’m not stupid.”
She squeezes me. “I know, honey. I also know how charming and good-looking Greyson Jennings is. I’m sure there’s a gazillion women who don’t know how to tell him no.”
Exactly. I don’t care about his past with other women. We all make mistakes and I know how tempting it is, especially watching it happen to my brother, to have gorgeous women throwing themselves at him. He could never say no. What I can’t forgive with Greyson is what he said about me. It hurts me to the core, but it infuriates me more. To use me as revenge? It’s just plain shitty. I get there’s animosity between Greyson and my brother, but to put me in the middle is low.
“Are you going to talk to him?” my mother asks, her voice soothing.
I shrug. What I really want to do is punch him right in the face. “I don’t know,” I reply.
My mother squeezes my shoulder again and lets me go. “Do you love him?” Turning toward her, I bend my knees and wrap my arms around them. Even I can’t hide my true feelings from her. She can see it in my eyes. “You do, don’t you?”
I stare right into her green eyes which are the same color as mine. “Is it possible to hate and love someone at the same time?”
She giggles. “Of course. I hated your father in the beginning. God knows, he won me over and I fell for the man.”
My dad was angry this morning, but when I told him the wedding was just a joke, he breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily, Bryan didn’t tell him everything. If he did, Greyson probably wouldn’t be able to play golf for a while. Not with a driver stuck up his ass.
“I think I just want to go home,” I confess. “I need to get away from here, from Greyson.”
She nods. “I understand. You can go if you want. Honestly, I think you should talk to him. I saw your wedding picture. The look on Greyson’s face as he stared at you wasn’t malicious. It was of a young man in love. It’s not hard to see.”
That’s what makes everything worse. He never should’ve done what he did. It doesn’t matter how much he hates my brother. “Still,” I say, “I’m not ready. If he’s truly sorry for what he did, he won’t give up. I can’t give in so easily.”
My mother shrugs. “Whatever you want, sweetheart. Something tells me you won’t be able to run away from him.”
Before I can speak, the hotel room phone rings. My mother gets up and answers it. “Hello?” I don’t know who is on the other line, but I can hear the mumbling of their voice. My mother’s eyes instantly find mine and they widen. “Oh yeah? That’s interesting.” She pauses and listens. “Yeah, she’s here with me. I’ll tell her.” Another pause. “I’ll see you in a little bit. Bye-bye.” She hangs up the phone and sighs. “That was your Aunt Martina.” She joins me back on the couch and my heart stops. “She said there’s a young man sitting outside your hotel room door and that he’s been there for hours.”
A huge part of me wants to go to him, but I can’t do it. Taking a deep breath, I stand and grab my car keys off the coffee table. “I’m going home, Mom. Will you tell everyone I’m sorry I had to leave?”
She nods and stands. “I will. If you don’t want to face Greyson right now, I’ll go to your room later and pack up your stuff. I can drop it off at your house when we get back to Charlotte.”
I hug her hard. “Thanks, Mom. I just need to get out of here.”
“Go. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
With Greyson waiting in the hall by my room, I don’t have to worry about him stopping me in the lobby or the parking lot. It’s now or never. Luckily, my parents’ room isn’t on the same floor as mine. I hurry down the hall to the elevator, pressing the button over and over until the door opens. All I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears. I’ve never been the type to run away,