parents?”
“Of course. How could I not? Maura’s like a second mother to me.”
Betrayal stuck to her ribs and pushed at her sternum. “Because she’s my mom. And if you invite her, you know she’ll feel obligated to say yes?”
“She should say yes and so should you. Even Molly-Leigh hopes that you’ll come. She told me to pass along that she’s saved you a seat at our table for the rehearsal dinner, so we can catch up. I’ve missed you.”
Annie closed her eyes to keep the pain from spilling over. The only reason a woman wouldn’t mind her man’s very recent ex-fiancée coming to her retrofitted wedding was if she knew for certain the ex posed no threat. And while Annie had zero romantic interest in Clark now, it still stung to think his love for her had been so superficial that it was insignificant.
It was devastating that a single word summed up six years of her life. The most important romantic relationship she’d ever had was insignificant.
She tried to get angry, tried to picture Emmitt handing her that sticky note, but that one word seemed to take all the steam out of her. She wished she could be the woman to tell Clark to fuck off, but what was the point when her love was nothing more than a passing note in the life of the man she’d thought to marry.
This was why Annie subscribed to the head-down, pick-your-battles method of coping. She was about to turn the big three-oh and still hadn’t found the right battle. But she knew in her heart, this wasn’t it.
“I wish you well, Clark, I really do, but I won’t be at your wedding. And I can’t be your go-to person anymore. It hurts, and as long as you still have the power to hurt me, this won’t work,” she said, leaning forward and resting her forehead on the exam table. “I need some space. Some time away from you, the wedding, my parents, so I can figure things out.”
Time away to figure out why she kept choosing people who didn’t choose her back. To discover how she’d gone from blushing bride to Hartford’s resident PPF.
More important, it was critical for her to understand what major life lesson she still had to learn to avoid ever finding herself in this situation again.
She thought back to her grandparents’ house. To the wedding picture that hung above the fireplace in the living room.
As a child, Annie would wait until everyone was asleep before sneaking into the living room to stare at the photo in wonder. She used to believe it was her grandmother’s dress that captivated her. As she grew older, Annie realized it was the way her grandparents looked at each other that made the risk of getting caught out of bed worth it.
Even through the photograph’s patina of age, the unbreakable connection between the two had been visible. The love, mind-boggling. They were each other’s person.
Clark had never looked at her that way. And, if she were being honest, she hadn’t looked at him that way either. Annie feared she’d fallen victim to the fantasy of what marriage and happily ever after would mean for her.
She was too old to put stock in fantasy and fairy tales.
Especially after she’d accidentally come across Clark’s Insta feed where he was looking at Molly-Leigh with the same adoration as her grandparents in that photo. It proved that a picture could be worth a thousand words.
Or at least as many as Annie needed to close all doors leading to Clark.
She’d closed a lot of doors over her lifetime. Just once, she wanted to be standing on the other side with someone holding her hand when the door slammed shut. Looking at her the way Grandpa Cleve always looked at Grandma Hannah.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment, just listened to the other breathe. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable or weighted down with tension as Annie had imagined it would be. And the ache that was always wrapped around her like a leash, yanking her around at will, was gone. In fact, this was the lightest she’d felt since Clark had dropped to a knee and she’d said yes.
“Can you give me that?” she asked.
“Time? I can give you all the time you need,” he said with sudden pep in his tone. “Just don’t take too long. The wedding is right around the corner and—”
“I already said no.”
“—the invite’s already in the mail.”
“Doesn’t matter. You said you were