green kid anymore. And you can tell when someone really loves you.”
Her eyes widened.
He said, “But you deserve to see if he’ll choose you this time. I think you need that.”
She stood speechless as he reached out and pushed her hair off her face. “Thank you, Mackenzie. For helping me with the press. For letting me fall in love with you. A man should do it at least once in his life.”
She was still staring at him when he walked away. When he got in his car and drove away.
Cassandra found her crying into a pint of ice cream. “That bad, huh?”
Mackenzie nodded.
“He said he loves you.”
Mackenzie nodded and scrunched up her face again.
“And you love him.”
Noisy sobs answered her and Cassandra let Mackenzie cry for a few minutes before she said, “I’m not seeing the problem here.”
“He’s Ethan Howell O’Connor. That’s the problem.”
Cassandra nodded. “Yep, yep. Ethan Howell O’Connor. Handsome, rich, charming. Oh yeah, and he’s already said that he loves you. God, what an ass.”
Mackenzie took a big bite of ice cream.
Cassandra said, “He’s rich. Is that the dealbreaker?”
Mackenzie sniffed. “That sounds stupid to say.”
“Yes, it does. It sounds very stupid. He’s handsome. Is that the dealbreaker?”
“Well, it’s not ideal. I mean I don’t want him looking like a dog, but he’s. . . He walks into a room and women orgasm. They throw themselves at him. Every day I watch women stare at him with a little look on their face that says ‘I just came. Just a little bit.’ I had to throw some chick out of the elevator. Some cougar was waiting for him outside the restroom.”
“So, that’s the dealbreaker.”
Mackenzie growled. “No.”
“‘Cause you can handle that, right?”
“Yes.”
“So? What else?”
“His mother hates me.”
Cassandra snorted. “Oh, yeah. Because that hasn’t happened to millions of women over the centuries. I’m not even going to ask because that’s not a dealbreaker. Move to a different city. What else?”
Mackenzie shrugged her shoulders.
“So what you’re telling me is that there are things you don’t like, but no dealbreakers.”
“He’s not the dealbreaker. I am.”
“I know dealbreakers and you aren’t it.” Cassandra took her hand and held it. “Trust me when I say there is not always a happy ending. I have lots of experience in unhappy endings. Lots of experience in hopeless endings. And I know this: when there’s a chance at finding the real deal, you have to grab for it. You have to walk to the end of the pier and jump off, knowing full well that you may end up broken on the rocks below. That’s a life well lived. Ending up broken on the rocks because you tried. Not still standing on the pier, afraid.”
Mackenzie whispered, “I’ve crawled off those rocks before. I don’t think I can do it again.”
“You won’t have to. He’ll catch you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“I will pick you up, dust you off, and help you beat his beautiful face to smithereens.”
Mackenzie sniffed. “You’d do that for me?”
Cassandra nodded. “It would hurt, but I’d do it.”
Mackenzie looked at the plane ticket. “He said I would know when someone really loved me.”
“Do you think he really loves you?”
Mackenzie took a deep breath, remembering when he’d said it, the hopeless light in his eyes because he knew she wouldn’t say it back. He’d been right. She couldn’t believe him, wouldn’t let herself love him for real. Wouldn’t play with everything she had.
She looked up at Cassandra with a terrified look on her face and Cassandra smiled. “I don’t look good in purple. Remember that for the bridesmaid’s dress. It makes me look like a zombie bride.”
“Is that a thing?”
“It is. And trust me, you don’t want to see it.”
Two days later, Mackenzie stood outside an old villa on the outskirts of an old village in Spain. Vines crept up the side of the house and a pink tricycle was parked forgotten on a patch of grass. She stared at the house for a long time until the door was opened by an extremely pregnant woman. The woman stared at her, not smiling, and finally said, “Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to come in?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
The woman snorted, shutting the door behind her, and waddled out to stand beside her.
“Think quickly. You’ve got about two minutes before he comes out here yelling at me to get back inside and sit down.”
Mackenzie looked at her in surprise. “Yell at you?”
The woman nodded her head. “It’s kind of funny.”
Mackenzie couldn’t remember one