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