Marrying Mr. Darcy (Love Manor #2) - Kate O'Keeffe Page 0,89

piece.”

“Mom, I don’t want to bother with this. That’s why I didn’t tell you about us breaking up.”

“I don’t think Sebastian wants to be broken up.” She eyes the latest beautiful bouquet to be delivered, this one a selection of red roses and yellow lilies.

She pats the seat next to her. “Come, sit.”

I slump down in the chair.

“I want to tell you a story. I was in my junior year in high school, and I met this man in his senior year. Well, he was just becoming a man at the time, but he looked pretty darn good to me. And oh, how I fell for him.”

I smile. “Dad.”

“That’s right. Timothy Brady was the best thing to ever happen to me. But it wasn’t easy, not to start with anyway. His mom took a disliking to me, you see.”

“Grandma Jane?”

She nods. “She thought I was trailer trash, that I wasn’t good enough for your dad. Although she was right in that I did grow up in a trailer, I never saw myself as trash, and I never let her opinion of me dent my love for your dad. Not even when she refused to come for Thanksgiving and Christmas, telling anyone who would listen what a low-class woman I was and how I’d dragged her son down to my level.”

“That must have been so hard.”

“No, honey, it wasn’t hard. You know why? He did not let her come between us. Your dad stood by me, just like Sebastian has stood by you. She softened over the years, and you coming along sure helped with that, but she never thought I was good enough for your dad. She still doesn’t to this day.”

“How did I not know any of this?”

“We decided early on that we would not let her come between us. She could try to poison us all she liked, but we were going to stick together, this little family of three. Telling you how she treated me would only cause a rift in the family, and we did not want her to have that power over us.” She reaches across the table and takes one of my hands in hers. “Honey, I know you feel like you’re doing the right thing by stepping back. You think you’re doing what’s right by the man you love.”

My throat tightens as a brick settles in my belly. “I do, Mom. There are too many things against us.”

“So you’re just going to give up? That doesn’t sound like the daughter of Timothy Brady to me. What was that expression of his? The one he said described the two of you to a T?”

“Never give up until the thing is done or dead.”

“Honey, tell me if I got this wrong, but you’re not done with Sebastian. Are you?”

My throat tightens. I shake my head. “I don’t know if I ever will be.”

“Then what are you doing here in my kitchen?”

“Mom—”

“I’ve read the cards on the flowers he sends every day, honey. That man loves you. He loves you. Do you know how rare it is to find a love like that in this world?”

“But the show and the media and his granny,” I protest.

“They’re all just noise, honey. None of them mean a jot when you find your big love.”

I hang my head as tears spill from my eyes.

“Love is enough, honey.”

I exhale as I look up into her soft eyes full of warmth and love for me. “Is it?”

Slowly, she nods her head, her pretty face lighting up as her lips curve into a smile. “Love is everything.”

I chew on my lip, thoughts rolling around my head like marbles in a tin. Love. Sebastian. Geraldine. Saving Pemberley. Chris Hampshire.

And then it all becomes clear. None of it matters. All that matters is the fact that I’m in love with a man, a good man, a man I want to spend the rest of my life with.

I stand bold upright, my chair scraping across the tiled floor. “I’ve got to go,” I say.”

“To the market?” she questions.

I can’t stop a grin bursting across my face as I reply, “Change of plans, Mom. Change of plans.”

She beams back at me, her hand over her heart. “Go get your man, honey.”

Here’s the thing, when the guy you broke up with lives in another country and you want to go find him and tell him you made a huge mistake and beg him to come back to you. You need a passport. You need a change of