. and some had declared her responsible for the man’s suicide years later.
Maybe that was true to some degree, but she also knew that eventually Albert’s short-lived career in porn films would have been discovered. Those sorts of secrets always found the light of day, especially once AOL dragged everyone into a whole new online world with databases and a massive porn network. Vintage porn was fairly collectible, and collectors loved the vampy, campy late sixties and seventies porn, which was exactly what Albert had done with titles like Barebackin and Bronco Willy.
Still, she’d played a part and couldn’t make amends for the promise she’d broken in a snit of outrage. Her words, so angrily declared, had been like the old adage about gossip. Pluck a chicken at the top of a mountain, and then try to gather all the scattered feathers.
Impossible.
“About that,” Tennyson said, running her nail along the veined marble. “I’ve never actually apologized for breaking my promise.”
“What?” Melanie looked confused.
“When we found that tape, I pinkie swore that I wouldn’t tell. That I would forget what we’d seen. I broke that promise.”
“In spectacular fashion,” Melanie murmured.
Regret prickled up her spine. “I was angry.”
Melanie snorted. “I actually figured that out.”
“You invited me to the wedding to rub my nose in the fact you’d won Kit,” Tennyson said, still refusing to look at her old friend. “I couldn’t believe you would do something so cruel, and I wanted to . . . hurt you.”
“But I didn’t invite you to rub your nose in anything. I invited you because I couldn’t stand the rift between us. We’d been best friends, and the thought of you not being there with me when I got married broke my heart. In hindsight, I guess it may have looked that way, like I wanted to hurt you, but surely you knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t do something so mean spirited. I just missed you, Teeny, and hoped you’d realized Kit and I loved each other. I thought maybe you’d get over it and want to be there.” Melanie’s voice had grown small.
Tennyson looked up. “You invited me because you missed me?”
Melanie lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. I thought if you came, you would see that Kit and I were . . . I just never expected you to be so cruel. That’s not you. You’re a lot of things, but you were never a mean girl.”
The thought that Melanie had sent the invitation because she missed their friendship had never crossed Tennyson’s mind. Maybe because she couldn’t fathom doing something like that. When she’d opened that envelope, she was three days off finding out she was pregnant. Panic wasn’t even the word for where she was in figuring out her life. She’d spent too many years hanging around a different kind of crowd—spoiled heiresses with spoons up their nose and dislike in their eyes and guys who hustled and thought nothing of stepping on people in their climb to the top. Tennyson had grown accustomed to people who had motives for everything they did. Reading that elegant script inviting her to the marriage of Melanie Elizabeth to Christopher Douglas Layton, she’d burned with fury. Then she’d crumpled into grief over losing the man she thought would be hers. She’d felt betrayed and angry enough to do something rash and uncaring.
And she’d done just that.
“It never occurred to me that you truly wanted me there. I don’t know why I didn’t see that. It was a hard year for me. No excuse for what I did, but maybe I could give you a little background on where I was in my life. You asked me about drugs. I was into that scene. Participating in that irresponsible selfishness led me to getting pregnant with Andrew. His biological father was a small-time director who had a coke problem and a wife. I had been booted off a low-budget horror film for coming in drunk. I didn’t have money, a man, or a clue about what to do about the baby. I just knew I wasn’t going to have an abortion or pretend my mistake away. I had already done that once before. So, yeah, it wasn’t good for me the day I got the invitation. But you didn’t deserve what I did. Nothing really justifies what I did. I can’t take it back, but I can say I’m sorry, Melly. I’ve been sorry for a long time.”