Say You Will (Trust & Tequila Book 3)

26. Franki

twenty-six

Ispend the next half hour in silence wrestling with the conflicting emotions inside me. I went with Henry willingly because I want to believe we’re going to work out. I want all of it. Frightened was the last thing I felt when he picked me up over his shoulder.

Exhilaration and hope are at war with distrust and fear. Henry wants something more than just me. I knew that from his very first proposal. When he said he needed me, I thought he’d made a choice.

Then he asked me to marry him again last night, and the longer I’ve had for that proposal to sink in, the more it makes me question his motives. Especially after this morning. At the time, it was couched so sweetly and framed with sentiments that made me feel special. Made me feel loved. Who’s to say that when I shot down a business arrangement, he didn’t decide stupid, gullible Franki will do it if I convince her I care about her?

I don’t want to believe that. This past week has been the best one of my life. I feel good, not just about Henry, but about myself. Then he told his family that a relationship with me would be absurd, and it’s made me question everything that’s come before.

He says his rejection was a misunderstanding. Maybe it’s true, but I’ve lived through similar scenarios with my parents too many times to simply trust that there isn’t some level of manipulation happening.

This is how love bombing works. Time. Attention. Affection. Take it away, then give it back, but not quite as much as you had before. Lather, rinse, repeat. Until the object of your manipulation spends every moment striving to earn back what they think they’ve lost. My mother, swooping in periodically for mother-daughter bonding. Hugging me, telling me she loved me, then turning on me. Over and over. Wanting me to need her, but never willing to satisfy the need she deliberately fostered.

My father, smiling and indulgent when he saw me once a year or so, but harsh and dismissive if I wanted to speak to him outside of his own schedule.

My personal phone vibrates in my jacket pocket. I want to throw the thing straight out the window. What phone? I don’t have a phone. Instead, I fish it out of my pocket to see which of my parents wants to talk to me.

With a silent sigh, I accept the call. “Hey, Mom, how are you?”

“You can’t have heard what your asshole father has done, or you would not be saying, ‘Hey, Mom’ to me right now.” Her voice blares over the speaker.

“Whatever it is, it’s not worth letting it affect your peace.”

“It’s going to affect your peace too. You’re the one he’s lying about on social media. Henry McRae is going to go ballistic. How have you avoided the press?”

My stomach drops. “I’m not in New York at the moment.”

“Are you on a business trip?”

“No. I’m visiting a friend.”

“Without Henry, right? You didn’t take your boss on a weekend getaway with a friend. This is good. You need to put some distance between you.”

I scroll through Jonny’s social media accounts, nausea rising when I see the things he’s posted. “I’m with Henry. We’re visiting his sister.”

Mom moans. “When that gets out, it’s going to make things worse. There’s enough truth about being friends of the family to make it believable to people who don’t know you.”

I drop my head back against the headrest. Jonny has announced our “engagement” to the world and reposted photos of Henry and me from Finn’s wedding. He’s also added one of Henry and me when I was around twelve and Henry was sixteen. I don’t know how my father got his hands on the picture. I suppose Charlotte could have sent my parents photos I knew nothing about when I stayed with them.

The two of us aren’t touching in that picture. It was taken in the McRae kitchen over my spring break from school. Henry has a pencil in his hand, my algebra textbook laid out on the counter, and he’s explaining an equation. Henry is focused on the page before him. I, of course, am looking at Henry.

The fact that I was convinced he was the most wonderful person I’d ever known is written all over my face. If it were the photo, alone, I could forgive it, but there’s a caption: How could he have known one day this sweet girl would grow into a beautiful woman and win his heart?

It’s a deliberate dig, and it’s perfectly executed because no one else will see the insult behind it. I don’t know if his point is to punish me for ruining his plans or to attempt to wriggle his way back into Henry’s seemingly good graces by showing him that Jonny wasn’t wrong to call me an ugly duckling. Either way, I want to sink into the upholstery and never come back out.

I like seeing photos of Henry and me together from our past, but seeing it from this perspective makes me look exactly like the pathetic fool my mother called me. A dumb girl fantasizing over a man so far out of her league that other people saw it and laughed at her.

I don’t even consider clicking on the comments. There’s no way the internet isn’t having a field day making fun of me in this photo. I know Henry never saw me as ugly. I truly believe that he isn’t acting any differently with me now than if I’d never had surgery. To him, my smile is the same. He wasn’t lying, so why does this photo and caption hurt so damn much?

I breathe in deeply through my nose to try to work past it. This isn’t important. I have a great job that I love. I have friends. I have Henry who cares about me, and a precious dog who thinks I hung the moon.

I click out to the main part of the post. Jonny has strongly implied that Henry is working on a “very special partnership” with Jonny Lennox decor, something I know Henry would never do. He despises my father.

I close the app, then I check Jonny’s other accounts. He’s done the same with his others, but one post is different. In this one, he’s written a deep, supposedly heartfelt post with a photo of the two of us with his arm draped around my waist. It was taken fourteen months ago, which was the last time I saw him in person. You don’t have social media, so I can’t tag you, but I had to take a moment to express my feelings . . . .I couldn’t be prouder of the amazing young woman you’ve grown into . . . .Overcoming your physical challenges . . . .I’ll always be here for you. There’s no need for me to read the rest, so I don’t.

“Franki? Franki, are you still there? Did you hear me?”

“I’m here.”

“I know you hate being in the public eye, but you’re going to have to make a statement renouncing that stupidity or you’re going to end up in the middle of the slander lawsuit Henry McRae brings against your father. You probably still will.”

I make a sound, neither confirmation nor denial.

“How does Jonny plan to explain the fact that you and Henry aren’t even dating, let alone engaged? What does he think will come out of this prank? You’ll have to resign your position. You can’t work for him under these circumstances.”

I freeze, unsure of what to say. Henry taps my thigh and when I glance at him, he winks and mouths, “Own it.”

He turns back, his eyes on the road, and I look at him. His beautiful, beloved face. Those scarred, elegant hands. The scattered freckles on his muscular forearms. I have been in love with this man since before I even knew what love was. I’ve pined for him and missed him and yearned for him all of my adult life. This time we’ve spent together has been better than any fantasy I’d ever had.

Henry started this rumor to get my father to back off. I shouldn’t have gone along with it then. I shouldn’t do it now. He wants me to confirm it with my mother, and telling my parents two different versions of things will only blow up in my face.

Most of all, though, I don’t want to say it isn’t true. I can’t bear to do it. “Henry and I are getting married.”

After a brief shocked silence, Mom wails loudly enough that I turn the volume down on the phone. “No, no, no. You did not do this. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Tell me this is a joke.”

I stiffen my spine and try to sound cheerful. “Not a joke. Incredible, right?”

“Do you know how bad this looks for me? I’ve already made a statement saying it isn’t true. You haven’t been back on the East Coast long enough for this to happen.” She’s bordering on hysterical, pausing her cries of grief just long enough to deliver her lines with devastating clarity “You break up with that man right now.”

We’re on a country road, but Henry pulls over and puts the SUV in Park as I huff in frustration. “I’m not breaking up with Henry. I’m sure you can find a way to spin this that won’t look bad for you. Ask your publicity people for help. You should be happy for me. You’re the one who said I couldn’t pull a man like Henry.”

Henry scowls at me, and I shrug sheepishly. I shouldn’t have said it. It’s the last thing that will calm her down, but some part of me couldn’t resist.

She howls, and I try to talk over her. “Mom, you’re going to make yourself sick. Please stop crying.”

“He ignored you. He let you leave with me. He never cared about you while you made a fool of yourself waiting around for him to notice you existed. You can have anyone now, Franki. I’ll help you. Instead, you go to New York and pick the coldest”—hiccuping sob—“most dangerous man in New York to marry? I didn’t fix you so you could leave me.”

A shocked laugh punches out of me. “I wasn’t broken. You didn’t fix me, and Henry has never been anything but kind to me.”

“How can you be with someone who fantasizes about your mother while he’s with you? He didn’t want you before, but he does now? It’s not a coincidence.”

Beside me, Henry makes a low sound of disgust, and I finally force myself to look his way. He’s facing forward with the flattest expression I’ve ever seen. His eyes appear almost shark-like.

People refer to Guinevere Jones as the most beautiful woman in the world. Five years ago, a band won a Grammy for a song with her name in it as a metaphor for unattainable female perfection, but Henry saw straight through her. She’s ugly where it matters.

“You need to book a flight to Los Angeles now. Tomorrow morning. I thought you were in danger before from random fans, but this is different. There are rumors about him,” she says desperately.

I shake my head. “Absolutely not. Henry would never hurt me.”

“Yes,” she screams. “He will, and you’re so pathetic that you’re handing yourself over on a silver platter.”

For the second time in my life, Henry lifts the phone from my lax grip and speaks to my parent. “This is Henry McRae. The man Franki is going to marry, and you will shut the fuck up right the fuck now.”

I stare at him in shock. My mother must be similarly affected because she doesn’t make a single sound.

Henry’s next words are deceptively soft, yet sharp enough to draw blood. “Speak to her like that ever again, and there will be consequences. Do you understand what I’m saying, Guinevere?”

“Sh-she’d never forgive you,” Mom says in a shaking voice.

“I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t.”

I put my hand out for my phone.

Henry looks like a stranger as he holds it out of my reach and disconnects the call. “I wouldn’t let someone talk to a dog the way she was talking to you.”

“I was handling her, myself. I told her ‘no.’”

He lifts an eyebrow, then shakes his head in apparent disbelief, muttering something under his breath.

“What?” I demand.

“Why didn’t you tell that woman to fuck right the hell off?” he demands back.

“That woman is my family.”

“Yourparents are abusive garbage. I’ll be your family.”

My mind reels at both his accusation and his offer. He’s right that my parents are awful. It took watching Henry react to the way they speak to me for me to acknowledge to myself just how bad they are. If anyone treated Henry the way my parents treat me, I’d be livid. They’ve gaslit me into thinking the way they behave is normal, and I’m the crazy one to take offense at it. Because I was subjected to their toxicity from an early age, and I was the one being manipulated, I didn’t recognize what was happening.

It doesn’t mean he’s right to take over for me without asking first. “When you did this with my father, I accepted it because I had already asked to use you as a shield. You may offer your help, and I may choose to accept it. What you don’t get to do is take the power to make that decision out of my hands.”

He fills both cheeks with air, then blows out in a frustrated gust. “Shit.”

He runs a hand through his hair, squeezes his head, then passes me my phone.

I accept its return. “I like that you want to take care of me.”

He shoots me an alert glance.

“I’ve never had that. The way you take charge of things feels secure and safe to me. I appreciate the way you make decisions and plans. I don’t like to always be the one keeping everyone else on the rails. I was forced into that role because of my mother, and to find someone who allows me to relax because I can trust that you have things handled, is . . . I can’t even explain what it’s like to imagine not carrying every burden in life by myself.”

He reaches out and squeezes my hand.

I look down at where we’re connected. His shirt cuff is folded back neatly, but I ignore the bolt of lust that shoots through me so I can say what I need to. “Protecting me is not the same thing as controlling me, though. Do you know the difference?”

He swallows hard. “I do.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes.”

I trace my fingers over the black case covered in raised silver stars. “And the part about being my family? Did you mean that too?”

He searches my eyes. “Yes.”

“For how long?”

He reaches out to grasp my head in both hands. In typical Henry fashion it’s not some delicate, romantic thing you’d see in the movies. It’s him grabbing me and peering into my soul. “For the rest of our lives.”

“Oh.” I try to nod, but he’s holding me too tightly.

“I want to kiss you now,” he mutters.

“Yes.”

His eyes flare with heat, then he shakes his head, glancing out the back window. “I can’t do that here. Pulling over was already stupid and dangerous.”

He kisses me, anyway. Hard and fast. When he draws away, he swipes his thumb over my lip. “Worth it.”

Henry settles back in his seat, checks his mirrors, and pulls out onto the road.

My phone rests in my hand. So innocuous looking. Nothing more than a shiny piece of technology.

I should cut her out of my life for good right now, then block her, and be done with it. I try to think through the words I’ll say and hype myself up to press her contact. Get it over with, then it’ll be over.

I can’t make myself do it. I’m not ready for that final confrontation. Instead, I power the phone off. It’s a cop-out, but I’m giving myself a deadline. When I turn it back on, my relationship with my mother will be over.

In the meantime, I don’t have to look at the thing like it’s a snake waiting to bite me. I’m tired of tensing up every time my phone vibrates with an incoming call or text.