Chapter 31 As If – Rory
AS IF
RORY
When I woke up again, the light was totally different. Morning had arrived, bright and clear, making it impossible to keep pretending I could hide in bed. I blinked at the ceiling and saw that Rhodes was gone.
His side of the bed was empty. Not just empty, but cool to the touch. He must have been up for a while.
I sat up and pushed my hair out of my face, listening. The suite was quiet. No shower running, no sound of movement from the dressing room. Just the birds outside, along with the faint, distant sounds of the house waking up somewhere below us.
I stretched for my phone on the nightstand.
5:43 a.m. Three notifications from Genevieve about centerpiece options that I immediately dismissed.
One text from Rhodes sent at 6:15:
Board prep.
Philips will bring you breakfast.
See you at the meeting.
I stared at it for a moment. It was a perfectly reasonable text, but it gave no hint of his mood.
I set the phone down, then picked it up again. I should get up. I should eat whatever Philips brought me, put on something appropriate, and be ready when Rhodes needed me to stand beside him and be his fiancée in front of the board. That was my job. That was the whole point.
I was still sitting there talking myself into getting up when my phone rang with Grammy’s number.
I answered immediately. “Hi! Is everything—”
“Rory.” Her voice was wrong, the tone she used when she was trying to hold herself together for my benefit. “Honey, I need to talk to you.”
My stomach plummeted. “What happened? Are Josie and Bo okay?”
“They’re fine, they’re outside, they don’t know—” She stopped. I heard her take a shaky breath. “Your mother called last night.”
I felt like the floor dropped out from under me. “What?” My mother hadn’t called since she’d skipped town.
“She called the house. It was late, after ten. The kids were already in bed, thank goodness.” Grammy’s voice dropped.
“She’d been drinking, Rory. Or something worse, I don’t know.
She was screaming. She said she’d been served papers, legal papers, and that someone was trying to take Josie and Bo away from her. ”
“Grammy—”
“She said you were behind it. She kept saying your name.” Her voice cracked.
“She said terrible things, honey. Terrible things about you, and whoever you’re mixed up with, and she said she was going to come up here and she was going to—” Grammy stopped again, and when she continued, her voice was just above a whisper.
“She was livid, Rory. You know how she can get.”
Fuck. I knew all too well exactly how my mother could get.
I got up and tore back the curtains, letting the sunlight flood in. The mountains were beautiful and imposing in the morning light, completely indifferent.
“She won’t come back,” I said. My voice came out steady, which surprised me. “She’s all talk, Grammy. You know that.”
“I thought I knew that,” Grammy said. “But I’ve never heard her like this. She sounded out of her mind, Rory. She’s so angry. She’s so angry at you. She asked where you were, and I didn’t tell her much, but…”
My stomach sank further, which I’d thought was impossible only a moment ago. “What did you say?”
Grammy sighed. “Just that you’d met someone and it seems serious. I told her I was worried about you.”
“Grammy.” I closed my eyes. “Listen to me. I’m okay. I promise you that I’m okay. And Mom was probably just drunk. Or worse, like you said.”
“Probably.” She took a deep breath. “But I don’t like any of this, honey. Not how I left things with your mother, and not how I left things with you. Are you safe? Are you actually okay? Because I feel like everything’s gone wrong since you left.”
“I’m standing in a beautiful room looking at mountains,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“This isn’t like you, running off like this with some guy.” She sounded frustrated. “Can you at least admit that?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet for a moment. This was an answer in itself, and my grandmother knew it.
“Come home,” she said softly. “Just come home, Rory. We don’t need the money—we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
“I can’t.” My throat tightened. “I have to be here. I have to see this through.”
“Why?” she asked simply.
I thought of Luke. I thought of Rhodes’s text, efficient and careful, telling me everything except what I actually wanted to know. I thought of the vows I wasn’t writing, and Miranda in the library, and that I’d promised myself I would deal with her threats today.
“Because I made a promise,” I finally said. “And I don’t break promises. That’s not who I am.”
Grammy was quiet for a long moment. “No,” she said at last. “It’s not.”
“Keep the doors locked,” I said. “Don’t answer if she calls again. Let it go to voicemail. And Grammy? Don’t tell Josie and Bo. Please. They’ve been through enough when it comes to her.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ll call you tonight. I love you.”
“I love you too, honey.”
We hung up, and I stood at the window for a moment. The mountains gleamed in the distance, all-knowing, impenetrable. I wished they’d tell me what to do.
I felt like the walls were closing in on me.
First, there was Miranda.
Now, my mom was on alert.
She’d been served with guardianship paperwork. And what else had happened? Did my mother have any idea about my current involvement with the Barrington family—and how much they were worth?
A pit formed in my stomach.
But there was little I could do right now. I straightened up and squared my shoulders. Then I went to find something appropriate to wear to my first-ever board meeting, so I could continue playing the role of the perfect fiancé, even while on the inside, I was on the verge of falling apart.