Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mary London
My poor pinky toes are screaming bloody murder by two in the afternoon.
These pointy-toed heels are the cherry on top of my outfit sundae but they don’t account for women with five toes on each foot.
A design flaw that can be overlooked because of the adorable bow on the front that makes me look like I’m walking two Christmas presents around all day like a modern-day Southern elf.
Maggie sends another customer my way after they leave the fitting room.
She gives me a weary smile I feel to my bones.
It feels wrong to complain about being so busy before the holidays, but if I don’t get a full eight hours of sleep sometime soon, I might just fall asleep standing up at this cash register.
“You’re going to look like an absolute doll in that blouse, Cosi,” I coo to the young woman in front of me. She’s been a shopper of mine since the day she moved to town for freshman orientation. She’s now a junior and voted president of her sorority, which has only amplified her shopping habits.
I hand her the gift bag with her purchase and my best smile because it’s not her fault my boyfriend has kept me up way too late. Rhett and I have been seeing each other every day, whether at the bar, at his house for dinner with Rylan, or late nights when he sneaks up to my condo.
My only complaint is I wish Mama were still here to see me fall in love. She’d’ve loved Rhett Price and the way he takes care of me.
The front door opens with a rush of noise.
All heads spin to see who’s arrived. A rush of cold air swirls into the space bringing with it a charged moment of confusion.
Mayor Jackson Pruett stands in the doorway in a fancy pressed suit with a bright red kerchief in his front pocket.
Behind him, Janie peeks around his shoulder with an impish grin.
Rhett frowns from behind Mayor Jackson’s other shoulder.
What in heavens is going on here?
“Mary London Winthrop,” booms Mayor Jackson, stepping into the boutique. Rhett closes the door behind the group and Janie steps around the man to clasp her hands under her chin. She’s grinning so hard I don’t think she understands the wrinkles she’s making. “Just the woman I was looking for.”
I step around the register and paste on the smile Mama taught me to enter a room with. “You’ve found her. What can I do for you, Mayor?”
Janie gasps and pulls out her phone, holding it up to film whatever the mayor has to say. Nerves fire off like fireflies in my belly. Am I about to be taken to task about the bar? Is that why Rhett’s here too? Oh crud, did something not pass inspection?
The mayor dips his hand inside his suit pocket and pulls out what looks to be heavy card stock. He clears his throat and holds it out as he begins to read aloud.
“The editorial team at The Sip magazine extends the invitation to Mary London Winthrop to join the exclusive list of top female entrepreneurs for 2026. A celebratory dinner will be held December twentieth in our state’s great capitol to kick off the event.
A visit to your place of business will be arranged after the year end so that we can complete a photoshoot to be released in our March 2027 issue. Please RSVP as soon as possible.”
Janie squeals and starts jumping up and down. The mayor hands the invitation to me, which I take with shaking hands. It’s real. An invitation to be part of the state’s top female entrepreneurs. Tears burn the back of my eyes.
“Congratulations, Mary London. The town of Heaven is very proud of our golden girl.”
The mayor sweeps me into a pose so Janie can snap a picture.
Rhett hovers in the background, a secret smile that tells me he’s proud of me too.
I smile and pose and blink back tears as the mayor leaves and Janie squeals in my ear about how great all this is.
She finally leaves and Maggie barrels into me.
“You did it! It’s such a huge honor, Mary London!” She holds me out at arm’s distance, scanning my face. “Say something!”
I open my mouth, but for the first time ever, I have no words.
I burst into tears instead.
I feel Maggie handing me off and then there’s Rhett’s broad chest, tucking me against him and holding me close.
I breathe in his soap-and-sawdust scent, letting his hands rub up and down my back soothing me.
Even as I’m crying, I don’t know why I’m crying.
I just can’t seem to do anything but blubber.
Thank God Janie and the mayor left already.
“Hey,” Rhett whispers. “We’re all really proud of you, June bug, but you don’t have to do the dinner and photoshoot if you don’t want to. It’s completely up to you. If you’re too busy, you don’t have to do it, you know?”
That stops me short.
I push away from him just enough to stare up into his blue eyes. “Oh, I’m doing the dinner and the photoshoot. I’m made for the camera, honey.”
His mouth hooks into a grin. “Don’t I know it.”
I swipe my fingers below my eyes and hope my mascara held up. It should. Lord knows I pay enough for it.
“I’m just…overwhelmed, I guess. Excited. Happy.” I shudder in a deep breath. “I’m proud of myself.”
Rhett cups my cheeks, taking over the swiping of tears. He’s gentle, being oh so careful around my eyes to make sure my makeup doesn’t smear. I know he doesn’t give a hoot about makeup, but he knows I do. That’s just how he loves me. Unselfishly.
“I’m so proud of you I’m going to start making frames right now. Do you want wood or gilded gold?”
I frown, sniffling. “Whadya mean?”
“We’re going to frame that magazine article. Put it up on your wall at home, here at the boutique, and in the bar. Hell, I’ll put one up on every light pole if they’ll let me.”
I don’t doubt that he would. I pat his chest. “You know you’re coming with me to that fancy dinner, right? You got a pretty suit to wear?”
He grimaces, but quickly covers it. “You know I don’t.”
I rise up on my aching toes and plant a kiss on his cheek. “I know a guy who sells ’em. Don’t you worry your pretty little head.”
He rolls his eyes, but ends up nodding.
Rhett wanted to take me out to dinner to celebrate my inclusion in the magazine, but I begged off, instead eating takeout barefoot and braless on my living room floor.
With the weather turning decidedly cold, the bathtub called my name.
Bubbles litter my skin and the scent of roses and lavender permeate my entire condo.
Just the way I like a restorative evening.
I’m just about to climb out and head to bed when my phone dings. It’s been doing that a lot this evening, well-wishers who’ve heard the news about the magazine spread. I’ve read every single one, tucking the praise into my chest where Mama left a gaping hole when she died.
Except this latest text message comes after ten, a time when etiquette says to hold that message until tomorrow. It’s Darby Kate, her entire text in all capital letters.
Darby Kate: GIRL. CALL ME RIGHT NOW.
I hit her contact and hold the phone to my head, trying to climb out of the tub and hold a towel to my dripping body.
“Mary London! We need damage control. Right now!”
I nearly slip on the tile. “What are you talking about?”
There’s a moment of silence. All the hairs on the back on my neck stand straight up. I can feel trouble brewing like I can feel the bubble-skirt trend fading.
“Oh dear Lord in heaven, you haven’t seen the pictures yet?” Darby Kate’s high pitch has joined the angels in the clouds.
I pull the phone away from my ear to see that Palmer has now texted me too. Before I can swipe to see what she said, Anna Claire is calling me too.
“Hold on, Darby. Anna Claire’s calling me.”
“Put us on together!” Darby Kate shrieks.
I screw up my face in confusion. My finger taps buttons on the screen but there’s too many options to know exactly what I’m doing.
Suddenly I’m video calling both of them, their worried faces locked in an expression of terror.
I yelp and yank the towel up higher. Pretty sure I just flashed my friends and maybe their husbands if Anna Claire’s is in bed with her right now.
“What is going on, girls?”
“Oh, Mary London. I’m so sorry. There’re pictures going around of you and Rhett.” Anna Claire gets out of bed and tiptoes out of the room. “Bad ones, honey.”
I gasp. My nose goes numb and a buzzing sound starts circulating in my brain. “What?”
“One’s a video of you riding the mechanical bull. It’s not bad. It’s kind of cute, actually.” Darby Kate smiles, but quickly loses it. “It’s the ones of you in bed with Rhett that aren’t good.”
I gasp again, walking straight into my dark closet and having a seat on the floor. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll send them to you. Hold on.” Anna Claire’s screen goes fuzzy and suddenly my phone is buzzing with more texts. I click on the text and pull up the pictures.
My breath freezes in my lungs, locked in a panic.
I’m in bed alright, Rhett taking a selfie of us after we woke up together one morning.
My hair is a knotted mess and I look like a raccoon with a mascara addiction.
The video is pretty tame. I mean, I look stupid on that mechanical bull with no one around me and zero music, but that’s not what’s got everyone in a tither.
It’s probably the next photo, where I’m on my stomach, clearly naked with a sheet barely covering me.
My breasts are pressed into the mattress, full and voluptuous as I smile at Rhett behind the camera.
No nipple is showing, but fuzzy in the background is the unmistakable curve of my naked butt cheeks.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, absolutely gutted.
“I’m sorry,” Darby Kate whispers back. “I already called Auntie but she was no help.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Birdie saw the pictures?”
“Yeah,” Darby Kate says softly. “She wasn’t impressed. Said that kind of gossip isn’t squashable, you know?”
The idea of Birdie being disappointed in me is almost as crushing as knowing the entire town will have seen those pictures by now. I went from Heaven’s golden girl this morning to the town whore who let a man take half-naked pictures of her.
And then it hits me.
My hand flies to my chest, positive someone has physically stabbed me in the heart. There’s no knife, but the pain persists.
Those pictures were on Rhett’s phone.
Rhett.
Rhett shared those private photos.
“Oh my God,” I whisper again, this time the words coming out on a broken sob.
Betrayal, sharp and hot, floods my system.
Why would he do that other than to humiliate me? Was he bragging about bedding me and showed proof? Did he ever actually love me?
None of this makes any sense.
Somehow I’ve hung up on my friends, something I realize many minutes later when my phone rings again. Janie this time. I let it roll to voicemail, but when she calls back immediately, I pick up. She’s Mama’s best friend, after all.
“I know about the pictures,” I say dully.
“This is not a good look, sweetie. Very unladylike. Disappointing for any girl, but from you? I’m afraid the magazine might rescind their offer if this gets out.”
Shame is a good antidote for shock. I’m not shocked any longer, just so ashamed I may never show my face in public again. My head clunks as it hits the wall behind me. Damn. I didn’t even think about the fallout with the magazine.
“What do I do?” I whisper.
I’m desperate. Distraught. Heartbroken.
“Well, the town has seen it. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle, so we have to do damage control. Get out ahead of it.” Janie pauses, then her voice is back, excited and forceful. “You and Rhett need to get married! Right now. This week.”
Just a few hours ago, the idea of marrying Rhett would have made me float on a cloud for the rest of my life, but now the thought just makes my insides curl up and die.
See, the thing is, I knew my father cheated on my mother.
I’ve known for years. I never said anything to Mama because I didn’t want to humiliate her.
Her marriage was her business, and I knew she cared more about presenting the image of a happy union to the public than actually having one.
Then she got sick and none of that mattered anymore.
I helped take care of her until the very end, promising myself that I’d never tie myself to a man like my father.
I’d rather be single forever than be betrayed by the one person who was supposed to have my back at all times.
Oh, how quickly I forgot my own promise.
I let Rhett into my heart, and he turned around and stabbed me in the back.
“I’ll think about it,” I manage to answer Janie.
“See that you do. This isn’t going to go away on its own, Mary London.”
I hang up without another word and sit in my closet for hours, rage and tears fighting for dominance. I end up falling asleep there, finally getting the eight hours of slumber I so desperately need. I snooze right through the opening of the shop the next day.