Chapter 42
AURELIA
I spent the entire day in my apartment, blinds drawn and curtains closed, drowning in the kind of silence that was deafeningly loud.
I lay on the couch, the TV off. No book had been able to hold my attention.
My phone was face down on the coffee table, unread messages buzzing faintly every now and then like constant reminders of the damage I’d done.
Last night felt like a bad dream, the worst nightmare I’d ever had. The fact that I was here, in my own apartment, without him, told me it had been real. My head spun, nausea creeping up from my stomach.
All my life, I’d heard and read about heartbreak. I’d gotten misty-eyed when I’d listened to the songs that bled the most intense kind of pain from every lyric and I’d belted out the power anthems about moving on.
Yet, I’d never imagined that it could hurt so badly. I didn’t realize a person could be in this amount of pain simply because another person wouldn’t be in their life anymore. I also hadn’t realized it was possible to miss someone so much when you’d last seen them less than a day ago.
It was ridiculous but that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst was that I’d hurt Harrison. Badly.
I’d seen the way he’d looked at me in his car in front of my parents’ house, like I’d ripped the essence of him out with my failure to find the words that would’ve answered his question. Then I’d let him drive away.
I felt like absolute garbage about the whole thing, but it was done. Now all I could do was hope that all those anthems about moving on were as true as the intense pain contained in the songs written about the period before the moving on happened.
When a knock came at my door, I almost didn’t answer. There was absolutely no one in the entire world I wanted to see right now—except Harrison, but I couldn’t stand the thought of facing him either—but then I heard Sadie’s voice from the other side.
“Aurelia! We know you’re in there!” she yelled. “Well, I mean, we don’t really know for an absolute fact, but we strongly suspect.”
A soft laugh followed, and it sounded like it’d come from Maisie. “We strongly suspect? Really?”
I groaned but dragged myself off the couch and cracked the door open, confused about what in the world they could be doing here. “Hey, guys.”
“Surprise,” Sadie said, breezing past me the second the door was open wide enough. “You’re coming with us.”
“I am?” I blinked hard. “Coming with you where?”
“To drop off some presents for Laney and Claire,” Maisie explained gently, holding up a bag with tissue paper sticking out the top. “It’s just a quick run. We thought it’d be nice to get all the girls together.”
I stared at them, completely thrown. It didn’t look like they knew. Harrison didn’t seem to have told them that their almost-sister-in-law had broken his heart two nights before the wedding.
“I—” My voice cracked and I had to avert my gaze. “I don’t think I’m really up for that today.”
Sadie made a scoffing sound, already marching into my kitchen like she was totally at home here. “Not up for it? Honey, I could smell the self-pity from the hallway. You might not feel up to it, but you’re coming anyway. It’ll do you good.”
Maisie winced but didn’t contradict her. “It’ll just be for an hour. Besides, it looks like you could really use the break from being inside your own head.”
Sadie reappeared, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed like she was about to Mom me into submission. “Before you say no again, I’m not asking. I’m telling. Put on some real pants, Aurelia. You’re coming. Also, there’s dinner in your fridge, so no excuses. Let’s go.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Dinner?”
She patted her massively swollen belly. “Mama knows a thing or two about feeding the masses. We brought it over so you wouldn’t be able to use having to cook as an excuse. Do you? Cook, I mean.”
For the first time all day, a tiny, watery laugh slipped out of me. “No, I don’t. Not really, but okay. I guess you might not be completely wrong. I do need a break.”
They exchanged a triumphant glance and I headed to my bedroom to change, wondering if it had been an intervention or a coincidence.
From what Harrison had told me, I knew the Westwood women were close.
I also knew they spent a lot of time together.
It was sweet of them to include me, but I hated the thought of telling them that I wasn’t going to be joining their family after all.
As a result, I was quiet on my way to Sterling’s house, dreading having to look the guy in the eyes. Thankfully, he wasn’t home when we got there. Apparently, he’d been pulled into some last-minute client thing, leaving Laney and Claire to fend for themselves.
I didn’t mind at all that he wasn’t here. Honestly, it was better this way.
Sadie and Maisie fussed over Laney as soon as we walked in, but she waved them off, freshly showered with her ponytail bouncing as she walked. “I’m fine. Stop it. I’m just ready to get out of the house and be a normal human being again. You guys are worse than Sterling.”
Maisie gave her an understanding smile. “You’re there, huh? Okay, well, we won’t fuss then, and you can make the coffee.”
Laney chuckled. “That’s the spirit.”
I trailed behind them to the kitchen, in awe of how gorgeous the house was and devastated by the knowledge that I would never be in it again. Never get to sit around the kitchen island with them again. Never get to spend a holiday in the festively decorated living room we’d passed on our way in.
While they talked about everything and nothing all at once, they made the effort to include me in the conversation, but they had no idea what I’d done. Claire slept in a stroller right next to Laney, and I found myself staring at her angelic face, drifting in and out of the conversation.
“Uh-oh,” Sadie said in a singsong voice, giggling as she caught me staring. “I think someone might be feeling the old biological clock ticking.”
Maisie groaned, shaking her head at Sadie. “Jeez. No woman ever wants to hear that, Sades. Seriously.”
Sadie batted her eyelashes at her before turning back to me. “Aurelia doesn’t mind, do you? She knows my brain is broken right now. Twice. It’s not my fault. It’s Jameson’s. He’s the one who put twins in me.”
“We should probably ask her about the wedding first,” Maisie said, a small smile creeping across her lips.
“I’m not sure it’s entirely fair for you to blame Jamie for the twins, though.
That’s just not an argument I’m willing to take on until I’ve done some research.
Either way, usually, when a woman is newly engaged, you ask her about the wedding, not the babies. ”
“Sure, but she wasn’t staring at a wedding with hearts in her eyes.
She was staring at a baby.” Sadie looked back at me.
“I do want to hear about the wedding, though. What are your plans? Do you have any yet? Because if not, King Sterling has a magnificent castle in Scotland. I doubt I’ll be able to travel there again until after the babies are born, but if you can wait—”
Laney nudged her with her elbow, her eyes soft but assessing as they swept over my face. “Cut it out, guys. Has anyone bothered to ask her what’s going on? What’s happened, Aurelia? And don’t you dare say it’s nothing. It’s obviously not nothing.”
I inhaled a deep breath, about to dodge the question. Tell them I had a headache. Anything but the truth. Instead, when I started speaking, the truth was exactly what came out.
Breaking down completely, I told them everything.
About my mother and CC, their history and the fact that the boyfriend my mother had stolen from CC had been my father.
I told them about how hard Harrison and I had tried to find out the truth so we could try to smooth things over, and then I told them about last night.
The text. My mother’s ultimatum—them or Harrison. The phone call that had sent him racing over at the drop of a hat. The fact that I hadn’t heard from him since and wasn’t going to.
“So, uh, I know you guys must feel pretty betrayed,” I finished, quiet tears spilling across my cheeks at this point. “I’ll just get an Uber home. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I should have—”
As I moved to pull my phone out of my pocket, Claire started fussing and Laney shushed her gently, carefully sliding her hands underneath that tiny body to lift her up. Then she swiftly passed her to me. “Here. Hold this.”
My eyes widened, but I reached out on instinct and she grinned. “There we go. You can’t go doing something silly like call an Uber while you’re holding on to her for me.”
I blinked hard. “You don’t want me to leave?”
“Of course not,” she said without skipping a beat.
“Gosh, this is going to seem so weird. I mean, you and I haven’t even ever really had a conversation before, but you’re family, Aurelia.
I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but trust me, Sterling and I had plenty of ups and downs to get to where we are now. ”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she wasn’t done yet. “I know it feels like it’s the end, but it doesn’t have to be. My dad and Harlan had a lot of bad blood between them. They’re still never going to be best friends, but they’ve accepted that Sterling and I love each other.”
“Jameson and I were chaos at one point, too,” Sadie agreed thoughtfully. “You think you’re the only one losing your mind while you’re falling in love and you’re so uncertain how it’s all going to play out, but you’re not. The guys are losing theirs too, and so are the families.”
I felt my eyes stretch a little wider. “Your family was against your marriage to Jameson?”
She nodded vigorously. “Jameson and my big brother, Trent, have been best friends for years. He was furious. My parents didn’t have much of a problem, but the Westwoods?
At least you’ve got Harlan in your corner.
I had only Jameson, and even then, I wasn’t sure if that tenacity would hold once he had to face Trent. ”
“In our story,” Maisie said, seamlessly picking up from her, “I was the bad guy. Just like I’m sure you’re feeling right now. I never meant to hurt Callum, but I did.”
“And if any of us had let those things stop us, we’d still be hiding in our apartments, terrified of the drama,” Laney said decisively, her gaze lowering to the baby in my arms and a soft smile spreading on her lips.
“I know how daunting it can be, but you need to do what’s best for you. It’s your life, not your mother’s.”
Sadie leaned in, her voice gentle but firm. “Sometimes you just have to see it for what it is. The fights, the interference from family, none of it changes what’s real. None of it changes what really matters. That’s something only you and Harrison can figure out.”
I blinked at them, feeling my stomach tighten as the truth hit me like a brick. They weren’t just sharing stories, they were holding up a mirror—and it made me realize that I’d been very, very dense.
Gently tightening my grip on Claire, I felt my hands trembling with a desperate kind of urgency. Finally realizing how blind I’d been, I suddenly saw Harrison for what he really was—the one for me.
In comparison to what these girls had gone through with their men, which I knew about from Harrison telling me before as well as what they’d just shared, Harrison was by far the easiest going brother.
The real catch. Yet, they’d fought for the men they loved and Harrison had fought for me. He’d raced over in the dead of night. Even faced by all the signs that I wasn’t going through with it, he’d looked me in the eyes and told me he’d be waiting.
I couldn’t let him go. I loved him.
All of him.
And I wasn’t about to let my mom, or his, get in the way of that. That thought settled like a wildfire in my chest, giving me courage I hadn’t felt since I’d walked into my parents’ house last night.
“I have to tell you something,” I said finally, my voice shaky but the decision firm. “The Christmas party Harrison and I are hosting at his house here at the estate tomorrow is a ruse. Our plan was to the surprise everyone with our wedding.”
Their eyes went wide, all three of them practically vibrating with excitement. Sadie grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, that’s brilliant. I love it.”
Laney clapped her hands together. “I can’t wait. You’re still doing it, right? You’re going through with it?”
Maisie turned to me, support etched into the soft lines of her face. “So, what can we do to help? You name it and it’s yours”
I smiled, the weight of the past hours finally easing a little. “I do have an idea.”
“Consider it done.” Laney smiled. “It doesn’t even matter what it is. When we put our minds to it, there’s nothing we can’t do.”
I held Claire a little closer, feeling my resolve solidify. Together, with these girls by my side, we could make this right. I just had to pray that by the time we did, Harrison would still be waiting.