2. Astrid
ASTRID
“What would you say if I told you that you can get rid of your husband one week from tomorrow?”
I stop mid-stride and stare at my sister on my phone screen.
“Get rid of as in ‘I have a shovel and a lot of land no one ever visits’ or get rid of as in…” I trail off.
“I don’t know what else you could mean. He’s a billionaire, so we can’t pay him off.
And I’ve been doing everything I can for twenty months to make him crazy, so he’ll divorce me.
And he. Will. Not. Do. It.” I blow out a breath.
My husband just insists on staying married to me no matter what.
I’ve been a total pain in the ass, but Declan O’Grady has been impossible to get rid of.
Linnea laughs. “In the sense that his grandfather has decided that seeing all of us truly in love makes him happier than he ever realized he would be. He wants you and Declan to be like me and Jonah, Fiona and Knox, Torin and Abi, Cian and Scarlett, and now Alex and Nora.” She pauses. “But he realizes that you’re not.”
I swallow hard as she names off our siblings, each of whom has found true love in the last couple of years. I nod. “It’s pretty hard to ignore how right you all are for each other. Even for him.”
Linnea smiles that smile that always lights up her face when she thinks of or talks about her husband. “Yes.”
Declan’s stubborn, eccentric grandfather has been making demands, both reasonable and unreasonable, on his grandchildren for years.
Including his desire for a marriage uniting his family with the family of his best friend, my grandfather.
That demand was finally met by his eldest grandson, Declan.
And me.
“So, what does that mean?” I ask my sister. “That he realizes we’re not like the rest of you?”
“Diarmuid has been reading the Rebel website, watching the hockey team coverage, and has seen how happy you are there in Louisiana,” my sister says.
“Clearly your move to Rebel has been a success. And now that it’s been ten months and Declan is still in Portland and never comes to see you, Diarmuid’s realized that you really are not in love.
And he’s decided it’s not going to happen even given time.
He’s realized he can’t make you continue in this marriage.
He loves you both and wants you to be happy and free to find true love like the rest of us have. ”
My breath catches in my chest. I shake my head. “Really? He said that?”
She nods. My sister sees him every day and he loves and trusts her. “He did. He knows he put a lot of pressure on you and had really high expectations for your gymnastics career and the Olympics. He feels a little bad now that he’s put this marriage-and-babies pressure on you, too.”
The tightness wrapping around my chest increases, and I struggle to take a deep breath.
The most painful period of my life, both physically and emotionally, was when I let everyone down at the Olympic trials.
The moment where everything I had trained for my entire life, my family’s and country’s high hopes, and all of my plans had come crashing down—literally—when I fell from the uneven bars.
I’ve been over that moment in my mind a million times. I still have no idea exactly what happened. But the fall was catastrophic. Not only to my body, but to my future. Everything I thought about what I wanted and about who I am changed in that moment.
Unable to speak past the tightness, I simply nod.
“And,” Linnea says with a grin, “he’s seen how everyone in Rebel loves Miles, and that they think you two make a wonderful couple.”
I sigh and roll my eyes. “People have been saying that about Miles and me for years.”
“I don’t think Diarmuid has ever really seen any of that. Or paid attention.”
“Nothing is going to happen with Miles and me.”
Linnea nods. She knows that Miles and I are only friends.
“But if it gets you out of the marriage to Declan, then this rumor is good, right?”
“Right. Definitely.” I cannot stay married to Declan.
I was a disappointment as a gymnast and Olympian, but that’s nothing compared to how disappointing I’ll be as a wife to his grandson.
“So what do I need to do?” I ask my sister.
“You and Declan need to show up here together next week, and Diarmuid will officially annul the marriage.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. You just have to get through a few more days.” She laughs. “And with Declan in Portland and you in Rebel, that should be easy, right?”
“Yep.” I take a deep breath. I can do one more week. “No problem.”
Suddenly, a text pops up from my neighbor.
Wilson: Thought you should know, your husband is on your front porch.
Oh.
Crap.
“Are you okay?” my sister asks, clearly reading the change in my expression.
It only takes me about three seconds to realize that I should have expected this. I sigh. “Turns out, I do have a problem after all.”
“Oh? What kind of problem?”
“A husband problem.”