Chapter 2
“What the hell are you doing?” I set my purse down and draw a deep breath, trying my hardest not to sound like a bitch. My tone is hard despite my best attempts, but I can’t rein in the temper that flares at the sight of Owen packing to leave.
“We agreed. We agreed to elope,” I remind him as I approach, furious when all he can do is continue to grab things and shove them into a bag. He’s so hurried and rigid that he’s not pausing to fold anything anymore, just flying through his drawers to remove his clothes and stash them in the bag on the bed.
“We agreed, yeah. Sure. I agreed to elope because you were just so in love with me.” He snorts a laugh and shakes his head. “In love. What a bunch of bullshit.”
I gape at him until anger takes over me. “How dare you! You’re calling me a liar? Accusing me of not wanting to marry you?” I stab my finger at my chest. “I was just there at the courthouse. I showed up while you didn’t bother.”
“No.” He pushes the bag flap down. “No. How dare you try to trick me like this.” He points to his phone lying on the comforter. “I got a call from your mother.”
Oh, shit. My stomach tenses again.
“She found out about our plans to elope. Which was so interesting. Because when I asked if you would like to wait until she could come, you insisted she was too busy on vacation. She wasn’t, Claire. She was just at home, stunned to discover your plans to elope. She said she hadn’t heard a word about this. None!”
Fine. He caught me in a lie there, but that doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. If he really wanted to marry me before speaking with my mother, the little technicality about if I told her or not shouldn’t make a difference. Of course, I didn’t tell my mother about this.
“She called me, asking where I got the idea I should marry you when you belonged with someone else.”
I cover my face, feeling like my world is imploding. I plop onto the chair and groan. “I’m not.” She would make it sound so awful. “I don’t belong to anyone.” Then I lift my face and narrow my eyes at him. “Actually, I thought that I would ‘belong’ to you, since we were supposed to elope, and I’d be your wife by now.”
He shakes his head, scowling. “I see how it is. I know what you were trying to do. She offered me a freaking bribe, Claire. When I told her we wanted to get married because we were in love, she laughed. She laughed! Like it was such a crazy idea.”
I wince, hating that his pride is coming to the forefront.
“So she offered to pay me off if I didn’t show up and marry you. What kind of a woman does that?” He resumes packing even faster than before. “At first, I was offended. Then I worried about how she could do that to her daughter, but then she explained.”
I’m sure.
“She told me that you could only want to marry me—and so quickly—just to get her to leave you alone.”
“And I won’t get sympathy from you on that front, then?” I retort.
“It’s not mine to give. I don’t have time to get between whatever drama you have with your mom. I’m not going to be a scapegoat or an easy out for you. I told you that I would elope because I thought you loved me. That you wanted a life with me.”
I stand up. “I do!”
“Which is it?” He turns and crosses his arms to glower at me. “You want a life with me to get out of putting up with whatever your mom has in mind for you? Or you want to marry me out of love?”
I blink quickly, put on the spot. “I love you, Owen.” I say the words confidently but deep down, I can’t ignore the sensation that I’m not being entirely honest.
He notices. I stalled too long to reply because he snarls and turns back to his bag. “You don’t. She’s right. She’s right about this. You only wanted the convenience of marrying me just so you could be married and get your trust fund. It wasn’t about love. It’s about money and getting what you want.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Don’t lie to me. I know how eager you are to open up a dress shop. And you’d only be able to start that with a lot more money than what I’ve earned yet.”
I reach for him as he zips the bag. “Owen. Stop. You can’t believe her over me.”
“Don’t tell me what to believe. It’s shocking how easily it all makes sense. You only want to use me as an excuse to escape being forced with someone your mother approves of. Someone wealthy and influential. Someone she approves of. Not just a guy working in finance with no impressive family name.”
He wrenches out of my grasp, picking up his bag, and heading toward the door.
“You’re just as stuck up as she is, only concerned about your life and what you want to do. And that’s nothing but work on dresses and make a name for yourself in design.”
I follow him out of the bedroom, enraged that he’s stooping so low as to accuse me of such things. After a call with my mother, I shouldn’t be shocked. She’s always been uncannily skilled at making others turn against me. She’s a master of manipulation and an expert in persuasion. If he wants to complain about a woman who’s determined to get her way, he’s spoken to the reigning champion of it.
“You’re a selfish workaholic, Claire.” He stops at the door with one hand on the knob and the other clutching the handle of his bag. His glower is hot and serious. He’s no longer the boyfriend I tried to love. He’s just a pissed-off man who’s closing his mind to anything I might say to defend myself and my actions. “I tried to look past that for too long. I thought I would be the one with the long hours and demanding career expectations. Not you. It’s just taking me this long to accept it’s true. You’re married to your chosen career, and I refuse to be runner-up for your attention. And I’ll be damned if I get married just so you can get the money you want to become even more of a workaholic.”
He twists the knob and steps into the hall. After one last withering glare, he looks me over, then turns on his heel to leave as he slams the door shut.
For a long moment, I’m so numb and shocked I can do nothing but stare at the door. The panel of wood offers no solace. It doesn’t give me any advice or comforting words. Yet, I lock my gaze on it, stunned into a stupor.
I’d been so confused why Owen would stand me up, but now I know.
I’d been so stubborn to resist the idea that he might not want to marry me, but that Band-Aid has been ripped off, leaving me staggering toward a realization that even my last-resort option is imploding before my eyes.
A swift sense of loathing fills me. I cannot beat the crushing feeling of defeat that swallows me as I consider the fact that my mother has won again. She chased Owen off.
Now, what am I supposed to do?
I scrape my hair back from my face as I slowly turn and face the empty apartment.
Owen was right. When I asked him if he wanted to elope, I did so with the hope that it would be the final nail in the coffin of my mother’s control. He guessed correctly. I did have my eye on him because he wasn’t another rich guy from a good family of her approval. I was so enthusiastic to pull this off because I figured it would force her hand. That with my married status, she would no longer have an excuse for not handing over my trust fund. I wasn’t trying to get that money for the sake of having it. I only wished to have some money to start working toward my dreams.
She foiled me. I couldn’t guess how she’d gotten ahold of Owen, to begin with, but I had to deal with the fallout.
“What can I do now?” I whisper aloud in the home that had never felt like one.
I have a job loosely lined up for the fall, an apprentice sort of arrangement that one of my instructors offered to be able to put real-life work experience on my portfolio instead of relying on only my education. I’ve been under the illusion that it would work out just like that. Marry Owen and have my funds released by the time I would be done with that designer position at someone else’s shop. I would’ve been ready to open my place and take off.
Now, I’m stuck. Again. That job in the fall will take me nowhere if I don’t have the resources to start up my own place.
I suck in a sharp breath as panic descends upon me. “I can’t stay here.” I’m not even sure if I have the desire to accept that apprentice position. Because what good would it do now? I didn’t want to start a career as someone’s assistant or backup. My dreams were too damn big to be constrained like that.
My phone rings, further snapping me out of the trance-like reverie of having my plans ruined.
I furrow my brow as I look at the screen. Two hours ago, I was in a hurry to end my call with him, but now, as I feel untethered and lost, I can’t answer quick enough.
“Dalton?”
He sighs heavily. “Hey, Claire. I’m not crazy about how you did it, but I want to be the first to offer you congratulations.”
I sniffle.
“Is it as overwhelming as you envisioned it might be?” He chuckled lightly. “It can’t be easy going from single to hitched that spontaneously.”
“I’m not.”
He snorted. “You’re not overwhelmed? Well, of course not. You take life by the horns and—”
No. I never did. I never will. Unless my mother is stopped, I’ll never have a chance to do anything with my life. “I’m not married. Owen…”
Tears cut me off from explaining that my short-term fiancé not only stood me up but also broke up with me. Big, fat tears leak from my eyes, accompanying gut-wrenching sobs that feel like a horrible ab workout I didn’t sign up for.
“Claire?” Dalton has never been a man of many words, and it’s a blessing now. As I break down completely, capable of only gasping around my cries, I stutter through the only explanation I can manage. He doesn’t badger me for answers or rush to offer stupid words of comfort. He listens to a cacophony of sobs and tears. Sniffles and hiccups, too. I’m a mess, and I express it with raw pain.
I don’t know how he can understand, but I try to give him the details I’m able to process so far. Owen not showing up. My mother calling him. Owen leaving me for good. My mother still lording over my funds.
“I don’t know what to do now, Dalton.” He’s aware of my goals to open a shop, and he’s grown up with me, treated to a front-row seat of the level of manipulation my mother is capable of. “I have this apprenticeship in the fall, but what’s the point?”
“No. Claire, no. Don’t give up.”
I sob harder, hating these hot tears. “Then what?” I shout, not meaning to yell at him but needing to vent this swirl of anger and desperation for a way out. “Then what can I do?” I’ll never quit, but the temptation to throw that option out there feels so logical after my mother thwarted me again.
“Come to Colorado.”
“To the boonies?” I huff, wiping at my face.
“Maybe you could come out here for a while. I’ve got business ventures going on, working with Caleb. I bought this house last year, but I haven’t done anything with the guest cabin on the property yet.”
“That’s your idea? Come hide in the wilderness?”
“No. You have no reason to hide from anything. In fact, this is perfect.”
“My life falling apart is perfect?”
He grunts. “Your life isn’t falling apart. You just finished school. If anything, your life is just starting.”
It doesn’t feel like it.
“Caleb is getting married, remember?”
I know he can’t be telling me this in some twisted, sick sense of rubbing salt in the wound, but I glare at the wall. “Yeah. I know.”
“Lauren is having a hell of a time finding a wedding dress. According to Aubrey, she’s getting downright frantic, fretting about it. I bet you could design something that would work.”
I blink, letting his proposal settle through the haze of crying. Now, this perks me up. Design a dress for a woman who can’t find what she wants? That’s a puzzle I would love to solve, while I ignore the bigger riddle of what to do with my future.
True to his nature, Dalton stays quiet. He doesn’t need to campaign any further after planting that seed for me to stew on.
I gaze out the window, seeing the Paris cityscape as a distant image. It’s not the area I love and want to be part of right now. I’m not a fan of bugs and wild animals, but maybe my cousin has a point here. Perhaps a change of scenery is just the thing I need.
I bet the reception is bad out there, too. That alone—not having easy access for my mother’s calls—sounds like utopia.
I never imagined visiting the West, not that far, up on a mountain, but now it sounds like just the place to find my footing.
“How soon can I come?”