Page 31 of Marry Me

Allison stepped into the hall and looked back. “Good-bye, Megan.”

She smiled, and Allison stole the image, burned it into her memory. “Bye, Ally.”

Allison knew one thing for sure. She walked out of that apartment a different person than the one who’d walked in. She didn’t call Brent. She’d get to him soon enough. Instead, she went home, made a pasta dinner she didn’t eat, and stared at a television show she didn’t watch, trying to figure out how she proceeded from here, how she found herself again, and would it ever be enough?

* * *

As much as Megan would have preferred to delegate her appointments to other members of her team and sit in her living room alone with a bag of chips and her very raw feelings, she forced herselfto put on smart-looking jeans, a navy plaid jacket, and booties and get herself to at leastinsidethe office. From there, she smiled at all the right moments, held her clients’ hands as they made decisions, nodded along, and even let a little of her frustration out on an innocent florist, to whom she’d then sent a bottle of expensive wine by way of apology for her tone.

“All right. What’s going on?” Kelsey said, closing the door to Megan’s office behind her. “The difference in you between today and yesterday is alarming. Somebody clearly made off with your favorite breakfast cereal.”

“Do you ever have one of those days where you don’t feel like you’re really here, but you trudge along anyway? I don’t think I’m really here.”

“Okay, I’m tracking.” Kelsey took a seat and chucked her heels onto the floor one at a time. “But why? Why are you a shell of Megan, and does it have anything to do with the Carmichael wedding? Allison Hale stopped by here yesterday, looking a lot like you do now.”

Megan sighed. “We lost the Carmichael wedding. They’re going with someone else. I’m letting them out of the contract.”

Kelsey looked at her as if she’d just told her Dallas was outlawing toothpaste. “No way. I don’t even know what to say. Why?”

Megan rolled her lips in and shook her head. Kelsey was the one person she confided in about everything. But this felt different. “I think she’s looking for someone a little more removed from her world.” She knew the statement was vague, but it was also innocuous, which was the point.

“Nope.” Kelsey passed her atry melook. “You can’t do this with me. I know you too damn well, and what I’m reading between the lines is that something happened between you two—a fight, or maybe you discovered she’s your long-lost sister. My money is on the latter.”

Megan sighed. “I wish she was my sister. It would solve a lot.”

Kelsey’s expression took on understanding. “Aha. So it’s like that.”

Megan looked around. “It’s in these moments I wish I was the kind of person who kept hard liquor in my bottom drawer.”

“Lucky for you I am. Be right back.”

Megan, in all her misery, couldn’t help but laugh sardonically.Because of course Kelsey did. Of course. She returned with two rocks glasses, kicked the door closed behind her, and poured them each a double splash. “Swill and spill.”

“I don’t even know how to explain it or have the energy to try.”

“Try anyway.”

Megan took a swallow of the liquid and allowed it to burn a path down her throat. “She came out of nowhere. Allison. So unassuming at first. This sweet schoolteacher, trying to figure out what kind of colors she liked. But after we talked a couple more times”—she shook her head and took another swallow—“I couldn’t get her out of my head. I didn’t know why at first. Just someone who’d made an impression.”

“I’ve met people like that.”

“Right? It happens.” She let her gaze roam to her bookcase, and her mind wandered with it. “But the more time we spent together, the more we just clicked. And that’s the thing. It wasn’t a ton of time, Kelsey. Little meetups for the wedding or after I visited her classroom.”

“And the cocktail party. She stayed at your place that night.” Kelsey paused. “You sleep with her?”

Her gaze snapped back to Kelsey. “God, no. She’s engaged to Brent Carmichael.”

Kelsey whistled. “You sure can pick ’em.”

“The irony is not lost on me.” A pause. “But we did kiss.”

“Meg. Wow. No judgment. It’s just not like you.”

“I know.” She closed her eyes to absorb the reality and instead remembered the acute reaction she’d had to Allison’s lips beneath hers. “In the course of firing me and saying good-bye, it happened.”

“She has similar feelings, then.”

Megan nodded. “I think all of this has really affected her, and even though we vowed to keep a lid on it, she needed to extract herself from the situation entirely.”

---