Page 42 of Now That It's You
“No,” she said, her voice soft in the darkness. “I guess not.”
Kyle hesitated, knowing he was treading on thin ice. No way in hell would his brother want her to know about those dark, somber months after the split. But Kyle could throw her a bone, couldn’t he?
“Even if you’re right that he didn’t want to get married, I know he loved his life with you,” he said softly. “He didn’t want that to end.”
“Neither did I,” she said. “Not then, anyway.”
She paused, and he wondered if she was thinking of a way to leave or a way to stay here for a little while longer.
“I met Chloe,” she said at last. “She seems nice.”
“She does?” Kyle lifted a brow. “You’re sure you met Chloe?”
Meg snorted. “I was being polite.”
“Why? Chloe usually isn’t.”
“She’s probably just grieving,” Meg said, but didn’t sound convinced. “I didn’t even know Matt had a new fiancée.”
“I think we were all sort of hoping she’d take a cue from you and call it quits before the wedding, but it wasn’t looking likely.”
“Sounds like they got engaged pretty quickly?”
Her tone was even, but there was something else in her voice. Something beyond casual curiosity. Kyle waited a few beats, wondering if she’d take back the question. Tell him she’d rather not know.
She didn’t though, and Kyle found himself reaching out to touch her hand. “Don’t do this, Meg.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Torture yourself. Compare the proposal you got with the one Chloe got and make it some failing on your part.”
“I want to know,” she said.
“Morbid curiosity?”
“We’re at a funeral. Can you think of a better time to be morbidly curious?”
Kyle sighed. “They got engaged on a beach in Barbados at sunset.”
“Oh,” she said. “I mean, I guess they could have had a fake engagement story, too?—”
“I saw photos,” Kyle said. “He had his camera set up on a tripod in some bushes nearby. There might have also been a skywriter?—”
“Okay, stop,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re right, I don’t need to torture myself. It’s not a damn competition, anyway.”
Kyle swallowed hard, hating the sadness in her voice. Hating the question he was about to ask her. “Did you still love him? When he died, I mean—were you still in love with Matt?”
“God, no!”
Was it wrong to love the vehemence in her words? Kyle cleared his throat. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She shook her head in the darkness, and he watched the glint of light in her curls as they slid over her shoulders. “I know it doesn’t seem possible that I could have stopped loving him that quickly, but the second he told me about the affair, it was like someone flipped off a light switch. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“Then why do you care how he proposed to someone else?”
“Because I’m a woman,” she said. “Even if I’m glad I didn’t marry him, and relieved that I dodged that bullet, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have wanted to be deemed worthy.”
“You’re worthy.”
