Page 40 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“What’s so urgent, though?”
I’m so furious I want to flip a table in lieu of answering. “Maren’s husband needs to be punched in the face, repeatedly. That’s what’s so urgent.”
Elijah raises a brow. “Somehow I knew this would have to do with Maren.”
“Her husband gave away herfucking dogs. What do you expect me to do?”
He laughs. “Exactly what you’re doing right now.”
Four hours later, I’m on a private plane out of Hilton Head, too furious to sleep. I’ve hated Harvey from the instant Maren brought him home. I hated him long before he ever gave me a reason to and hated him more once he did.
I’ve restrained myself for her sake. Now, the gloves are off at last.
21
MAREN
God, I’ve made such a mess of my life. I guess I’ll need to go stay with my mother, but she really focuses on the wrong things in moments like this. She’ll put me on a diet and start setting me up with Roger’s sixty-year-old friends an hour after I’ve arrived.
I lie in bed, weeping, trying to solve an unsolvable problem. I want my puppies back. I don’t want them anywhere near Elodie’s horrible son. But her daughter is sweet, and how do I tell two children I’m taking away their birthday presents? I could buy them new dogs instead, but then I’m just setting up two different dogs to suffer in their hands.
I guess most people would say the bigger problem is that I’ve blown up my entire life. I married a man who turned awful while we were still on our honeymoon, and Istayed. I don’t even know why I stayed. Was it because we’d just had this massive, seven-figure wedding and I couldn’t imagine admitting my mistake? Or was it because I was so accustomed to scrambling for approval that scrambling forhisjust felt familiar?
I don’t have a job, I don’t have hobbies, I don’t have fun. I also don’t have a husband or kids.
I’ve got nothing, and that’s still better than being with a man who’d treat me the way Harvey did today.
I just wish I’d figured it out a lot sooner than I did.
Normally,the sound of Charlie’s cottage door shutting is my morning alarm, but when I wake the next day, the sun is high in the sky.
I go to the balcony, but there’s no sign of him on the trail around the cove and he wouldn’t work out this late anyway.
Apparently, he had a lot more fun than I did last night. I’ve got no business being bothered by that, but I at least expected a shoulder to cry on.
When I go to the kitchen, the missing car keys confirm it.
He didn’t fucking come home.
What the fuck? He knew what happened to me and he just…went home with someone else?
I press my face into my palms, more hurt than I have a right to be.
Why am I here? What am I even doing? Of course he stayed out all night and if my head was in the right place, I wouldn’t care about that at all.
Maybe he didn’t actually want me to stay. I’ve been cramping his style for over a week. Of course he didn’t want me to?—
There’s a long creak as the front door swings open. And then…tiny feet scamper across the tiled foyer.
I move toward the sound and have just stepped into the dining room when Echo and Narcy come rushing toward me.
Oh my God. What?
I start crying as I drop to my knees, hugging them to me, stunned and shaken.
Charlie stands in the frame of the door with circles under his eyes and the sweetest, most pleased grin on his face.
“How did you get them back?” I whisper, crying too hard to speak normally. I set them down but they’re so excited they just keep jumping on me so I pick them back up. I missed them even more than I realized.
