Page 78 of Take My Heart
‘Mom, don’t put Dad on.’
‘I’m putting you on speaker.’
‘Mom, no, I need to go. And you guys need to get back to work.’
‘We didn’t go to the office today,’ I hear my dad say in a very serious tone.
‘You’re taking a day off?’ I ask, surprised because they rarely take days off.
‘We’re dealing with the fallout of you calling off the wedding,’ my dad says.
‘Drew, don’t bring that up,’ my mom says. ‘We agreed we would wait.’
‘Why would we wait? They aren’t dropping the lawsuit. If anything, they’ll be asking for more, maybe even all of it.’
‘Is this about the wedding?’ I ask, remembering what Jill said about Cam’s parents suing my family for the costs.
‘Spencer and Blair are suing us for $200,000,’ my dad says. ‘Unless, of course, you change your mind and agree to marry Cam.’
‘I’m not marrying Cam. And his parents don’t need that money. They’re loaded. Two hundred thousand is nothing to them.’
‘It isn’t about the money. They’re punishing us for what you did. We had an agreement and you didn’t follow through.’
‘It was a wedding, not an agreement. It’s not a business deal.’
‘To Spencer, everything is a business deal, and now your mother and I have to pay for the damages caused by you breaking that deal, not to mention whatever it’ll cost to fix Cam’s car after you drove into a ditch.’
‘It was an accident. The roads were slick.’
‘Drew, we can discuss this another time,’ my mom says. ‘For now, let’s focus on getting Kate out of that house and back home.’
‘Mom, for the last time, I am not going home. I have three weeks off and I’m spending them here.’
‘Where? You don’t mean with that man, do you?’
‘Yes, I’m renting a room here. He has two extra bedrooms and he agreed to rent one of them out to me.’
‘Kate, this is pure nonsense! Why would you stay with some stranger when you could be here? We have plenty of space and you’d be with family. You need that right now. I’ve already prepared your room for when you get back.’
‘I wish you hadn’t done that. I’m not living there. When I get back to Chicago, I’m going to find a new apartment.’
‘That could take time,’ my dad says. ‘Until then, you’ll stay with us.’
My parents don’t get it. They don’t get that I need space,independence, and a life of my own. They still see me as a little girl.
‘Spencer’s lawyer is calling me,’ my dad says. ‘I need to answer this.’
‘Kate, we’ll talk later,’ my mom says before ending the call.
I feel terrible that my parents are being sued because I called off the wedding, but I’m not marrying Cam just to avoid a lawsuit. Why would Blair and Spencer do this? They were friends with my parents. They golfed together, went to dinner together, and even took trips together. And now they’re suing us? I’m glad I never married into Cam’s family. His parents are awful people. I always knew that, but I excused their behavior and tried to stay positive, telling myself nobody’s perfect. But Cam’s parents are just plain mean, and selfish, and greedy.
Maybe if I talked to Cam I could get him to convince his parents to drop the lawsuit. He always liked my parents. He wouldn’t want this happening to them. I send him a text, asking if we can talk.
My phone rings and I see Cam’s name on the screen.
‘Hey, Cam,’ I answer. ‘I wanted to talk to you about—’
‘You need to get your shit out of my apartment,’ he says in an angry tone. I was hoping we could have a calm discussion, but he’s clearly still furious with me.
