Page 130 of The Fiancée Farce
She pinched her eyes shut and sucked in another ragged breath, tasting salt as a few renegade tears escaped and slid down her face.
“Did you mean it?”
Gemma licked her chapped lips, tasting more salt, the corners of her mouth stinging. “Did I mean what?”
A floorboard creaked behind her as Tansy took a step closer. Gemma pressed her forehead against the door, the wood grain biting into her skin.
“What you said to Lucy.”
Gemma had said plenty to Lucy. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
The floor creaked again, and Gemma didn’t have to turn around to know that Tansy was right behind her. The hair on the back of her neck rose, her whole body humming with awareness. Attuned to Tansy.
The urge to curve her body into Tansy’s was overwhelming. Gemma pressed her forehead into the door harder.
“It was right before I left the club. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. You asked her if it had never occurred to her that you were—you were in love with me.” Tansy dragged in an audible breath. “Did you mean it? Were you? Are you?”
Gemma bit down on the inside of her lip, redirecting her pain, making it material, flesh and blood, something that, with time, would hopefully heal. The taste of rust filled her mouth. “Does it matter?”
Tansy hiccupped softly, the sound striking Gemma in the chest and obliterating the fragments of her heart, crushing them to a pulp. “God, Gemma. How can you ask me that?”
How could Tansy think she didn’t love her?
Couldn’t she see this was killing Gemma? That the door was the only thing keeping her upright?
“Of course it matters to me. It’s the only thing that matters to me,” Tansy said.
Gemma could deny it. Tell Tansy she hadn’t meant it, that it had been a hypothetical she’d hurled at Lucy in the heat of the moment. But that would be a lie, and she’d promised to be honest with Tansy.
But she couldn’t tell her the truth, either. The moment she said the words, any version of them in any order, explicitly or implied, leaving wouldn’t be merely hard—it would be impossible.
“I don’t even know how to be in a relationship. I’d have madea terrible wife.” Her lip throbbed in time with her pulse. Talking hurt, breathing hurt, being so close to Tansy without touching herkilledGemma, but better her than Tansy.
“That’s not true. You were...” Tansy hiccupped softly. “You can’t know that.”
“Well, you can’t know that it’snottrue.” Gemma cringed.
What a dumb retort. She was losing it—her edge, her mind, her ability to speak without sobbing, the battle against flinging herself into Tansy’s arms and begging her to love her back even though she was a Van Dalen and by default that meant she was bad for Tansy. That no matter how hard she tried, she—her family—would bring nothing but peril to Tansy’s life.
Her hand slipped down the door, finding the knob and gripping it tight, then she stepped to the side and wrenched the door open. A tactical retreat, necessary if she had any hope of leaving.
“Gemma,please.”
Tears blurred her vision. Cars outside streaked past, nothing but fast-moving colors. The air nipped at her nose, freezing the tear tracks on her cheeks, chapping her lips. It was so fucking cold compared to the warmth inside Tansy’s store. “You dodged a bullet. Trust me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
If Tansy had dodged a bullet, then why, why,whydid it feel like her heart had been pierced by one?
She’d like for Gemma to explain how this could possibly be for the best when it felt like anything but. Gemma had left the store, taking all the oxygen in the room with her. Each breath had hurt more than the last, but she’d had no choice but to keep breathing, keep moving, going through the motions of working the register, all with a smile on her face, dying on the inside.
All with Gemma’s check—more money than Tansy had ever seen in her life, more money than she could reasonably wrap her brain around—folded up inside her pocket.
She didn’t want it. Not like this, a Pyrrhic victory.
She’d gotten what she’d originally wanted, but at what cost? She’d lost what little pride she’d had to begin with. The most—second most?—humiliating moment of her life was tabloid fodder, her face splashed across every local newspaper, including theSeattle Tribune, which, talk about adding insult to injury.
Her losses were incalculable, but she’d have been okay if it hadn’t been for her greatest loss of all.
