Page 3 of Mechanic's Charming Bride

How the hell is he going to afford that? How is he ever going to pay that back? We can’t get a house now—not with that kind of debt on his name.

“Doesn’t Samantha have savings?” I hear Martha say. “Take some of it and pay off the loan that way. You guys can work off the rest of the difference.”

“She’s not going to let me do that.”

Martha huffs. “She’s about to be your wife, Frankie. Your debt is her debt. That’s how this works.”

Absolutely no fucking way.

My savings are my hard-earned money and no one else is allowed to touch it. His mother can try and guilt me all she wants. I worked too damn hard for that money to be thrown away because my fiancé was too pig-headed to back out when he should’ve.

“Yeah,” I hear Frank say. “You’re right. I’ll get her account info and use the money to pay some of it off. She won’t let me if I ask her.”

“Better to ask forgiveness than ask permission,” Martha says.

Anger burns in my veins at their words, along with crushing sorrow.

I can’t believe I’m going to marry this man.

I can’t believe I’m going to walk down the aisle and promise him my future when there clearly isn’t one. How the hell are we supposed to pay back two hundred thousand dollars with the jobs we have now? We’ll go bankrupt.

I head back to the other side of the building, getting far, far away from that conversation. My heart is hammering so hard it’s making me dizzy. Stumbling around the corner, I spot the parking lot and my old beater car sitting there just as I’d left it this morning.

Slowly, I pat the hidden pocket of my dress, feeling my phone tucked along with the spare key my dad had given me when he’d come to visit during my hair styling.

Before overthinking it, I run across the parking lot to my car. I’m out.

Chapter Two

Sam

The wind whipping in my hair has me feeling alive for the first time in months.

I laugh loudly to myself as I drive down the highway, leaving my broke fiancé and the rest of my problems behind me. The first thing I did when I got in my car was call my bank and lock down my accounts, and then I tossed my phone into the passenger seat and took off like a bat out of hell.

I have no idea where I’m going or where I’ll stay for the night, but I sure as hell am not going to be walking down that aisle and marrying that lying asshole. I can’t believe he’d think I’d actually foot the bill for him blowing through a house’s worth of money.

My mind can’t wrap around a single thing about any of that that makes sense.

My mother-in-law suggesting that I pay for his loan is so typical her. She’s babied Frank since the day I met him, and has not once every told me how happy she was when Frank brought me home as teenagers. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to remind him that high school relationships never lasted despite her and her own husband being high school sweethearts.

The years of me trying to fit in and make nice with his family have been completely wasted, which is the saddest part about all of this.

Deciding to leave him right now will give me clarity on what I need to do. Get my head on straight and a plan in gear on how he’ll pay back that money without using mine to do so. Maybe then I’ll be able to come back home and consider this marriage.

But until then, I’m going rogue.

As I drive, I crank up the radio and sing along. The weight of the entire morning finally lifts from my shoulders. It feels great to be out here, driving on the highway to an unknown destination. But isn’t that what figuring your life out is all about?

I have a solid two weeks off from my job until I have to go back.

That’s plenty of time to figure out what I want.

Just as that thought pops into my head, though, I feel my entire car rattle and hear a loud popping sound that scares me into swerving off onto the side of the road. As I’m punching on the brakes, my entire car shakes as it comes to a stop, smoke slowly appearing from under the hood.

“Shit,” I mumble and kick my door open.

My beater car is my prized possession, still running strong from when I bought it the day I turned eighteen as a graduation present for myself. But given that it’s been almost 8 years since then, and the thing was already 12 years old at the time, my poor car has definitely seen better days.

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