Page 104 of The Plus One Professional

“After witnessing hundreds of grooms, I’ve gotten very good at spottingthe look.”

“The look?”

“The look a man gets in his eye when the person walking toward him owns him, body, mind, and soul. The look that he gets when there’s no doubt in his mind that she is it for him. The look that he gets in his eye that says he would burn the world down to protect her. The look he gets in his eye that says he knows he’s the luckiest man in the world because he gets to love her.”

“Doesn’t every groom look like that?” I asked.

“No,” she stated flatly. “They don’t. But Cole has the look.”

“I can’t waste more time,” I told Billie the same thing I’d told Cole. “I wasted two decades in love with the wrong man; I don’t want to wa?—”

“You weren’t in love with Simon.”

“What? Yes, I was.”

“No, you weren’t. He was just your replacement.”

“Replacement for what? He was my first real boyfriend.”

“Replacement for dad.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You met Simon the week after dad died. You replaced one emotionally unavailable man with another. That’s it. You didn’t love him; you just couldn’t let him go because you associated him with a stable man in your life or the position you always wanted to be filled by a stable man in your life. But just like Dad, Simon was never going to be that for you. A narcissist can never be that.”

Was she right? Was that what I’d done?

Holy shit.She was right. Now that she said it, it made total sense. I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. I’d always wondered why Simon had had such a hold over me, and now I had my answer.

“So, I’ve wasted two decades because of daddy issues,” I stated, more to myself than to Billie.

“I mean… I feel like that’s less than the national average.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since I picked you up after your first day at Habitat.”

“That was the first day I met him.” I couldn’t believe my sister had never enlightened me before. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“You weren’t ready to hear it. You would have dismissed it and defended him.”

Dismiss and defend had been my go-to responses when it came to Simon.

“Okay, so what should I—” My question was interrupted when a text message popped up on my computer screen.

It was from Olivia.

Olivia:In labor. On the way to the hospital. Picking you up in five.

“Oh my god!” I cried out. “Olivia’s in labor! I gotta go.”

“Call if you need anything.”

I quickly shot a response back that simply read,Yay, then hopped up and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. I put my hair up in a ponytail, threw my computer in my bag with some snacks and a book, and rushed downstairs to wait for her.

As I stood on the sidewalk, I stared at the spot where Cole had dropped me off after the wedding. I thought about the look in his eye when he said he had something he wanted to tell me. And then the look in his eye when I’d woken up on his lap.

Was Billie right?

---