Page 37 of The Charm of You

“That’s why you’ve been acting strange.” He lurches forward to run his palms up and down my arms. “Caroline, we’ll find you another job. We’ll return to the city tomorrow and figure this out together. I have plenty of contacts, and once I tell them you and I are engaged, they’ll be especially happy to find a place for you.”

“What about my reunion?”

“Come on.” He laughs the same way he does when his five-year-old niece won’t get in the car because she wants to show him one last dance. Like I’m being so silly. “Getting your career back on track is much more important than catching up with your old math teacher and former cheerleader friends.”

Unease rolls through me as I realize I was right about him. This is why I was so nervous to tell him I have no job, because he’d think it’s as bad as I believe it to be. Like he doesn’t want me if I don’t have a good and reputable career. If my face doesn’t stay on billboards. If I’m not his trophy wife without thoughts and opinions of her own.

I slip out of his suffocating grasp and shake my head. “No,” I whisper.

“No?” He blinks like he doesn’t recognize me. Did he ever know the real me?

“Thank you for offering to help, but I won’t be needing it.” I wrap my arms around my waist, my thundering heart rattling underneath my rib cage. “And I’m sorry, but I’m not marrying you. Give the ring to someone who wants the same things as you.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you and I wanted the same things.”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes. “I don’t know what I want, but I know this isn’t it.”

“You’re going to regret this, but I won’t be waiting around for you. Once I leave this house, we’re fucking done, and I never want to see you again,” he seethes, and a tear slips down my cheek.

As Edward retrieves his untouched luggage, the wheels rolling across my mother’s worn tiled floor, more tears fall without restraint. I can’t swipe them away fast enough, nor does he pause to lend a hand.

I think if he did, I’d feel worse, so perhaps it’s a good thing.

“I’ll find a hotel in Savannah for tonight and head out in the morning,” he says and never makes eye contact.

I worry my trembling lip beneath my teeth, and I tighten my arms around my stomach in a desperate attempt to hold myself together.

My chapter with Edward is over, as is the career I dedicated the last five and a half years of my life to. I’m back in my hometown for my high school reunion, which I’m attending as an imposter—an old version of myself I barely know anymore.

I shut the door and face the living room. The fireplace is dated, as are the couch and pictures along the shelves. It’s all clean and well-kept, but it’s definitely older than it was when I stood in this spot ten years ago.

This is my childhood home. I thought revisiting my roots might provide insight. That it could help me find myself, or at least my next move.

But I’ve never felt more lost.

chapter

eleven

AUSTIN

“I’m Caroline’s fiancé.”

She’s engaged. The princess and her prince. The golden girl and her suit-and-tie, soon-to-be husband. It’s a damn match made in fucking heaven.

“No music today? You didn’t play any yesterday, either. What’s crawled up your ass lately?” Judd calls out from his office, and his question bounces off the walls as if he’s speaking through a megaphone, which pisses me off more.

It’s like everything around me is screaming to stop being so pathetic over a girl who’s never been mine and never will be.

I don’t even want Caroline, anyway. The woman drives me insane. Why would I purposely subject myself to such torture?

Jesus. She’s been in town for less than three days, and she’s already gotten my head in a twist all because she crushed my stupid pride. I’m falling back into teenage patterns like a fucking chump. What am I thinking?

“There’s music. Plenty of music today and every day. I’m as happy as a pig in mud,” I call out, then hop off the stool, set my water down, and tap my phone screen. Two seconds later, slow country music filters through the Bluetooth speaker I bought for the shop.

“You’re a pig, all right.”

“Ouch. Why do you have to hurt me like that?” I tease.

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