Page 98 of Perfect Pursuit

“What?” and “I don’t understand” come out simultaneously.

“Yellow…suit,” my mother manages before she nudges her oxygen cannula back down into place.

“Yellow plaid suit,” I correct her. “With her blond hair and yellow plaid suit, my father was trying to compliment her by saying she looked like Alicia Silverstone.”

At that point, both Paige and Austyn put it together and laugh. I stroke my hand up my mother’s arm. “You gave him hell.”

“Sure…did.”

“He loved you for it,” I remind her.

It takes her a few before she murmurs, “I was never sure why me.”

“I know.” I’ve said the same thing ever since she told me the story for the last twenty years. I know exactly why my father fell in love with my mother. He fell in love with the heart that was as bright as her trendy yellow plaid suit.

Her lips curve. “Half the girls in that bar were in love with him.”

“He never saw anyone but you after he laid eyes on you the first time,” I remind her, reaching back and capturing her hand with mine. I bring her hand to my cheek, nuzzling against it.

“He loved you, Fallon.”

I swallow hard because the few pictures of my father and me showed he did indeed love me. He worshiped my mother and adored me. I searched for that expression in the eyes of every man I met and never came close to seeing it until Ethan. At least before. Now? Nothing will ever be the same.

Her hand falls away limply. My heart turns over in fear until I realize the beep, beep of her heart monitor is still going. A whoosh of air releases. “She fell asleep.”

Austyn comes over to me and wraps her arms around me from behind. “You should try to get some too.”

“I’ll just doze.”

“Fallon, you have to get some rest sometime,” Paige admonishes me.

I shake my head vigorously. I know if I sleep, I’ll end up back in the Devil’s Lair parking lot, dying. And really, isn’t it bad enough I’m going to have to bleed out a second time in such a short period of time? Do I really need to relive the death of my happily ever after while my once upon a time is taken from me?

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

KENSINGTON, TEXAS

Brendan Blake pulled his niece through marriage, Grace Bianco, up on stage at Madison Square Garden tonight. Shocking the crowd, the two belted out a rendition of the Luke Bryan/Karen Fairchild duet, “Home Alone Tonight” that blew the roof off the place!

Who is Grace Bianco? Well, for one, she is a practicing anaplastologist. Also, the brilliant beauty is one of the Amaryllis heirs.

And she’s not taken how?

—Sexy & Social, All the Scandal You Can Handle

Two days pass, and nothing about them is good despite the sun streaming in my windows. In my mind, I’m haunted by Thorn’s words.

What did I do?

Did I really act too hastily?

Was Fallon’s worst crime working in a place where she sold her voice?

Then bitterness swamps through me again. I lift my leg and kick over a chair. “She knows our family. She should have come to me if she needed money.”

But what if she couldn’t? An insidious voice taunts me.

“That can’t be right. There’s nothing Fallon hasn’t shared with me,” I argue with myself. I just can’t escape the memories of her trying to press in on me from all sides.

---