Page 153 of Wildest Dreams

“It is Dad I’m still angry at,” I explained. “It’s his fault I can’t trust men. That I want to think of them as disposable.”

“But then look at Marty and me.” Mama’s face lit up. “He put my heart back together when I didn’t even think I had anything left to give to people who weren’t my children and grandchildren. Happily ever afters happen all the time. And they are especially satisfying if the road to them is bumpy.”

“Mama, I screwed up,” I moaned.

She gave me a stern look for my choice of words but let it slide. “Why do you think that?”

“I left him when I knew people leaving was his red line. His parents were very neglectful to him growing up. They blew his inheritance money and left him with their dogs to travel the world.”

“Poor Rhyland. I always had an inkling.” My mother made a face. “He’ll forgive you.”

“Do you think?” I winced. I hoped so. God, I did. But even though Rhyland had been nothing but amazing to me, I knew he had his own limits. He was no pushover.

“Yes. You two will be just fine. Il dolore aiuta a crescere.”

“Hmm?”

“Sorrow helps one grow,” she explained. “Those things you suffered through weren’t in vain. They gave you perspective. They gave you strength. The thing I’ve come to learn about having a partner you love is this.” Mom stroked my cheek compassionately. “It’s not always going to be easy, but it’s always going to be worth it.”

“I need to call him.” I stood up.

Mama’s hand shot out to stop me. She shook her head. Her smile did the chiding for her.

I dropped my head back and groaned. “Ugh, really?”

“Really.”

“But I just got back.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Gravity is asleep.”

“Leave her here.”

It’s not that I was too lazy to make the journey back to New York. It was that I wanted to talk to him immediately. To grovel my ass off.

“I love you, Mama.”

“I love you more, cara.”

RHYLAND

“You’re shitting me,” I sighed.

“Rhyland!” Zeta, Dylan’s mother, reproached me from her doorstep, waving a kitchen towel threateningly at me. “Watch that language of yours. I said she is not here, and that is that.”

“Where is she, then?” I asked impatiently.

It was two in the fucking morning, and I was running on no sleep, no food, and no fucks. I wanted to see Dylan. And since I didn’t have a private jet at my disposal, I’d made my way here in the McLaren, breaking approximately every traffic rule known to man.

“She went back to New York to ask you to take her back.” Zeta tugged her robe tighter around her chest.

“I’m not leaving until she—Wait, what?”

“She understood she made a mistake as soon as she started driving to Maine,” Zeta explained with a smile.

“And she never heard of the word U-turn?” I was on the brink of dancing, crying, high-fiving myself, and hugging Zeta. Possibly all at the same time.

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