Page 125 of The Fiancée Farce
Gemma fisted her hands in the organza of her ball gown. “Why’s that?”
“Because.” Lucy smiled, a cruel, twisted little slash. “You Van Dalens are all the same. You don’t know what love is, and you ruin everything,everyone, you touch.”
For a second, her heart stopped beating. No, it didn’t stop beating. Itfroze.
“Get out,” she whispered. Tears clung to her bottom lashes, close to spilling over.
Lucy’s face crumbled. “Gemma—”
“I saidget.Out.” The fire in her veins was gone, banked, replaced with ice. “You have forty-eight hours to get your shit out of the apartment.”
Lucy’s jaw dropped. “Gemma—”
“Forty-seven hours and fifty-nine fucking minutes,” Gemma amended, resolute.
“Please—”
“Leave,” Gemma snapped, a thread of anguish woven into her voice. Her chin quivered almost imperceptibly before she clenched her jaw. “I feel sick to my stomach being in the same room as you. I can’t. Ican’t.” Gemma’s eyes grew glassier the longer she went without blinking. “I want you out of the apartment and out of my life.”
Mascara-stained tears dripped off Lucy’s chin as she spun on her heel and stormed out of the room past Mom and Brooks.
“Damn it.” Gemma clutched at the bodice of her dress, chest rising and falling rapidly, breath escaping her in shallow pants,one hand flattened against her upper chest, fingers splayed against the notch at the hollow of her throat, the other drifting around her body, tugging desperately at her zipper. “It’s stuck. I can’t—Jesus, I can’t breathe.” A quiet, gasping sob rasped from between her lips. “Can someonepleaseget this fucking dress off of me?”
In two strides, Brooks crossed the room, gripped the back of her dress in both hands, and tore the fabric down the middle, ripping it to the small of her back.
Gemma bent at the waist, continuing to suck in short, shaky breaths, on the verge of hyperventilating, lungs refusing to cooperate.
Mom hurried over, gathering Gemma up in her arms, enveloping her in the scent of bergamot and jasmine.
A sob wrenched itself from Gemma’s lips. “Mom.”
“Shh,” she soothed. “I know, hon.”
Gemma’s shoulders shook, convulsive sobs wracking her slender frame. “Everything’s so messed up.Imessed up.”
“It’s okay.” Mom rubbed her back. “Maybe it’s not okay now, but I promise it will be.”
“Tansy?” She drew back, scanning the room with puffy, burning eyes. “Where’s Tansy?”
Brooks cleared his throat. “She left.”
“Left?” she croaked. “What do you mean she left?”
Like she was in her bridal suite? Or—
“Her friend Samina took her home,” Mom said. “Today was a lot for both of you.”
Gemma shut her eyes.
A lot for them both, but worse for Tansy.
She pressed her fingertips to her mouth, stomach churning, bile creeping up the back of her throat.
Gemma had made Tansy one promise. That she wouldn’t let Tucker or anyone else in her family hurt Tansy again and—
She fucked up.
Shefailed.
