Page 128 of The Fiancée Farce
You left, too, Gemma wanted to say. But she understood why Tansy had fled the scene.
Gemma cringed harder. “I’m sorry about that. I just couldn’t...”
Tansy’s lips tipped up at the corners, a small, subdued, sad smile. “I get it. It was a lot.”
It was, but Tansy shouldn’t have had to handle the aftermath alone. “Still. I shouldn’t have left you standing there like I did. That was a supremely shitty thing for me to do.”
“I don’t think either of us was firing on all cylinders, considering everything that had happened.”
Gemma huffed. “I’m trying to apologize. I would appreciate it if you’d, you know, let me.”
Tansy smiled. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Gemma.”
That wasn’t true. “I do. I really do. I—” She swallowed hard. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Tansy. For everything. I keep going over it all in my head, playing back through conversations I had with Lucy, with Brooks, hints Tucker had dropped, and I keep kicking myself for not seeing it coming.”
“I didn’t realize you were a fortune teller,” Tansy joked, her eyes sad.
Gemma sniffed hard, sinuses burning. The smell of Tansy’s shampoo was stronger now, and it made the back of her throat thicken. “Jesus.How are you so perfect?”
Tansy’s jaw dropped. “Me?”
Gemma blinked hard, laughing despite the fact she was pretty sure this ache inside her chest was the feeling of her heart breaking in two. “Yes, you. You’re so fucking kind, Tansy, and I don’t—God, I don’t deserve it. I don’t—”
She broke off with a hard sniff. How many tears could one person shed within a week? Did the limit not exist?
“Youdodeserve it, Gemma.” Tansy took a step forward, and Gemma matched it with a step back. Tansy’s face fell, and Gemma hated herself more than she already did for making her frown.
Tansy was beautiful and brilliant and a bevy of other amazing things Gemma lacked the words for, but she was wrong.
Gemmadidn’tdeserve it. Not Tansy’s kindness, and certainly not her consolation. She deserved endless recrimination and—and flagellation.
If Tansy wouldn’t do it for her, Gemma would do it herself.
“It’s easy to be kind when you care about someone the way I care about you,” Tansy said.
Sothiswas what it felt like, being killed with kindness. A slow, sweet asphyxiation, like all the air in the room had suddenly vanished and all Gemma could do was stand here and endure it.
Air or not, there was nowhere she’d rather be. But she couldn’t stay. Shecouldn’t.
“Did, uh, Lucy move out?”
She nodded, too choked up to speak. “Mhmm.”
“I’m sorry,” Tansy said.
Gemma shrugged and sniffed. “It, uh,is what it is.”
Tansy smiled one of those too-good-to-be-true smiles where it felt like she understood all the things Gemma hadn’t said, and another piece of her heart broke. Never before had Gemma missed someone who was standing right in front of her as badly as she missed Tansy right now. The urge to fling herself into Tansy’sarms was overwhelming, almost impossible to withstand, but she did, instead reaching inside her purse with trembling fingers and pulling out the check she’d written.
She had to swallow twice before she could speak. “I came by to give you this.”
Gemma held the check out, hand shaking.
Tansy stared at it. “What?”
“It’s yours. You agreed to marry me and I agreed to give you the funds to buy the bookstore.”
Tansy shook her head, looking confused. “But we didn’t get married.”
