Page 66 of Rebel Bride
I’m already on the train back to Chicago.
* * *
Thank you for everything. I’ll never forget it.
The runaway bride had struck again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Summer
* * *
Of course I couldn’t stay.
I had just exited one relationship and the way I was gravitating toward Hatch, I was about to make a huge mistake and jump into another. With my ex-fiancé’s teammate, no less. Simply impossible.
You already destroyed one player, Summer. Why not go for the team?
Shelby Mae might be the sarcastic voice in my head, but I agreed with her on this one. This was absolute madness.
On the train back into the city, I indulged in a memory from this morning: Hatch stretched out on the bed, the cover slipped enough to reveal the curve of his gorgeous glutes. His dark, tousled head lay on the pillow and lovely, sooty eyelashes dipped like a delicate fringe on his cheekbone. I captured a mental snapshot for the lonely nights ahead, then continued my cowardly slide out the door.
Retaking the reins of my life required that I leave all that behind. My first stop was my apartment building in Riverbrook where I usually received a lovely smile from Victor. But not today. Showing up with a wedding dress stuffed into a backpack was definitely a vibe. I hated treating it with such disdain, but I couldn’t leave it behind.
“Hi, Victor. How are you?”
“Good, Miss Landry.” I could tell he was thinking that it should have been Mrs. Carter. “Mr. Carter isn’t back yet from his”—he cleared his throat—“vacation.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I just need to pop in for a spell.” He winced. “And I’m guessing you have strict orders not to give me access.”
“The locks have been changed, and Mr. Carter didn’t leave a spare key for you, I’m afraid.”
Just as I thought. “The thing is, Victor, I need to get my belongings. Would that be possible?”
“Sure, Miss Landry, I can do that.”
Wow, that was a lot easier than I expected. Maybe I still retained some of my Southern charm after all. I followed him to the elevator bank and gave him a genuine smile as we entered the car. But instead of using his master key to access the penthouse floor, he pressed B.
For Basement.
“What’s going on?” The elevator landed with a thud instead of the usual smooth arrival that heralded the upper echelons of the building. The doors opened to a dark, dank—okay, it wasn’t that bad. It was quite well-lit and smelled merely a little musty.
“Mr. Carter packed up your belongings and put them out for trash pick-up. I managed to save most of it.”
He did what? I followed Victor to a corner of the basement near what looked like an incinerator. Beside it, several cardboard boxes were piled high as if ready to be thrown in.
Cautiously, I approached one and unpeeled the flaps. Clothes. Another one contained skincare products and toiletries. It didn’t look like everything, but it was hard to know how many boxes comprised a life.
I opened a couple more, frantically searching for—oh, thank God. My laptop was here. I could replace most everything but that would wipe me out.
“You said most of it.” I turned to Victor. “Did some of it get thrown out?”
“It was by the dumpster, but I had a feeling you’d come back for it. A couple of boxes were already mashed by the truck by the time I realized.”
I threw my arms around him and gave him a hug. “Thank you! I know I’m no longer a tenant, so I appreciate you going out of your way to help me. I’ll take it away today.”
“Your car’s no longer here, Miss Landry.”
