Page 46 of Part of Me (The Seaside Chronicles 2)

I felt Brody’s eyes boring into me. I could only imagine what was going through his head at that moment.

“You asked her without asking for my permission?” my father said.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Brody opened his mouth, but all that came out was, “Ahhh…”

“It was my fault, Dad. I asked him to keep it between us. I knew that once Addie was back, there was a strong possibility Gannon would ask her to marry him, and honestly, Brody and I liked keeping it our little…secret.” I turned to Brody. “Right?”

He nodded and smiled. “Yes. I wanted to ask for her hand, sir.”

My father narrowed his eyes at Brody. “And she talked you out of it?”

Brody gave a shaky nod. “She didn’t, um…well, she was worried, um, that—”

Oh, dear God. Brody can’t lie to save his life.

“It was so soon after your heart attack when Brody and I started dating,” I said gently. “And, well, we also really didn’t want to deal with the gossip since it was so soon after my divorce too.”

“Yes, it is soon,” my mother stated.

I shook my head. “It may seem like it’s too soon, but I’ve had feelings for Brody for a long time.”

All eyes snapped to me.

“Then why in the hell did you marry that asshole?” my father demanded.

“Keegan Bradley!” my mother said in a firm voice.

“What?” he scoffed. “It’s a damn good question.”

Brody and I looked at each other, and he simply raised one brow. It was obvious he was going to let me dig deeper into this lie.

“Brody was in the Navy, and he was older,” I said. “I thought at the time that I was in love with Jack, but then Brody came back to Seaside, and things with Jack went sour. Brody was there for me and we…we fell in love.”

I turned to Brody. The way he was looking at me made me think for one brief moment that he really was in love with me. I silently pleaded for him to go along with me.

“Yes, that’s pretty much how it happened,” he agreed.

“Why the cloak and dagger, though? Why didn’t you tell us?” Janet asked.

“I don’t know, Mom,” he said. “We wanted to see how things went. Then I realized that I loved Sutton, and I wanted to make her my wife as soon as possible.”

I quickly added, “Now felt like the right time.”

“Why now?” my father asked.

I drew in a deep breath. “Jack is back in Seaside.”

My father’s jaw tensed.

“He’s been trying to reconcile, and he was being rather pushy about it, so Brody and I decided…” My words faded.

My mother closed her eyes and slowly shook her head before looking at me. “Tell me you didn’t get married simply to put off Jack? Oh, Sutton—”

“No,” Brody cut in. “We’d been talking about it, but after Addie and Gannon got engaged, we decided to put it on the back burner.”

“But then you suddenly eloped?” Ken asked. “Why?”

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