Page 34 of Nothing Stays in Vegas

His head was spinning. Hurt and betrayed, confused and exhausted, not to mention disgusted with himself. Cal had had enough. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

Lara looked up at him with a pleading gaze. She wanted him to take her out of there, to rescue her, but she was half the problem. He needed time to think. He needed some space from the insanity of the Sinclair estate. With a single shake of his head, he told her no and watched the hope fade from her eyes.

He wasn’t being fair, but none of this was fair. “I’m sorry, Lara, it’s too much.”

Chapter Fifteen

Cal was gone. Gone from the room, gone from the house and probably gone from her life. Lara couldn’t blame him. If the tables had been turned, if this had been his family, she might have run for the hills too.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a long breath, forcing her lungs to fill, trying to alleviate the feeling of cold emptiness within her chest. No, she wouldn’t have been able to leave him.

Her lids lifted and her gaze settled across the room on Dette who looked to be ignoring Adam’s threats about her showing some discretion when it came to her lovers.

“You knew how I felt about him.” Lara’s words were slow and deliberate.

Adam stopped talking. Dette’s hard stare slid up to meet her own. “What’s your point?”

“You wouldn’t let me tell him, even though you knew how much he meant to me. You wanted me to lose him.”

“Don’t try and pin this on me, Lara. You could have told Cal if you really wanted to.”

“But I didn’t because I believed you when you said you loved Adam. Looking at you now, I can’t even tell if you like him.” Her brows pulled together in disbelief

as she spoke. “How does the man you are marrying not even care that you slept with someone else?”

“Marriage means different things to different people. You, with your wide-eyed romanticized view on life, want a man who will love you. You don’t care about money or society. But I’m a practical girl. I understand that to have the things in life that are important to me, to my family, sacrifices have to be made. Adam comes from the right family, has the right job, knows the right people…”

He glanced over and nodded. “Likewise.”

Lara shook her head and held up her palm. “Dette, do you hear yourself? Important to you? Important to your family? Who are you kidding? Mom and Dad aren’t even here. That’s how much they care. Your pack of bridesmaids? You’ve backstabbed each of them so many times, they’re only here out of obligation. The one person who actually loves you—who actually cares is me. Was me. But I’m done. Because I can finally see that I’m not important enough for you to just tell the truth.” Pointing her hand at Adam, she yelled, “You wouldn’t have lost anything. He doesn’t give a shit! But I’ve lost Cal, and I love him.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Finally, he rubbed his hands together and glanced back at the door. “Well, I think we’re just about done here. Dette, you and I can straighten this out later. Lara…” he looked at a loss for words. “Keep your chin up.”

“Sure, Adam.” Lara stood perfectly still. If she let herself move, she feared she would explode. She needed Adam out of the room, but she wasn’t finished with Dette, not by a long shot.

“Grow up, Lara. Cal wasn’t going to stick around anyway, so stop your whining.”

Lara rounded on her. “What the hell makes you say that? Because he didn’t stick around for you?” And then she stopped. Blinked. It couldn’t be that simple. That small. And yet, with one look at Dette, wearing a small turn at the corner of her mouth, Lara knew that was it. “You’re jealous.”

The malevolent smile melted into a scowl. “And why is that so hard to believe? That I would be jealous of you—the girl who gets everything she wants, doesn’t care about finding the right kind of man but gets one handed to her on a silver platter and then falls in love with him. You get everything and you don’t even have to try!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think if this was your wedding that Mom and Dad would still be in Mexico? You think they would fly in the night before?”

“Dette, you planned this wedding with two months’ notice. You chose a date when you knew they were going to be gone.”

“They are always gone!” she screamed. “Couldn’t they just this once come back for me? Just this one time?”

Lara shook her head. “We all know that they weren’t around enough when we were girls. That they shouldn’t have let business keep them away from us. But what’s done is done.”

“I did everything right. And when it didn’t work, I did everything wrong, but did anything work? No. Nothing I did mattered.”

“Dette, that’s not true. You took care of me when no one else was there to do it, and that mattered. Regardless of how unfair it was to you, you did it anyway, and I’ve never forgotten. But we’re adults now. It’s time to stop holding grudges and making excuses. Mom and Dad have apologized, but you keep trying to make them prove how sorry they are. You keep trying to get back at me for being the one you had to take care of, but I’m tired of taking it. All you do is test people, time and time again. Eventually it gets exhausting and people stop trying to prove that you are still the priority.”

“How can you talk to me like this? This is my wedding we’re talking about, and it’s falling apart around me… Mom and Dad should be here to help me prepare.” Dette’s bottom lip started to quiver. “It’s my special day.”

It was more than Lara could stand. Dette hadn’t heard a thing she’d said. It was time for her to become an adult.

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