Page 39 of Texas-Sized Scandal

But she had steel in her backbone. He should have known that by now.

“Play some music, Jeeves,” she said to her in-home assistant.

The first song that came on was “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green. That oldie that she and Slade had danced to on their first date. He’d taken her to Galveston for a private dinner on the beach and then they’d danced under the stars.

Tears burned the back of her eyes.

“Skip this song, Jeeves, and play ‘Shout Out to My Ex’ by Little Mix instead.”

The song switched and she forced herself to get up from the vanity stool and sing along with the song until she didn’t feel like crying anymore. The music continued with more dance and party tunes as she finished getting ready for her day.

She went to work and sat in meetings and smiled at everyone she saw throughout the day and if she were honest, she thought she did a pretty good job of acting like everything was normal. Until Angela texted to invite her out to dinner at the Flying Saucer. She accepted, then realized that fooling her twin that she wasn’t heartbroken was going to be a lot harder than fooling everyone else. She went home and changed into a pair of jeans that felt too constricting around the middle, even though her belly hadn’t changed. So she switched for a long flowy dress and a cardigan because the air-conditioning was sometimes too cold for her and went to meet her twin.

Angela was already waiting for her when she got there and waved from her table toward the back of the restaurant. She heard the music from the bar as she moved past the tables and noticed a family sitting to her right. Unbidden, an image of herself and a child sitting together popped into her head. She smiled and realized that she was going to be fine without Slade. She’d miss him and there would be times when she’d feel his absence, but she knew she’d figure out a way to make being a single mom work for her.

Angela got up and hugged her and then slid back into the booth. “I didn’t know what to order you to drink. I mean with the, uh, you know.”

“I know. Sweet tea will be fine,” Melinda said when the waitress came over. They both placed their order. Because they’d eaten here so often, they knew the menu by heart.

As soon as they were alone, Angela leaned forward. “How are you doing? Did you get Slade to commit?”

She shook her head. “I’m doing okay. No, I didn’t get him to commit and I gave him an ultimatum... You know, we might need to consider the reason I’m single is that I’m sort of an all-or-nothing kind of girl.”

Angela squeezed her hand. “Nothing wrong with that. Is there anything I can do?”

“You’ve already done it,” she said, looking around. Being alone, she knew, was going to be difficult until she could think about Slade and not feel like crying. She was grateful her sister had asked her to dinner. “I really needed this tonight. I’ve been fake smiling my way through the day and with you, I can just be me.”

“You know it, girl,” Angela said. “Want me to kick his ass for you?”

She smiled at her sister. “I love you, you know that, right?”

Her twin nodded. “Do I need to go and find Slade Bartelli?”

“No. But thank you for that. I’m pretty sure this was rough on him as well.”

“Okay, then. He always struck me as smarter than that. Do you want to talk about it?” Angela asked.

They both sat back as the waitress delivered two French dip sandwiches and a hot pretzel on the side. Melinda broke off a piece of the pretzel before answering her sister.

“Not now,” she said. “It’s too fresh right now.”

“Okay. Then if you don’t mind, I could actually use your help,” Angela said while they enjoyed their dinner.

She hoped her sister wouldn’t ask her to help plan her and Ryder’s wedding. But she would say yes if Angela did. “What with?”

“Do you know a Willem Inwood? The name sounds so familiar and I wondered if he was a family friend or maybe someone we went to school with?” Angela asked.

Relief flooded through her. Something that had nothing to do with weddings. Thank the stars. No one came to mind, so she shook her head. “The name sounds sort of familiar, but I can’t place it. I’ll look through my address book at home.”

“Address book?”

“Yes. I mean, I digitized everything but kept all my old paper books. One of them has Mom’s handwriting in it and I couldn’t part with that,” Melinda said.

“Of course not, and it makes total sense that you’d have your hard copies. Don’t want to take a chance on losing anything important, right?”

“Exactly.”

They chatted and Melinda even laughed a bit with her sister before going home and it was only when she was back in her bedroom, after putting Pixie out and getting ready for bed, that she realized she was lying to herself about being okay with the breakup. She missed Slade and could only hope that in time the pain would lessen.

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