Page 110 of For Keeps. For Always.

Brooks gave himself to me completely, in a time of hurt, and I shunned him because of the fear of my own guilt and feelings.

I flirted with the concept of Glasgow being our second chance, only to rip it away from him after I knew he still wanted me. For what? A guy I barely knew.

I took a gesture of love and intimacy and threw it back in his face like a grenade. Watching it explode withnoremorse. What woman wouldn’t want a man to jump on a flight in the middle of the night because he couldn’tnotbe with her? Apparently my pig-headedness.

I offered him everything, promised to love him always, only to break my promise the moment it served my pride to do so.

I ran the first time wereallytried and things got hard.

I told him we were broken from the start, when, in fact, it was me. I was broken, and Brooks Riley loved me through it all.

He took a chance on loving his sad and pitiful best friend.

Time and time again.

Even after I proved I wasn’t worthy.

What if that was it?

What if I threw our final chance at our happily ever after away?

What if he finds someonebetterto love? Someone who hasn’t shattered him the way I have. . . time and fucking time again.

I didn’t treat our love as though it was for keeps like I promised. It was for sometimes, for when it worked for me, and living with those consequences might be enough to destroy me.

I growl at my phone, wishing like hell I’d changed my number all those years ago to keep her at bay. “Jacinta,” I sigh into the line. “You do remember we agreed on going our separate ways?”

“Your father is dead.”

No prelude. No pleasantries. Just straight in with news that would emotionally buckle most people.

“You said you didn’t know who my father was.”

“I mean Derrick, Henley. Don’t be purposely daft.”

I gulp back the unwarranted emotion in my throat. “Derrick wasn’t my dad.”

My mother growls down the line. “You are being difficult. Derrick is dead. The man you called dad for seventeen years isdead.”

“Are you. . .crying?” I pull the phone away from my ear, looking at the caller ID before putting it back.

“I’m allowed to grieve my ex-husband.”

My eyes flash red. Anger and resentment andragepause my breathing. “In what world?” I spit. “In what fucking world are you allowed to grieve a man you lied to for seventeen years?”

Her voice sounds over the line, but I cut her off before her first words are free.

“A man you dropped like a trash can the moment something better came along? You have no fucking right to grieve Derrick Wright, and you know it.”

“And you do?” she bites back.

“Likely not, no. Is that all, Jacinta?”

She goes quiet. “His lawyer contacted me.”

I wait impatiently on the line.

“You’re requested for the reading of the will.”

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