Page 4 of Best Kept Vows (Savannah’s Best #6)

Ophelia

M y heart soared when I saw Sebastian.

I rose and smiled. He was here! He’d come.

He came close and dropped a kiss on my lips. “Congratulations, baby.”

I wrapped my arms around him, laid my head on his chest, and soaked him in.

I loved Sebastian more than he loved me.

I knew that and accepted it because I got to keep him; I got him as my husband.

I never told anyone about this, not even Sebastian, because it was my secret—a dark, shameful secret—that I knew he didn’t love me as I did him.

None of it mattered because he was here.

I pulled away and took his hand in mine. “Come, sit. Ada, can you ask the server to set another?—”

A voice cut me off. “Seb, we have to leave.” Jane put a hand on my husband’s shoulder and tapped her watch.

Seb? No one called him that. Only I did…

and only when we made love. Otherwise, he preferred to be called Sebastian.

Only I got to call him Seb. It was mine .

But was it? When was the last time I had called him by his shortened name, i.e.

when was the last time my husband and I had sex?

It had been a while. Maybe three months? More?

He was always so busy and so tired that….

I had to stop making excuses and face the facts. We didn’t have sex because he didn’t want to. When I initiated, he turned me down, and since rejection was painful, I’d stopped instigating intimacy—and waited and waited and….

I looked at Jane in confusion and then at Sebastian.

My husband released a weary sigh. “Baby, Jane and I were just heading to the factory and?—”

“Dad just wanted to stop by and have a glass of champagne.” Ada stood up hurriedly, glaring at her father.

I put two and two together.

She’d been upset when she came back after using the restroom. She’d talked to him . She’d seen him with Jane. He wasn’t here for me. He’d been here with her and….

I plastered a smile on my face, the one I put on whenever I felt I was going to choke on my tears.

Sebastian looked at me, misery in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Lia.”

Jane huffed next to him, her eyes on her phone as she typed away, impatience radiating from her.

“It’s okay, honey.” That was my standard line.

“I’m so sorry I missed our anniversary, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“It’s okay, honey. ”

“Damn, you planned that trip for this weekend? I just can’t, baby.”

“It’s okay, honey.”

“Capstone project presentations are just a formality, Lia—you don’t need me to be there. I have so much going on at work.”

“It’s okay, honey.”

On the tombstone of our marriage, those were the words that would be carved, and the obituary would read, “ She was always okay…until she wasn’t .”

That thought squeezed my heart. I had never thought our marriage would end, but right now, standing here, watching my daughter look at her father with anger, my husband look at me with a mix of guilt and irritation, and the woman he spent more time with than me, calling him Seb, I knew that we were at the beginning of the end.

I went on tiptoe and kissed Sebastian lightly on his lips. “Y’all have a good rest of the day.”

A server then came by with a bottle of Krug and a wine cooler. “Congratulations,” Sebastian repeated huskily, this time with a small smile.

“Oh, honey, thank you for ordering champagne for us.” I forced the words out with a smile that felt like it might crack my face. If I didn’t cling to that fake sweetness, I’d scream right there in the middle of this historic Savannah establishment and fall apart for good.

Sebastian kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Okay. ”

“Ah…congratulations, Ophelia,” Jane murmured as if it was an afterthought, which it probably was.

“Thank you, Jane.”

I was a good society wife; I knew how to be polite to people I couldn't stand. But this was the first time I had to do so while wondering if this woman, whom I found intolerable, was having an affair with my husband of twenty-two years.

After they left, I slumped in the chair as if all my energy had vanished. Ada put her hand on mine, and I immediately went back to being a society wife with a smile plastered on my face.

“Don’t do that,” my daughter admonished. “You’re hurt. Don’t pretend you’re not.”

I felt tears at the back of my eyes. I wouldn’t let them flow. I wouldn’t let my daughter know that her father hurt me—I wouldn’t come between them.

I shrugged. “I’m fine. Let’s drink the champagne. It’s Krug, the good stuff.” I forced a bright smile. I was good at that. I was good at pretending—after all, I’d been doing it for years.

I pretended to be unaffected when Sebastian’s family treated me like I was less than.

My parents and siblings never treated my husband like that.

I grew up in a modest but loving family in Maplewood, New Jersey.

We didn’t have the governor over for dinner, but we were good to one another, unlike what I saw in the Boone household.

My father-in-law, Abraham, handed over the company only after suffering a stroke and now being in a wheelchair.

Years before, he stubbornly refused when Sebastian asked, which caused a rift in the family.

Sebastian walked away from the business and built his consulting firm, which was successful.

It's not like we have Boone family money, but we did well enough to give ourselves a good life.

Sebastian’s sister, Colette—Coco—didn’t get along well with her brother because her husband had a chip the size of Montana on his shoulder.

Bryce worked at Boone Metals and had done so since before he married Coco.

His family used to have money, which they lost, and now his only source of income was a job-non-job that paid him an exorbitant amount of money, which he didn’t earn.

He resented that Abraham had given Boone Metals to Sebastian, who had left the company in a snit , which, according to him, was a betrayal.

But Abraham had always made it clear that when he gave up the company, it would be his son’s to run. This led to tense dinners and some shouting matches, which my mother-in-law, Dolly, invariably blamed on Sebastian and somehow me .

I was the Jezebel who’d led her son on the path that took him away from his family, which was entirely unfair since we lived in Savannah, and I didn’t interfere with what my husband did for work.

In addition, Sebastian was always there for his parents and sister, regardless of whether the children or I needed him.

My birth family was completely different.

Dad and Mama were both educators. My father used to teach history at the local high school, and my mother was a librarian.

They were both retired now and lived in Chapel Hill in North Carolina because that’s where my older sister, Miranda, lived with her husband.

My nephew, Victor, had special needs, which was why my parents decided to live close to them so they could help.

I was close to my family—and yet I hadn’t told them about the problems Sebastian and I were having.

However, they were starting to guess since I’d come to Thanksgiving in North Carolina last year without him, and the year before, he’d had to leave early because there was an emergency at work.

“To you, Mama,” Ada toasted, holding up her drink.

I clinked my glass to hers. “I couldn’t have done this without y’all. Tristan and you have been my rocks.” And then, because I felt obligated, I added, “And your father, of course.”

Ada made a face. “Mama, stop.”

“What, sweetheart?”

“He missed your graduation. He’s missed your birthdays. He’s missed anniversaries.” She huffed out a sharp breath. “He’s missing, period ! And that’s how it’s been since he took over Grandpa’s company.”

Neither Tristan nor Ada thought of Boone Metals as their legacy, though Sebastian used that as the reason he was working so hard.

“He has a big job, and the company is in trouble.” I gave her the standard line that I’d been giving everyone for the past three years.

Sebastian always worked a lot, and though he never forgot the kids and their birthdays, games, or graduations, since he took over the company, he’d stopped showing up for the smaller, quieter moments—the ones that mattered just as much.

He missed dinners and weekend mornings, school projects, and lazy afternoons.

And, somewhere along the line, he stopped showing up for me altogether.

So, yes, the company was in trouble, but due to his negligence and my inability to stand up for myself, I believed that now our marriage was in trouble as well.

Since I knew that Sebastian wouldn’t lift a finger to fix our failing relationship and I was slowly but definitively getting tired of being the bad guy who tried to talk to my husband about him spending time with me like I was a nagging wife, I wasn’t sure the marriage would survive.

“Mama, let’s not talk about things that make you sad.”

By constantly making excuses for Sebastian, what was I teaching my daughter? And that’s when I asked myself a question: if Ada was married to a man like Sebastian, what advice would I give her?

“Mama, you okay? You’ve suddenly gone pale.” Ada took my hand in hers.

I’d ask her to leave her negligent husband’s ass and be her own person.

“Need to get some food in my body,” I lied smoothly. “Alcohol on an empty stomach is never good.”

Ada laughed. “I think it’s going to be fun to see you tipsy today.”

The server took our order, and we steered clear of talking about things that made me sad .

“I’ll drop you home,” Ada insisted after lunch .

“No. It’s out of the way for you. Go back to Emory. I’ll Uber.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

I watched Ada leave, and instead of going home, I wandered through Savannah.

It was a gorgeous May afternoon because the sun wasn’t as harsh as it would be in a month or so, and the breeze was cool.

The familiar streets were lined with graceful oaks draped in moss.

But even Savannah's gentle charm couldn't quiet my restive heart.

As I walked past quaint shops and historic buildings, each step echoed with memories of compromises and swallowed frustrations, I thought about the woman I was when I first arrived in this city—young, hopeful, and so deeply in love.

I'd trusted Sebastian and believed his promises that we'd build our lives together, side by side.

But somewhere along the way, side-by-side became him leading and me following quietly behind.

The breeze carried the scent of blooming jasmine as I settled on a bench in Forsyth Park.

I watched couples stroll hand in hand, and it was bittersweet, a reminder of what my marriage once was.

I was tired of convincing myself that scraps of Sebastian's attention were enough, tired of pretending that the loneliness didn’t ache deep within me.

My phone vibrated in my purse. Glancing down, I saw an unknown local number but answered anyway.

“Hello?”

"May I speak with Ophelia Boone?" a warm, confident voice asked.

"This is she."

"Hi, Ophelia, or do you prefer Lia?”

“Ah, who are you?”

A husky laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m Rachel Burnside from Savannah Lace. I’m Nina Davenport’s executive assistant.”

“Hi, Rachel,” I managed to say with my throat all but closing. Just this morning, Betsy Rhodes had mentioned Nina Davenport and Savannah Lace, and they were calling me back so quickly.

“Betsy Rhodes recommended we speak to you, and I’d love to schedule an appointment for you to discuss a role at Savannah Lace."

My heart lifted instantly, hope breaking through the heaviness I'd carried all day.

"Absolutely," I said, surprised by the confidence in my voice. "I'd love to."

“How does tomorrow, four in the afternoon, sound?”

“Perfect.”

As Rachel finalized the details, I felt the shift deep within me—a sense of possibility, a spark of excitement I'd almost forgotten. When the call ended, I lounged back against the bench, a smile on my face. I felt lighter than I had in years. This was the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that I’d been waiting for—my chance, another step toward becoming the woman I wanted to be.