Page 36 of Marrying Mr. Wentworth (Austen Hunks #3)

Three weeks until the wedding — Nashville — Christopher

I hadn’t heard from her in eight days. Not that I was counting.

Okay—I was absolutely counting.

I’d sent three texts and left one voicemail. No calls after that. I wasn’t trying to chase her. I was trying to give her space. Trying to be the version of myself she could actually trust this time.

But silence has a way of getting personal. Every day that passed without a word felt like a new kind of rejection.

And the worst part? I couldn’t blame her. I’d earned every second of her doubt. But knowing that didn’t make it hurt less.

Luke, Nick, and Liam were pretending not to notice I’d gone full moody-bass-player mode. Rehearsals for the upcoming tour were going fine, technically. But I hadn’t written a new riff in weeks. The notebook I usually filled with lyrics was still blank. My guitar sat untouched in the corner.

I wasn’t making music. I was just…waiting.

And the wedding was getting closer.

Meg had texted a few times. Casual check-ins. Nothing heavy. But I knew Ariana was radio silent with her too. She was circling the wagons. Figuring out what to do with the fact that she’d let herself fall back into something real.

And maybe didn’t want to admit she didn’t hate it.

I pulled out my phone and opened the message app.

Typed:

I’m still here. That’s all. –C.

Didn’t send it.

Deleted it.

Instead, I grabbed my guitar and sat on the edge of my deck, looking out over the Nashville hills, and tried to remember the sound of her laugh.

The real one.

Not the one she faked to prove she didn’t care.

The one I’d heard in college, when I made her pancakes at two a.m. The one she let slip poolside in Vegas, when she thought I wasn’t keeping score. The one I hadn’t heard since the night she left.

I missed her.

Not in the dramatic, tortured-artist way. In the practical, aching, ordinary way that made coffee taste worse and mornings feel wrong.

Three more weeks until I’d see her again. And maybe she’d look right through me.

Or maybe?—

Just maybe?—

She wouldn’t.