Page 6

Eden

D ear Eden,

I know it’s the biggest cliché in the book, but it’s not you, it’s me. I’ve always thought that when you know, you know…and I just didn’t know for sure. And I thought you deserved better than that. I’m so sorry. I know this is the worst way to do things… I’ll pay for everything.

—Paul

It’s quiet in the car. And quiet inside me. Perfectly numb.

The first question Rhys asks me is “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.” And then, “Just drive.”

He does.

I grapple with the ring on my finger, a solitaire circle-cut diamond. It catches on my knuckle and jams. Panic grips me, tight around my chest. Then the ring slips free and into my palm. I drop it into an interior pocket of my purse and zip it shut.

Scowling, I take the cowboy hat off my head and toss it into the back seat.

I hold my phone in my hand, balancing it on my palm, weighing my options. And then I remember.

The quilts for the exhibit are in the back of our car. The car Paul absconded with.

He has my quilts.

That cuts straight through the numbness. I don’t know what to feel about my wedding, my marriage?—

But I know exactly how I feel about that exhibit. I’ve poured myself into it. I’ve reached out to so many talented fiber artists. I’ve coordinated so many moving pieces. I’ve called in every favor, marketed like my life depended on it, drawn on strengths I didn’t know I had.

I love my shop, but this exhibit is my baby .

My pride wants to curl up and die at the thought of texting Paul…but I don’t have any other choice.

Where are you? You have my quilts in the car. For the exhibit. I need you to come back with the quilts.

I make it as clear as possible that I’m not asking him to come back for me. I didn’t go to two years of therapy to beg a guy who ditched me at the altar to change his mind.

I didn’t go to two years of therapy to beg an asshole to love me.

I paid a lot of money for all that counseling.

Sent.

I wait for it to say Delivered .

And wait. And wait.

I go into Find My.

Paul Graves. Rush Creek, OR. Four hours ago.

His phone must be off.

I growl my frustration, startling Rhys, who glances at me.

“What? Where are we going?”

“Take 22 to 5.”

Part of my brain is urging me to stop and reconsider this situation. You’re in a car with a man you loathe . That can’t be a good idea .

But right now? What happened in New York was a million years ago. There’s only Paul and those quilts and my exhibit.

I text Charlie.

Where is he?

Charlie

I’m so sorry but I can’t tell you that.

He has seventeen quilts in his car and they’re supposed to be hung in a world-class art quilt exhibit and if you don’t tell me where he is I’ll tell your fiancée you hooked up with that waitress in Vegas at the bachelor party.

Charlie’s going to know Paul told me about the waitress in Vegas. He’s probably going to be pissed at Paul. The thought gives me a thrill of delight. Maybe Charlie will beat Paul up.

There’s a long pause. I question my hard-ball tactics, not for Paul’s safety but because I’m not sure they’ll work. Then the three dots appear.

Charlie

He said he was going to the beach house to think about things.

I think his phone is off.

Yeah. He said he might do that, to get some mental space.

Code for: He didn’t want to deal with me or any of the other fallout from the wedding he just torpedoed. I growl again.

“Are you texting Paul?”

I glare at Rhys. It feels great. “It’s none of your fucking business who I’m texting.” It’s like a breath of fresh air through the desert of my heart. Who knew that anger was so cleansing?

A muscle ticks in Rhys’s jaw. “I’m driving you to an unknown destination,” he points out. “Plus, I’m your wedding planner and your wedding has just…unhappened. So technically, at the moment, it is my business.”

“Do you even care about my wedding at all? Do you even believe in marriage?” I demand. “Given that you spend your life destroying them?”

I know I’m ragey and unhinged at the moment. I just can’t…stop.

Am I hallucinating, or does the corner of Rhys’s mouth tick up? “It’s not a question of whether I believe in marriage. Of course I believe marriage exists . It exists like rattlesnakes and jumping spiders exist, whether we want them to or not.”

“Oh, there’s a romantic view.”

“I definitely don’t have a romantic view of marriage.”

“Shocker.”

“And for the record, I don’t destroy marriages. I facilitate the unwinding of people’s marital mistakes.”

I raise my eyebrows. “That sounds like a convenient personal fiction.”

He casts a quick glance my way. “Did I destroy your marriage?”

“No,” I say. “Just my life.”

He gets quiet, and for a split second, I feel a tiny bit bad. Then I quit that, because he doesn’t deserve my sympathy.

“He has my quilts,” I say. “Paul. He has seventeen quilts in his car—formerly our car—and I need them back.”

Rhys’s big hands, on the steering wheel, clutch tight enough that his knuckles whiten. “Is that where we’re going? We’re chasing Paul—to get quilts back?”

The way he says quilts is like the way most people say liver . Or eggplant . Or cottage cheese .

“They’re supposed to be hung—preferably tomorrow, but as soon as possible—and go on display starting in five days for the entire world of quilt enthusiasts to fawn over.

” My voice cracks, and I’m pissed, because he doesn’t deserve to know how much this matters to me.

Or anything else about me. He already knows far, far too much.

He’s scowling as hard as I’ve ever seen him scowl.

“Look,” I say, biting the words out sharply, “the people who will come to this show buy tens of thousands of dollars from my shop online every year. Because I have a reputation in the quilting world as being someone who cares about the craft and supports it—who cares about and supports women artists. And right now, seeing as my romantic life has gone up in flames, my reputation in my industry, my ability to make a living, and my passion for my work are all I’ve got.

I need this exhibit to go flawlessly. So you can either keep driving the direction I tell you or let me out so I can find another way to get there. ”

Rhys makes a soft huffing sound. He’s quiet for a moment.

Then he says, “Well. It sounds like we’re going wherever Paul is going.”

I guess you could call that my first win over Rhys Hott. I only wish it felt like something worth fighting for.

“When we get to I-5, go north.”