Page 107 of The Backup Groom

I just wanted to be alone.

Like clockwork, my phone dinged with another text.

Stella:It’s quiet over there. Did you pass out again?

Leave it to Stella to think she was being funny.

I appreciated her effort, but couldn’t she see I didn’t have a reason to smile? I just wanted to sulk at my own private pity party.

Stella:Snap out of that funk and think of your future.

What future? How could she not remember being a witness to the worst humiliation in my entire life? I was too busy reliving the past to think about my future. Yes, Uncle G’s deadline for me to get married was tomorrow at midnight, but that didn’t mean I was going to do anything about it. Five million dollars was a lot to flush down the toilet, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to run out and find another Ryan Scott.

The only thing on my mind at the moment was rearranging my sock drawer again. I walked toward the bedroom, but stopped when there was a knock on the door.

I certainly didn’t expect to see anyone. I looked through the peephole, expecting it to possibly be Stella, coming to pry me out of my own private hell. When I looked again, I was sure my eyes were deceiving me.

They weren’t.

“What the hell?” I mumbled to myself.

It was the last person in the world I expected to see.

I pulled the door open and blinked. “Ryan.”

As in the original Ryan Scott, my high school sweetheart, the one Uncle G wanted me to marry to get the inheritance.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, since I had no clue.

To say I was stunned would’ve been an understatement.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

I hesitated, then invited him in. I didn’t have to worry about the state of my living room since I had cleaned it three times this week.

He took a seat on the couch, fidgeting with his hands, looking quite nervous.

I pointed to the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Ryan shook his head. “No, thank you. I’m really sorry to stop by unannounced, but there are some things that you need to know.”

“Okay . . .” I sat down on the armchair to the right of the couch, curious about what had brought him to my house, and shocked that he’d showed up out of nowhere, considering I hadn’t seen him in person in years.

Yes, I had spoken to him on the phone when this whole Uncle G debacle had begun, but it hadn’t been the most pleasant conversation in the world. In fact, I considered Ryan’s behavior quite rude the way he had been short with me during the call, told me he was married, then said, “Take care.” Like I had been calling with information about a class reunion he wasn't interested in.

That was why I was even more surprised he was here.

Something told me we would not be taking a trip down memory lane.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

At least my curiosity distracted me from my misery.

Ryan ran his fingers through his hair and blew out a breath. “Well, uh, your cousin Mercedes came to see me at the clinic.”

It was definitely the last thing I had expected him to say.

“It was the day before you called me to invite me to coffee,” he added. “I said nothing to you on the phone, well, because I didn’t think it really mattered.”