Page 61 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

RICK

M y office chair creaked when I leaned back on it and listened to my great aunt bitch about how much it had cost her and her kids to fly out to Hawaii for the wedding.

Or rather, as she put it, “the most anticlimactic vacation of all time.” Because weddings were about the guests and their vacation needs. Not the couple. Or her nephew who’d been dropped at the altar like a bag of out-of-currency coins Verity no longer needed.

“I understand it’s frustrating,” I said for the thousandth time that day, “but it was out of my control. I didn’t know Verity was going to bail on the wedding. Obviously. Otherwise, why the hell would I have spent so much money and worked so hard to make sure everyone could be there?”

“Don’t curse at me, Rickie. It’s not my fault my sister never taught you how to look for a good woman.”

I stifled a groan. Of course, it was my mother’s fault in her eyes. “I apologize. This has just been incredibly difficult for me to navigate. I realize there are a lot of disappointed family members. But I’m also disappointed.”

My aunt sighed heavily into the phone. “You deserve better, Rickie. Much better.”

Finally, something that wasn’t a backhanded comment. “Thank you.”

“But eight thousand dollars to get myself and my kids out there was a high price to pay for a wedding that didn’t even happen.”

I slumped in my chair.

Would I never hear the end of this? Was there nothing I could do to make my family, and Verity’s family on top of that, forgive us for not going through with the wedding?

“As I’ve said,” I said calmly, “I’m going to cover your costs.”

My aunt complained for another five minutes before I told her I had to go. There were more people to call and apologize to, even though I didn’t feel like I was the one who should be apologizing.

The wedding had only been three days ago.

I’d spent those days in a confused haze, trying to figure out what my next moves were going to be.

Chessie was concerned about me and I put on an act around her that I was fine, that nothing had to change.

But she wasn’t buying it. She was too smart for that.

And I was too broken to do better than slap a fake smile on my face.

I’d been betrayed. Humiliated. Abandoned.

And every part of my home reminded me of the marriage I thought I’d have today.

Verity’s things were still everywhere. The walk-in closet in the master bedroom was spilling over with her clothes, shoes, and handbags.

The bathroom was full of her beauty and feminine products.

The fridge was full of her almond milk and dairy-free-food options and tofu.

I couldn’t go anywhere in my own damn house and not be reminded of her.

It was infuriating.

After struggling through another few calls, I was interrupted by a knock on my office door. I invited them in, and when I looked up, I was surprised to find a colleague from the firm standing in the doorway.

I ended the call with a cousin who lived in Nevada and grinned at my friend. “Shawn. Good to see you, man. What brings you by?”

Shawn stepped into my office. He was a tall slender man with thinning blond hair and bright blue eyes that had always looked a little too large for his long face.

He dropped down into the chair across from me.

“Why do you think? I came to make sure you weren’t burning all of Verity’s shit in an oil barrel. ”

“I considered it.”

He got a sly look in his eyes. “Wanna do it?”

I laughed. “I thought you just said you were here to make sure I hadn’t spiraled.”

“Without me,” Shawn clarified. “There’s a difference. I don’t care if you want to cut loose, man. Just make sure I’m there to join in on the fun.”

Shawn had never been much of a fan of Verity. When I first brought her into my office to meet my colleagues, he’d spoken up immediately and pulled me into my office, wondering why the hell I was with a woman like that.

At the time, his comments about Verity had rubbed me the wrong way. He’d called her vain and said she was a gold digger. I’d valiantly defended her back then. Now I knew just how right he’d been.

“Have you heard from the ex?” Shawn asked.

“Not a word.”

“She’s a cold bitch, man.”

“She panicked, I assume.”

Shawn ran his index finger along his chin and arched an eyebrow at me. “Are you still making excuses for her?”

“No, I’m just saying she might have—”

“Might have what? Decided at the last minute that she really didn’t give a damn about you and she already has a rich prick of a father who will give her whatever she wants, so she decided she didn’t need to take your last name?”

I grimaced.

Shawn sighed and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk. “I’m sorry, man. I’m not trying to rub salt in the wound or anything. I just want you to know that this is probably the best way this could have panned out.”

“Really? This is the best way? I’m out thirty million dollars for this fucking wedding, Shawn.”

He balked. “Thirty million?”

“You heard me.”

Shawn gave his head an incredulous shake. Then he got that devilish look in his eyes again. “So are you sure you don’t want to burn her shit? That woman has shoes that cost more than some people’s mortgage payments.”

“I’m not burning her stuff.”

“How about I just do it and you pretend to be none the wiser?”

“I have a daughter, Shawn. She looks to me for everything she does. I won’t be showing her that destruction of property is how to deal with a broken heart.”

Shawn laughed.

I eyed him suspiciously.

What had I said that was so funny? I hadn’t been joking.

I meant it. Chessie was impressionable and she was paying attention.

Close attention. The last thing I wanted to do was act like an absolute ass and let her think that was how you behaved when the world crashed in around you and dealt you a shitty hand.

“Sorry,” Shawn muttered. “I wasn’t laughing about you not wanting to lead Chessie astray. That’s some noble fatherly shit.”

“Then what were you laughing at?”

“The part where you said you had a broken heart.”

I felt my eyebrows draw together. “What?”

“Oh, come on, man,” Shawn said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and getting smoothly to his feet.

He paced around my desk and leaned up against my shelving unit which was spilling over with old books, most of which belonged to my mother and father and came from their small in-home library.

I hadn’t been able to part with them after they both passed, so I’d taken them all home and put them in my office.

As of now, six years later, I’d only managed to read a dozen or so.

Shawn crossed his arms over his chest. “You were not in love with Verity. I think you wanted to be. But you never really got there. You loved the idea of her. Of having someone as beautiful and feminine as her to come home to at the end of a long day. Of having a woman like her in your bed.”

My scowl quickly turned into a frown as self-doubt began to creep up on me.

That couldn’t be true. Could it?

No.

“If I wasn’t in love with her, I never would have asked her to marry me,” I said firmly.

That was just a fact. Plain and simple. I wasn’t an impulsive man.

Especially not after how my first marriage blew up in my face.

Maybe I just wasn’t destined for a monogamous romantic life.

Maybe I was a man destined to wander and have partners for brief periods of time.

Shawn had a smirk playing on his lips that pissed me off and he seemed to get the hint that I wasn’t in the mood for this. However, Shawn wasn’t much for placating people. If you didn’t like what he was saying, he didn’t really care.

“You’re in denial because you’re pissed off, dude. The longer you pretend to be a cool cat about this, the worse it’s going to get.”

I tried to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about, but if I was being honest with myself, my bones felt like they’d been vibrating with rage since Kim told me that Verity had left the hotel.

I massaged my temples. “I invested so much into her. Into us.”

“I know.” Shawn leaned away from the shelves and moved to stand behind the chair across from me. He gripped the backrest. “But she never met you halfway. Consider yourself lucky. You get to start over. Move on. Verity was a soul-sucking leech, and somewhere deep inside, you know it.”

I didn’t say anything.

Shawn straightened. “You need a real woman by your side. Not a doll with her eyes fixed on her next cosmetic surgery.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Well, I don’t know where I can meet a woman like that.”

“I know a pretty good matchmaker,” Shawn said simply.

“It’s too soon.”

“No such thing. You don’t have to make a relationship out of this. But you could just have some fun. Maybe find someone you actually have something in common with. Get back on the horse. Let me see if I can swing anything for you. Yeah?”

I shrugged. “I’ll think about it. For now, just let me wrap my head around all this shit. I have a lot to do.”

More like a lot of money to pay and calls to make. Among one of those calls would be a call to Verity telling her to come pack up her shit so I didn’t have to keep staring at it. I’d been dreading it. But now after talking to Shawn, I was almost starting to look forward to it.

Things had been good before Verity with just me and Chessie. They would be good again.