Abby, Get Your Groom!

by Victoria Pade

  “Which neither of us would have had to think about if I was someone else,” she countered. “Look, you’ve been great to me. Your whole family has been. And I appreciate everything you’ve done, everything you’re doing. But when it comes to things between us...” She had to swallow to keep her voice from weakening and giving away just how much it hurt to say this. “When it comes to things between us, this can’t go anywhere. Even if you think it would be okay, take it from me, it wouldn’t be.”

  “Because some pretentious jerk didn’t think you were good enough for him?”

  “Because I’m just...who and what I am. Because I’m not the daughter of the owner of a bunch of banks—”

  “The daughter of the owner of a bunch of banks put me through hell.”

  “Because I didn’t grow up in a way that you can relate to,” she went on, ignoring his comment. “A way that doesn’t freak you out on some level. And don’t say it doesn’t, because I’ve seen it—”

  “It doesn’t freak me out. It makes me sad but—”

  “And that makes you feel sorry for me and I don’t want your pity, either.”

  Because there had been some of that from Mark, too, as well as from too many teachers or bleeding hearts or do-gooders over the years, and it somehow always made her feel less than she was.

  “You and I wouldn’t be okay together in the long run because I didn’t go to private schools. Or college. Because I’m just a worker bee and you’re...a Camden. Because I’m not comfortable even visiting places like where you live. Because I don’t fit—”

  “I’ll sell the damn loft and move in with you if that’s what you want! And I don’t give a damn about any of that other stuff, Abby!”

  But he would. He would come to after a while. It would creep up on them the same way it had with Mark. When something happened that she wasn’t equipped for or educated enough to deal with, when one day he looked at her and saw that she wasn’t what he’d always assumed he would end up with—his own kind.

  And she would feel the way she had as a kid in situations she hadn’t been cut out for—embarrassed and humiliated and as if some kind of spotlight was shining on her insufficiencies.

  And Dylan would be just as embarrassed as Mark had been. And ashamed. And disappointed.

  And sad.

  And he would pity her for her shortcomings somewhere in that, too.

  But he would also probably feel too guilty to just walk away, thanks to the part his family had played in her circumstances.

  And none of that added up to a happy future, a happy life together.

  She knew it. She felt it as surely as she felt the night air on her skin.

  But she didn’t say any of it because she also knew that he would just deny it.

  Instead, the reason she added on to what she’d already said was, “It can’t work between us because I’m the kind of person who doesn’t want to be a Camden executive, and the same way I knew I couldn’t be that, I know I couldn’t be a Camden.”

  And she knew how much it hurt when she tried to be more than what she was, when she tried to be what someone else expected and wanted her to be, and came up short.

  Plus, this was Dylan. Dylan, whom she would rather cut off her right arm than embarrass or disappointment.

  Whose beautiful blue eyes she couldn’t bear the thought of looking into and seeing shame or pity or guilt.

  This was Dylan, who came complete with her idea of the perfect family. A family who might have been kind to her and to China and to the rest of the special occasions team, who might be grateful for what they’d all done for the wedding. But who would eventually look at her and only be able to think that she was nothing more than the daughter of a thug they’d used to do their dirty work.

  She would come to be nothing but a reminder of something ugly that they wanted to distance themselves from. She’d become someone they’d wish they could distance themselves from.

  And how horrible would it feel when it came to that? After knowing for any amount of time at all what it was really like to be a part of that perfect family she’d always dreamed of...

  “I don’t know what you think it means to be a Camden,” Dylan said, breaking into her thoughts, sounding frustrated. “And I don’t care. I only care about having what we’ve had together and continuing to have it under any circumstances.”

  It was her turn to shake her head. “You say that now. But when time went on and I couldn’t live up to—”

  “Don’t say my standards! You’re a million times better than what my standards have been—I told you that.”

  “You couldn’t believe or understand that I didn’t want to be a Camden executive. To you that was unthinkable. And probably dumb and shortsighted and silly. And that’s only the beginning, Dylan. I know my limitations—”

  “You don’t have any limitations!”

  “Everybody has limitations. I just know better than most people where mine are. Where my place is in the world. And my place isn’t as a Camden. Eventually you and the rest of your family would see it. Know it. And be sorry for it the same way you were sorry for not seeing what your former fiancée really was. And in the meantime I would have been trying to be what I’m not, trying to please you and your family, and—”

  “It just wouldn’t be that way, Abby,” he shouted. “That isn’t who we are. Nothing matters to me, to any of us, except the kind of person you are. The kind of person who goes the extra mile to help us out for a wedding even without the time to pull it off. The kind of person who doesn’t feed into mudslinging but cuts it off at the pass. The kind of person...hell. The kind of person you are!”

  But it wouldn’t be enough and whether or not he saw that now, she did.

  So once more she shook her head, but this time with far, far more finality than anything that had come before.

  Then she nodded at the ring box on the hood of her car and said, “Take that back. We just don’t have a future.”

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry...

  “I’m in love with you, dammit!” he shouted again. “And I know you aren’t as stony as you’re pretending to be right now. I know what we’ve had. I know what we had that night. Don’t let other things stand between us.”

  “Things are the way they are,” she said firmly. But why did her voice have to come out so softly? Why did it have to crack and make her sound so defeated?

  “They don’t have to be that way if you don’t let them.”

  “Yeah, they do,” she barely whispered.

  Then she went around him to the driver’s door of her car and opened it.

  Dylan was still standing there in front of the sedan, his back to her now, shaking his head again.

  Even though he couldn’t see her she nodded at the velvet box on her car again and said, “Take that with you.”

  But he didn’t. He just walked away without saying another word, leaving it there as he got into his Jaguar and sat behind the wheel, his expression one of complete disbelief.

  Abby didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t drive off with that ring box on her car.

  So she went to it and picked it up.

  Oh, God...

  She held on so tight to it.

  She wanted to open it. To see the ring.

  She wanted to put it on her finger. To say yes.

  And heaven help her, nothing she did could stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. From falling down her cheeks.

  But pretending that they weren’t there, she took that ring box around to his car.

  And set it on the hood because she couldn’t take it to his window and let him see that she was crying.

  Then she returned to her own car, got in and started the engine.

  Driving away from the one man in the world who mad
e her wish she and everything else could be different.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m telling you, Ab, I think you’re wrong about everything. You’re wrecking a good thing and ripping out your own heart when you don’t have to.”

  China was nothing if not blunt and that’s just what she’d been while she was in Abby’s apartment.

  Abby knew that she’d pushed her friend’s patience to the limit and she didn’t blame China. For some reason, even when she’d mourned the breakup with Mark, she’d managed to be somewhat more stoic about it.

  But with Dylan? She was a soggy, weepy, whining, feeling-sorry-for-herself mess and she just couldn’t seem to get herself out of it. In fact, she’d only gotten worse after seeing him on Tuesday night.

  Everything he’d said replayed itself over and over in her mind around the clock. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. And about that ring. And she was a wreck!

  Now it was Friday evening. China had come over to check on her before going out. After finding her in yet another puddle of tears, Abby’s best friend had reached her limit.

  China had read her the riot act.

  “I’m going out on a blind date set up for me by two of the Camdens. The date is with the son of one of their richy-rich friends. If they had any problems with you or me, with how we grew up or who we are, would they do that?” China had demanded.

  “There hasn’t been a single minute I’ve spent with those people when I felt like they thought I was anything less than they are,” she’d gone on. “Neither of us could say that about Mark. Look at this the way it really is and not under the doom and gloom of anything from the past. Dylan’s grandmother’s best friends are people who started out as her maid and her gardener. Now those people are part of the family. A whole huge family with all kinds of people in it!” China had railed.

  “You want this guy,” she’d said without question. “More than I think you’ve ever wanted any guy. So quit thinking so much, use that cold pack I gave you for your face to get all that puffiness out, put on some makeup, go find Dylan and say yes, for cripes’ sake! Be happy and forget the rest!”

  And out China had gone to meet her blind date. Without the slightest indication of hesitancy or concern that worlds might collide if she and her date ended up together.

  And there Abby was, sitting alone in her apartment. In the fading light of day. Without so much as a lamp on. Drowning in her own misery.

  How dumb was that? she asked herself.

  It seemed pretty dumb.

  But, at the same time, she knew that everything that had led her to reject Dylan wasn’t just in her imagination. There were valid reasons for concern.

  Except that as she thought about it and replayed China’s words, she began to wonder if there was some middle ground between China’s choice—to act as though those concerns didn’t exist, and the choice Abby had made up to now—to believe that those concerns overshadowed everything else.

  After all, the Camdens were still the Camdens—one of Colorado’s most preeminent families and she was still the daughter of their former strong-arm enforcer who had grown up without a drop of privilege or culture and without the education they had.

  And she was all too familiar with what happened with wide gaps like that between two people trying to have a future together.

  Yes, Mark had been kind of rigid and pretentious and overly concerned with appearances, and that wasn’t Dylan. But being a Camden still came with expectations and obligations—she’d done enough high-society weddings and special events to see for herself what went along with his kind of status. She’d overheard enough judgmental conversations to know what was said of someone marrying beneath them—socially slumming. And she didn’t want to be out of her depth with another man. Even more out of her depth than she’d been with Mark.

  It did occur to her, though, that what she was worried about was being out of her depth in his world. When it came to Dylan himself, she’d never felt out of her depth.

  Even at his loft, when she’d felt uncomfortable in those surroundings, she’d still felt comfortable with him.

  They just clicked so well...

  So did she really mind if snobby people talked or looked down on his having a connection with her?

  She wouldn’t be bothered by it, she decided. She just didn’t want him to care. The way Mark had.

  But would Dylan care?

  He’d said he didn’t, wouldn’t. And China was right about his family embracing Margaret and Louie—Dylan had done that, too. It was something she’d lost sight of when she’d been thinking about it before.

  It didn’t seem to matter to him or to any of the Camdens that two people who worked for them had also had large roles in raising the Camden grandchildren. Instead the Haliburtons were included the way any aunt and uncle would be. The way the Camdens had included her and China at their Sunday dinner, had included her in the rehearsal festivities, and her and her entire team in the wedding.

  China was right, too, that the Camden family was a huge group with all kinds of people also accepted into it—something else that Abby hadn’t taken into consideration before.

  All kinds of people with different backgrounds and interests. And all of that was embraced by the Camdens. Celebrated, even. She hadn’t seen anything that made her think any of the additions to the Camden family had been asked or expected to change. Not even Sawyer Huffman—Lindie’s groom—who was and would continue to be the Camdens’ business adversary. If Dylan hadn’t told her about all of that she would never have guessed, because Sawyer was treated and included the same way everyone else was.

  The whole family was just so...regular. There wasn’t even anything about GiGi herself that was lofty or snooty or snobby—she and Margaret and Abby had sat together at the rehearsal dinner party playing blackjack like three friends.

  So maybe China was right—the Camdens hadn’t given any indication that they thought any less of her or her friend. And with the explanation Dylan had given, it was easier to believe that what she’d overheard Cade say to Dylan that Sunday really hadn’t been about her not being good enough for him.

  But there had also been Dylan’s job offer...

  Everything that had come along with that had reminded her of Mark—there had been so many things that Mark had wanted to change about her to make her fit into that slot.

  But when she thought about it now, she realized that Dylan hadn’t proposed covering up anything about her history or her, he hadn’t wanted to make up a shinier backstory for her. Dylan had genuinely only been trying to make things easier and more comfortable for her.

  More important, not only had he accepted her rejection of that offer, he’d reassessed, listened to things she’d told him, and come up with an offer that—to Abby—was so much better. An offer that was in line with what she was not only capable of, but something that was a dream come true—owning a shop of her own. Two shops and the special occasions location, actually.

  And he’d done that without attempting to change a thing about her. In fact, he had enough respect for her and her knowledge of salons to hire her to counsel his sisters and cousin on Camden Superstores salons.

  She’d been with Mark the entire time she’d helped redesign and remodel both locations for Beauty By Design and he’d shrugged it off and reduced it to what he’d called her little work project.

  But once Dylan had accepted that she didn’t want to be a Camden executive, he’d gone on to treat her owning two simple beauty salons and a shop for special events work as every bit as important as any position he could offer her. Which it was to her.

  So maybe she should start trusting him and the things he’d said to her. Instead of doubting him because her trust in Mark had been so unfounded.

  And maybe she should pu
t a cold pack on her face...

  She went to her freezer and took a facemask out, taking it with her to plop down into her sole easy chair and resting her head back to fit the icy pack over her sore and swollen eyes and cheeks.

  The mask had slots to see through, and what was directly in her line of vision from there was her bed.

  She hadn’t slept in it since the night she’d shared it with Dylan.

  Even when she’d tried to sleep, it had been either on her couch or on China’s.

  Because Dylan was right—their night together in that bed had been so amazing it had made it impossible for her to go back to it, believing that she would never again be in it with him. It had turned her bed into a bed of nails.

  So what are you doing here, Ab? she asked herself, the voice in her head more China’s than her own.

  She loved Dylan. She knew that. She’d come to accept it after seeing him again Tuesday night. After what he’d said. After wanting so badly to look at that ring. To put it on her finger. To let it seal her to him.

  Maybe that’s why she’d been so inconsolable since then.

  Because she did love him. With all her heart.

  And what if he honestly didn’t care that she was who she was or where she’d come from? What if he didn’t think she needed to be fixed or changed or upgraded? What if there was also the chance that his family could accept her and that she could be a part of that perfect, dream family?

  Then why was she thinking so much? Why didn’t she just say yes and be happy?

  Since Mark she hadn’t been too sure that happily-ever-after was really possible for her. But maybe—like China had said—she was wrong...

  Or maybe the ice pack was just freezing her brain...

  Or numbing it enough to get it out of the way of her heart telling her what she really should do.

  And her heart was telling her to go after Dylan.

  And let herself have what she wanted.

  And be happy.

  She wasn’t sure how long she was supposed to sit with the ice pack on.