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I WAS WORKING IN THE workshop on some trim for Timothy’s house project when the postman walked in. I had known Phil for as long as I could remember. He’d been our postman forever. “Hi, Phil,” I waved, shutting off the router.
“Hey there, young lady. You’re looking prettier than ever.”
“Thank you.” I smiled and took the mail. “How’s Molly?”
“She’s enjoying retirement.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “Are you going to retire anytime soon?”
“Oh, I’m thinking about it,” he said, grinning. “She’s pushing me to take her on some cruise.”
“I would hate to see you go, but I think you should. You deserve it.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Have a good day.”
I took the stack of letters, flipping through bills and payments from customers. But then my eyes caught the distinctive handwriting on a particular envelope. Scott’s handwriting. I pulled it out, tossing everything else on a workbench. My heart was pounding. In the back of my mind, I knew what I was looking at but I refused to believe it. My stomach knotted as I tore it open, revealing a pristine wedding invitation.
My mind raced, questions pounding like a drum. “No,” I whispered. “What the hell?”
It was an invitation to his wedding. We had broken up less than a month ago. I slowly sank back onto the stool.
My hands were shaking and my eyes filled up with tears. It wasn’t pride keeping them back, but a sense of betrayal and disbelief. How could he move on so quickly? How could he replace me with someone else?
Emily. Someone else had a name. She was the woman from the restaurant. The woman he moved to Lake Placid to be with.
It felt like I had been hit by one of the heavy timbers we used. My heart was just as heavy and battered. I put my head into my hands, trying to stifle the cry that was building up inside me.
Amber sauntered into the workshop, all smiles, until she saw my face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes narrowing with concern. “What happened? Did you cut a finger off?”
I handed her the invitation without a word. Her shock mirrored mine. “No way,” Amber muttered, scanning the crisp invitation card. She frowned and looked up to meet my eyes. “You’re kidding, right? This is some sick joke?”
I shook my head, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. “Why would I joke about something like this, Amber?”
Her gaze dropped back to the card. “I’m sorry, Catherine.”
“Thanks.”
“I bet she’s pregnant, and this is a shotgun wedding,” she declared.
My nausea deepened. Pregnant? It was a possibility I hadn’t even considered.
I swallowed hard, trying to push away the thought. “I don’t know, Amber. I really don’t want to think about it.”
Amber nodded and her eyes filled with sympathy. But nothing she could say would make this better, and we both knew it. She placed the invitation back on the workbench as if it were a live grenade.
“I’m sorry, Catherine,” Amber repeated in a quiet voice, her hand reaching out to squeeze mine. It was a small comfort in the midst of everything crumbling around me.
“I can’t believe I went out with that asshole for five fucking years and never even got a ring.”
“Why would he invite you?” Amber finally asked, her eyes narrowing. “That’s really messed up.”
I shook my head, still unable to comprehend the situation. “Maybe he told her I was a distant cousin or something.”
“Or he’s an asshole and wanted to rub it in,” she spat. “Heaven knows you dropped enough clues about marriage. He had to know that’s what you were thinking. This might be his way of sticking it to you, twisting the knife.”
“That’s sick,” I said, my voice trembling. “She must have known, right? I broke up with him in front of her!”
Amber sighed sympathetically, picking up the invitation again. “Maybe she knew and didn’t care. Some people are just like that. Homewreckers.”
How could Scott move on so quickly? The wedding was only two weeks away, and the speed of it all left me breathless.
“Are you going to go?” Amber asked, a hint of concern in her eyes.
I shook my head vehemently. The idea of witnessing Scott’s wedding was unbearable. “I’d rather jump off a cliff than go to that wedding.”
She nodded in understanding. “It says you get a plus-one. Maybe you can find a date and make him jealous.”
The thought of flaunting a date to make Scott jealous seemed petty and desperate. I stared at the woman on the invitation, her model-like looks frozen in a perfect embrace with Scott. The giant diamond on her finger caught the light.
“No,” I replied, my voice firm. “I won’t stoop to that level. I never want to see him again. I’m just glad he’s out of my life. I hope he stays gone. I truly wish him the best.”
She snorted. “Screw that. It’s not like it’s going to last. You know the old saying.”
“What saying?” I asked.
“You lose ‘em the way you got ‘em. She thinks she’s the grand prize. He’s going to cheat on her. And if she knew about you and chose to sleep with him when she knew he was involved with you, there’s a good chance she’s going to cheat on him.”
“I hate that I am hoping their marriage crashes and burns,” I said. “Does that make me a petty person?”
“No, it makes you a jilted person. A normal woman scorned.” Amber sighed. “Well, what are you going to do?”
I stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “I have to go up to the mansion. I don’t have time to deal with Scott’s crap. He can marry twenty women. I don’t care. I can’t care. I’m just glad I’m not one of the women he’s marrying.”
Amber looked startled. “You’re going to work?”
“Yes. I’m not going to sit around crying about a relationship that’s over. In fact, I think we should be celebrating. I’m not the dumbass marrying a cheating jerk.”
Amber’s brows rose in surprise. “Celebrating, huh?”
“Yes,” I replied firmly. “I need to take charge of my life again. I’m single. I’m not getting any younger. I should start dating again.”
“Absolutely,” she said, nodding. “I agree. Let’s plan a night out. We’ll drink, dance, and hopefully hook up.”
I laughed. “I like that. We’ll have to do something soon. I’m going to be pretty busy with the mansion project but I do want to go out. I need to dance.”
“I’m your girl,” she said with a wink.
After she left, I loaded up the trim work and headed back up to the mansion. My work was the only thing keeping me sane. It was something to focus on. Now that I had that stupid wedding invitation, I had another reason to work harder. The harder I worked, the less time I had to think. I arrived at Timothy’s house and grabbed the trim. I assumed Timothy was gone. He had gone back to New York yesterday and I assumed he was still there. I used my key to unlock the door. I propped the trim up against the wall and went to get the last couple of pieces before going inside. The moment I walked through the door, I was met with a sound I hadn’t expected—pop music pulsating through the house. Taylor Swift to be exact. The sound echoed off the walls.
Confused, I wandered into the foyer, scanning the area for any sign of Timothy. I never would have taken him to be a Swiftie. Unless it was Bennet. That made me laugh. I should have known there was a little Swiftie in there.
The music seemed to grow louder as I moved further into the house, leading me to the foot of the grand staircase. I took a few tentative steps upstairs, hoping squatters hadn’t moved into the place.
Suddenly a dark-haired teenage girl appeared at the top of the stairs. She was dancing with abandon, seemingly lost in her own world. She was singing along at the top of her lungs, completely oblivious to my presence. “You need to calm down, you’re being too loud,” she sang dramatically, twirling around in time with the music.
I swallowed a laugh and hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. “Excuse me?” I finally called out over the music.
She yelped and spun around so fast she stumbled over her own feet, nearly tumbling down the stairs in surprise. She screamed, and her hands clamped over her mouth in shock.
Startled, I let out a scream of my own. Then she screamed. The whole time, Taylor Swift was still blaring in the background, creating a chaotic scene of fear and pop music.
Timothy came running down the hallway. His face contorted in a mix of confusion and concern. “What the hell is going on?”
I pointed awkwardly at the gyrating teenager, who had frozen mid-dance, her eyes wide with embarrassment. Timothy’s stern expression turned on me before he shook his head. “Turn it down!” he shouted.
The girl pulled out her phone and the music died. Timothy looked like he was going to strangle one of us.
“Catherine, meet Paisley,” he said, exhaling as if a weight had been lifted. “My daughter. I thought someone was getting killed in here with all that screaming.”
Paisley turned a deep shade of red. Without uttering a word, she darted away, disappearing down the hall three seconds before I heard a door slam shut. The sudden silence left me standing there, feeling very foolish.
I didn’t know what to say. Timothy looked pissed. “I didn’t know you were here,” I murmured. “I was bringing some trim by. I thought you were still in New York.”
“No. I brought her home.”
“I see. I heard the music and thought it was you or Bennet.”
He rolled his eyes. “No. She has this thing for dance parties. I was in my office with my headphones on. I don’t know how I heard you shrieking over that other shrieking.”
I winced as the words left his lips. He was back to his sourpuss self. He wasn’t happy. “I probably should have kept my mouth shut. It’s just, she startled me and then...” I gestured lamely toward the direction Paisley had vanished.
Timothy rubbed his temples, his irritation obvious. “Well, we’ve all had our intros now.”
“I can go,” I said. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“No, stay,” he muttered. “It’s fine. I’ll be working. Now that you’ve seen Paisley, she’ll probably hide in her room all day. That’s what they do. They’re like groundhogs. If they pop their heads up and see their shadows, or in this case an adult human, they retreat. It’ll be another six hours before she emerges.”
I almost laughed, but he was so serious about it, I didn’t dare. I cleared my throat. “Okay. I plan on working on the third floor. I’ll stay out of your way.”
“Fine,” he said. He turned on his heel and retreated to his office.
A few moments passed before I heard the sound of a door closing somewhere in the distance, followed by an eerie silence. I sighed and looked around, feeling awkwardly out of place.
“Okay, then.” With a shake of my head, I pushed away the awkwardness and turned to gather my tools.
My booted feet echoed in the empty foyer as I made my way through the house. I checked a few things before going back to grab the trim and haul it up to the third floor. The stairs in this house were going to give me buns of steel. I tried to be as silent as possible. I didn’t want to attract any attention. I had just made it to the third-floor landing when Taylor Swift’s voice blasted through the house once again.
As I moved into the room meant to be my workspace, I laid out my tools meticulously. I turned on my playlist on my phone, keeping it nice and low and barely audible over the Taylor Swift concert happening elsewhere in the massive house.
A sense of peace washed over me as I started working. I forgot about everything else as I got moving.
