“No, no, no.” That was so wrong that Lyric pulled her head out of hiding just to make sure Harmony could hear her set the record straight. “He told me he couldn’t be with me until I trusted him. And then he walked out.”
“Which was your cue to go after him and tell him that you do trust him. It’s not quantum physics.” What did Harmony know about quantum physics?
Lyric loved quantum physics—she understood it and it understood her. It was this relationship stuff that she didn’t understand.
But Heath sucked at it too, she reminded herself as she reached for the stash of chocolate bars on her nightstand. Her mother had been replenishing it twice a day since Heath left her. It seemed that her mother no longer cared about Lyric’s thighs now that her daughter had dumped Texas’s most eligible bachelor on TV.
“No. No, no, no.” Harmony snatched the chocolate bar from her hand and threw it down on the dresser. One of the squares broke off and fell on the floor.
Lyric reached for another candy bar. She’d tried drowning herself in bourbon, but it didn’t go too well with the chocolate bars.
“No.” Harmony leapt across the room and grabbed the whole box of chocolate. She carried it across the room, opened the window, and tossed it.
“Are you crazy?” Lyric said. “That was Godiva. Mom’s gonna be so mad at you.”
“Get off your ass and go after him.” Harmony used her get-over-it-or-else tone.
Lyric ignored her as she reached for her phone.
“Thank God. You’re finally going to call him.” What was with Harmony? She hated Heath.
Lyric rolled her eyes as she dialed her mother’s number and then waited for her to pick up.
“What’s wrong?” Her mother sounded frantic. At least Livinia wasn’t yelling at her anymore.
“Harmony threw my box of chocolate out the window.” Lyric debated picking them out of the rosebushes and off the ground and eating them anyway, but it had rained last night, or maybe that was the night before last. Anyway, the chocolate would be a little muddy.
Livinia sighed heavily. “All right. I’ll go buy more after the garden club.”
“Thanks.” Lyric hung up, then rolled over and pulled the covers back over her head.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Harmony yanked the covers off the bed and tossed them on the floor. “You’re fighting with your fiancé and taking favors from our mother.”
“I already told you, he’s not my fiancé. He was never my fiancé.” Why did everyone have trouble remembering that?
“Yeah, well, I don’t think Heath knew that.” Lately Harmony’s whole purpose in life was to annoy Lyric. Just once, couldn’t she be comforting?
“He’s the one who thought up the whole plan.” To be fair, he hadn’t thought it up so much as blurted it out.
“He’s also the one who paid for everything with his Amex Centurion.” Clearly Harmony wasn’t on board with the whole leave-Lyric-alone plan.
“That doesn’t mean anything. Money doesn’t mean anything to him. Besides, once he cancels, he’ll only lose the deposits.” She didn’t feel bad about that—he was the one who’d got them into this mess in the first place.
“What if he doesn’t cancel?”
“He already told Momma and Gregor to do it for him. I saw the e-mail. He even called Gregor by the right name.” Tears burned her eyes. Why that detail was what finally had her breaking down in tears, Lyric had no idea. Harmony was right. She was pathetic. Too bad she had absolutely no interest in trying to change that.
Harmony sat down on the edge of the bed then, even ran a comforting hand up and down her back. The gesture alarmed Lyric. Chocolate from her mother was one thing. But sympathy from Harmony was something else. Was she dying and she just didn’t know it? How did they know it?
“This whole separation-and-wedding-called-off thing isn’t written in stone. You could call the wedding back on.” Clearly Harmony had early onset dementia.
“I’m pretty sure you need a groom to have a wedding. Or at least another bride. I don’t have either.” Not that she was in the market for another bride.
“Sure you do. You just have to get your head out of your ass and go get him.” Harmony made it sound so easy.
“He doesn’t want me, Harmony. He’s never wanted me. I don’t why that’s so hard for you to understand.” Her heart broke all over again as she said the words out loud.
“Oh, God, here we go again. Are we really back to the stupid tree house thing again?”
“Stupid tree house thing? He took my virginity and then called me by the wrong name. He hadn’t wanted to sleep with me. He’d thought he was sleeping with you.” Her ego and her heart couldn’t take more rejection.
“So the guy is an idiot—he’s a guy … they’re idiots. They can’t help genetics.” Harmony poked her in the ribs until she finally rolled over and looked her sister in the eyes. “He loves you.”
“He was just pretending—”
“Yeah, like you were pretending?” Harmony as the voice of reason seemed so wrong. “No one is that good. Besides, I saw the way he looked at you. You’re the one he wants. You’re the one he loves. You always have been. Plus, you should have seen him at the jewelry store picking out your engagement ring. He looked at every single ring, every single diamond, every single setting at least three times before deciding on that one. And then, with the inscription he had them put on it … I don’t get how you could still doubt him.”
“Inscription?” Lyric sat up. “What inscription?”
“What do you mean what inscription? Didn’t you even look at the ring before he put it on your finger?”
“I just put it on my finger.” Why would she have looked at the inside?
“Of course you did.” Harmony rolled her eyes.
“What? I thought it was just a prop for the fake engagement. I even asked him if he could return it when we were done with it.” Could your return an engagement ring?
“Don’t you mean a prop for the not-so-fake engagement?” Harmony watched her very carefully. “He had it engraved. That’s not fake or returnable, and that sure as hell isn’t temporary.”
Lyric wasn’t sure what to believe. If she believed her sister, then everything Heath had told her the day of the interview was true. And if it was true, then he really did love her. She wanted it to be true, but that didn’t make it true.
Harmony put her arm around Lyric. “What? I know you’re not telling me everything that’s going on in that gigantic brain of yours, so you might as well spit it out. Why are you so resistant to the idea that Heath could love you?”
“Because he’s Heath freaking Montgomery.” Why did she have to state the obvious? “People’s Sexiest Man Alive for four of the last five years. Texas Monthly’s Most Eligible Bachelor. He’s a legend on the football field and between the sheets. He’s slept his way across the Lone Star State. Hell, he’s dated most of the Kardashians … well, the female ones.” Lyric stared at the dirty mismatched socks on her feet. “And I’m me … just me.”
“And by just you, you mean Dr. Lyric Wright, renowned astrophysicist and all-around badass?” They both knew Harmony was stretching the truth.
“I think you’ve got me confused with you … well, you know, the badass part.” God knew Lyric couldn’t bake a damn thing.
“No, I don’t. You’re a total badass. You didn’t back down from that Shelby chick when she came at you. You don’t back down from Livinia. And you are one of the smartest people on the planet. That totally counts as a badass to me. And I’m pretty sure Heath feels exactly the same way.” Harmony not being bitchy—Lyric was pretty sure the world was going to end.
“I was his second choice, Harm.” All she’d ever wanted was to be his number one.
“When he was seventeen. And stupid. And fucked-up because his mom ran off and left him with his asshole dad. Of course he thought he wanted a perfect little cheerleader who baked cookies and had no ambition outside of dating
a football player. He wanted a piece of ass who thought of him as a god and would follow him anywhere.” Harmony tucked her hair behind her ear.
“You were never that girl.” Lyric was pretty sure that Harmony had never thought of any man as a god, including their beloved father.
“Maybe not, but everyone thought I was. Including Heath.”
“Wow. Maybe he really was an idiot.” Hope, fragile though it was, started unfurling in her chest.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. So, what are you going to do about it?” Harmony was relentless.
Lyric wasn’t sure what Harmony meant. “Why do I have to be the one to do something?
Harmony did that one-eyebrow-up thing. “Did we or did we not just establish that the man you love is a moron?”
“I can’t fix moron-dom. Besides, I’m still not sure that’s a compelling enough reason to put myself out there again. I mean, what if we’re wrong? Not about him being an idiot, obviously, but about him loving me.” A sliver of hope tingled through her system.
“We’re not wrong.” She sounded so sure.
“Harm—”
“Fine, if that’s not a compelling enough reason for you … how about this? Eventually, Livinia will get over her disappointment. The chocolate will stop, and then you’ll be stuck in this house with her for God only knows how long.” Harmony shrugged. “Or I guess you could always run away to Hawaii and hide.”
Lyric had never run or hidden from anything in her life. “You don’t fight fair.”
Harmony did the palms up thing. “Hello, I was raised by Livinia Wright. Fighting fair isn’t in our DNA.”
Harmony watched Lyric climb out of bed. She handed her a robe, then headed for the bedroom door.
“Where are you going?”
“My work here is done. Now I have an actual job to get to. And you … you have an inscription to read.”
She’d put the ring in the small drawer in the vanity table her mother had insisted on buying her when she turned fifteen. She’d never used it when she was a teenager—makeup hadn’t really been her thing—but when she’d pulled the ring off, it was the only place she’d thought safe enough for it. The only place she didn’t have to worry about it getting lost.
She crossed to the table on legs that wobbled—partly from atrophy after spending the better part of a week in bed, and partly from nerves as she tried and tried and tried to believe. In Heath. In herself. And in the love she’d had for him for so many years of her life.
She held her breath as she opened the drawer. And there it was. Heath’s ring. Her ring. She picked it up with trembling fingers, turned it around until she could read the inscription written on the inside. And when she did … when she did, tears started rolling down her cheeks for the second time that morning.
We are the same stardust.
She read it again, remembering the day back in high school when she had told Heath about her favorite quote—the one from astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss that says every atom in their bodies was from a star exploding. And that very likely, the stardust that made your left hand was different than that which made your right hand.
The fact that he remembered after all these years, and that he understood how nervous she was about not being enough for him. About not being the kind of woman he’d want to spend the rest of his life with…
She took a minute to absorb the words and the love she felt rolling off of them in waves.
She was the only one he wanted.
Not anyone else.
She dived for her phone.
Her mother answered on the second ring. “I said I would bring the chocolate when I came home.”
“I’m not calling about the chocolate.” She dashed an impatient hand across her wet cheek, but the tears wouldn’t stop falling. “I want you to call Gregor back.”
“Gregor?” Her mother’s voice rose a couple of octaves. “Why?”
“Because the wedding is back on. And trust me, we’re going to need all the help we can get.
* * *
Chapter 28
* * *
Heath really hated wearing a tie, and he hated wearing a suit more, but he thought both were appropriate considering that he was about to meet with the Wranglers’ team owner, general manager, and Coach Golden. He wasn’t particularly excited about the meeting, but it was something to do today. Something to keep his mind off the fact that today was the day he wasn’t marrying Lyric Wright. Today wasn’t the day he was pledging his love to the woman who had drop-kicked his heart to hell and back.
Screw her.
Despite everything, it felt mean-spirited thinking that about her. So he thought it again.
Screw her.
Screw marriage.
Screw happiness.
Screw everything.
He should go out tonight and celebrate his narrow escape. Too bad he couldn’t work up any excitement for it. Then again, how could Lyric have stomped all over his heart and then jilted him on national TV?
He picked up the four-month-old Sports Illustrated from the coffee table in the waiting room outside of the Wranglers main office and pretended to read the article about golf. He liked golf, occasionally played it even, but he still wasn’t sure it belonged in Sports Illustrated. In his mind, any activity you could drink beer while doing didn’t qualify as a real sport. Maybe if they had contact golf where the player had to putt before getting tackled—now that would be a real sport. There’d be no pansy-ass beer drinking then.
He tossed the magazine on the table and tried to look at ease. He was nervous, and if he was being honest, a little heartsick. Lyric didn’t want him. He still wanted her. And there was nothing he could do about either situation. God knew, he’d been trying to come up with something ever since he’d walked out of her house in San Angelo all those days ago.
“Hey, man, what’re you doing here?” It was Jacob Bennet, the head groundskeeper.
“I’m the new OC.” Heath thought everyone would have known that by now. The SportsCenter interview had super high ratings, along with the marriage-proposal crash-and-burn footage that TMZ had somehow gotten their hands on.
“I know, but why are you here?” Jacob, who was normally all smiles with everyone, glared at Heath like he was singlehandedly responsible for something terrible, like the mistreatment of puppies.
“I have a meeting with the bosses.” Heath shot Jacob a warm smile. He wasn’t used to people glaring at him like that—at least, not people who weren’t on an opposing team’s defensive line. He didn’t like it.
“Okay.” But the “okay” sounded an awful lot like “what the hell?” “See you.” He rushed off to wherever groundskeepers go to keep grounds.
“Dude, I didn’t expect to see you here today.” It was Jimmy Salenger, defensive tackle.
“I’m the new OC.” He grinned at his old friend. “The offensive line is coming for you, buddy.”
Jimmy returned the grin. “I welcome the challenge. Bring it. Catch you later.” He checked his watched, stared at Heath, then hunched his shoulders and walked to the bank of elevators.
The ever-efficient Eleanor Sanchez walked out of Dalton’s office and closed the double doors behind her. She was somewhere north of fifty, didn’t take crap from anyone, and guarded the GM’s office and schedule like a rabid pit bull guards a junkyard. No one got access to Dalton Mane without her express permission.
She studied Heath like he was dog shit on the bottom of her shoe. “What are you doing here?”
What was with everyone today? He threw his hands up. “I have a meeting with Dalton.”
Shouldn’t she already know that, since she was the one who’d scheduled it?
“I know.” She crossed her arms and leaned on the corner of her desk. “What are you doing here?”
“Look, I know I was a player, but now I’m a coach, so people,” he pointed to her, “are going to have to get used to seeing me in the office. Hell, I have an office down the hall.”
Who knew making the transition from player to coach would be so difficult?
“I’m aware of that, but I’d still like to know what you’re doing here.” She hadn’t blinked the whole time she’d been looking down her nose at him.
“I have a meeting with Dalton.” Was English coming out of his mouth?
Without taking her eyes off of him, she reached behind her, picked up a remote control, and turned on the giant flat-screen TV mounted on the wall in the waiting area. Of course SportsCenter was on … it always seemed to be on.
Shelby Margate, his least favorite person, was sitting on a brown sofa that looked a lot like the one he’d done his interview with her on. The shot widened and Lyric was sitting next to her. “If there was something you could tell Heath right now, what would it be?”
“I’d tell him that I love him, and if he’s still willing, the wedding is back on. I’ll marry him at 6:00 p.m. just like he’d planned.” Lyric smiled into the camera. “I trust you, I love you, and I’ll be waiting for you, Heath Montgomery. Please, please marry me.”
It took several beats for her words to sink in. But when they did … She wanted to marry him? The wedding was still on? He checked his watch. It was four thirty. His heart dropped to his knees. He’d never make it in time.
He took off for the elevators in a flat-out run.
“Heath.” Eleanor’s voice was sharp. “You need to go up instead of down.”
“What?” He really didn’t have time for her bitchiness.
Her face cracked into a smile that lit up the room. “I’ve taken the liberty of having the Wranglers’ helicopter fueled and readied. Go to the roof and Mike, the pilot, will get you there in time.”
He ran right up to her and kissed her on the lips. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I’d love to meet Dr. Wright someday. Her podcast on supermassive black holes was amazing.” There was so much reverence in her voice that he was sure she was talking about Jesus.
The elevator was taking too long, so he took the stairs three at a time. And sure enough, when he burst onto the roof, the helicopter was sitting there waiting for him. God bless Eleanor.