The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(109)

Of everyone in the world who could hurt me, Phoebe Lightly knows better than anyone which buttons she’d need to push.

“Dad.” Bridget nudges my foot with hers. “Dad, you have to apologize and get her back. She’s—she’s the best of all of them. Even better than Tavi. I like her here. You like her here. And I like that you like her here. She makes you happy. So go find her. Tell her you’re sorry. And bring her back.”

Shiloh stands up. “Let him go, Bridge. This is one he has to do on his own.”

“But—”

“Nope. No buts. C’mon. Your room needs to be cleaned, and I have five dollars for anyone who pulls all the weeds from the tomato plants today.”

“But what about meeting Dad’s brother?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Or today, if he comes into the café,” Ridhi says. “Anya told me there was another rich stranger in town. Said he was so handsome. I’m positive Tickled Pink will be rolling out its best welcome mat.”

As they should. My little brother seems like a truly decent guy.

Better than me, truth be told.

“Teague?” Shiloh’s watching me from the doorway. “Always darkest before the dawn. This will all work out however it’s meant to. Even if it’s not exactly what you wanted. But what in life is?”

She’s right.

I know she’s right.

But life doesn’t just happen to you.

Sometimes, you have to happen to life.

I want to happen to life. Question is, How?





Chapter 38


Phoebe


The Chos’ annual garden party is awful.

Not because the food is bad (it’s not) or because the decorations are gaudy (they’re quite lovely) and also not because everyone’s whispering about me as I make my way through the gardens. Not because I’m confirming with each passing second that I truly have zero friends here and that I don’t belong here. Not because Fletcher Barrington is here somewhere, and I have to offer him a bribe to shut the ever-loving fuck up and not go after my old driver to get his grandfather’s watch back, but because every last bit of tonight feels so damn fake.

The smiles.

The alliances.

The invitations to brunch that are nothing more than an excuse to try to squeeze out gossip.

I hate it.

I want to be back in Tickled Pink, even if I’m alone. I want to sit out under the night sky, sniffing Tavi’s secret chocolate confections that she’s making in the basement of a closed-up church and watching for shooting stars while my kitten purrs on my lap. I want to have a beer with Jane and ask for more stories about what Tickled Pink was when she was a kid. I want to convince Ridhi and Anya that they should move the café into that old church that Tavi’s squatting in, because repurposed buildings are fascinating.

And I want things that I don’t think I can have.

Like living in a tiny little tree house with an oversize lumberjack who’s only grumpy because he’s afraid of losing the life he’s found for himself.

But if I’m going to be as happy as I can make myself, I need to close all the massive, gaping holes that will haunt me if I walk away without doing what my conscience tells me I need to do, even if what my conscience is telling me to do flies in the face of everything I ever learned about how you behave in Upper East Side society.

I finally spot Fletcher on the veranda shortly after dusk.

“Shall I handle this for you, darling?” Mom asks. She’s been my shadow for the past three days as we’ve moved from the spa upstate back to the city for me to do what I need to do here.

I shake my head. “No. Last thing. And then—”

And then, I don’t know what.

I visited Antoinette yesterday and thanked her for all her hard work, wrote her a glowing recommendation for a promotion, blackmailed my former boss into writing one of his own—my conscience is just fine on that front—paid off her student loans and prepaid her rent for a year, and then gave her a ridiculously large gift certificate to her actual favorite spa, and it still didn’t feel like enough. I’ll probably anonymously send her gifts for several more years.

I sent flowers and chocolates to the staff who worked for me at my town house, which I’ll be selling shortly, along with writing them each bonus checks for two years’ worth of pay, and also did the same for the staff at Gigi’s brownstone.

I saw my cousins for the first time in years, apologized for not checking in on them sooner, and gave them my phone number if there’s ever anything I can do to help their side of the family.

Within the bounds of what my newfound conscience will allow, of course. They are still Lightlys, and I don’t know them well enough to know if they’ve overcome their genes after being cut off.

So tonight is the last step.

Giving Fletcher what he wants, or as close to what he wants as I can give him. It truly was not my place to dispose of his family history, and it’s his business if he wants to be a despicable human being.

I’ll forever know I made amends, and that’s weirdly more fulfilling.

A murmur goes through the crowd as I make my way toward Fletcher.

The fallout of our breakup has been circulating through gossip channels nonstop while I’ve been gone. He’s made sure of it.