To Capture A Bride

Chapter 32

✿ Reid's POV

“I don't want to see you again. Ever.”

For days, those are the only words that haunt me.

My apology meant nothing to her.

I meant that apology, and I know it should've come much earlier but when I said it days ago, I meant it. I was mad at her... at myself. Yet for these past days without her, she was all I could think about. I casually drove off to the house every day, just to see if she was there. Everything was the same as we'd left it on the night of the party.

I've truly lost her.

And I needed to stop feeling this way because it was all an act in the first place.

I run the back of my neck and walk out of my bedroom. My mother was talking to Oswald who held another picture of Lee and me from the night of the engagement party. All week they'd been trying to control what the press released... to make it sound like it was a mutual agreement and I regretted meeting her.

I didn't.

“You know the deal,” my mother says, making my jaw clench involuntarily. “Make sure these photos never see the light of the day.”

“Of course, ma'am,” Oswald said, rattling on about the costs to make these photos disappear. “I don’t care,” she tells him. “Just make sure the reporter is paid enough to shut up. And then get rid of these. No one can ever see this. I'll go contrary to our story about my son's breakup with that tramp.”

My fist clenches. She'd met Lee only twice. How was she so hell-bent on destroying someone she hardly knew?

“Reid, darling!” she sings when she spots me. “Come, you're just in time for brunch. Come join us.”

I check my watch and grimace when I realize that it’s almost time for my weekly golf date with my best friend.

“Hernan can wait, darling. Come on” she smiles at me.

I sigh, unclenching my fist and moving toward the dining room where everyone is seated. My mother grins and looks around the table, pure bliss radiating from her.

“I've slept very well these past few days” she announces. “We got rid of the load.”

I successfully tune her and everyone else out. I’m lost in involuntary thoughts about Aileen through the entire brunch, barely even present as Asha joins us. It isn’t until my mother calls my name that I snap out of it.

“You’re absentminded lately, darling,” she says. “Are you alright?”

I blink, hating the fact that she dared to ask when she knew exactly how I was feeling.

Since the night of the engagement party, everyone has been tiptoeing around me. Being careful not to mention anything about that night to tick me off. And I hate that. I hate being pitied.

“Son,” my father says carefully. “Are you alright?”

“What do you think, dad?”

He sighs.

“Darling, that girl isn’t like us. It was never going to work” my mother let out.

I smile wryly.

“Not like us? What? Because she isn’t rich?”

“Among the other expectations she doesn't reach” Mom adds and nods, allowing annoyance to crawl down my spine.

“Forget about what happened, son. It was a phase, and like the tabloid says now, you got over it and so it ended” my father adds.

Something snaps inside me.