Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
I’d assumed she’s been forced to choose Teddy in the “friend divorce,” due to Vick’s closeness to him and his well-connected family.
But maybe I was wrong.
Maybe Dara wants to reconnect and be closer than we’ve been in the past year…
I should have known better, of course.
Things have been going well lately, but Teddy always seems to come back to haunt me, sooner or later…
Dara: Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this! The nerve of that man. I can’t believe he opened his mouth and let THAT come out. Call me when you can? And seriously, just say the word, and Vick and I will both skip the wedding. Fuck college friends, and fuck Teddy.
My stomach drops.
I stare at the link at the end of the text, sitting there like a snake coiled in the grass. I don’t want to click it. My every instinct is screaming that I should delete this text, jump into the shower to get ready for the fabulous party I’m throwing for my fabulous friend, and pretend Teddy Delacorte doesn’t exist.
But I’ve never been good at looking away from ugly truths.
I’d rather feel the pain than stay in the dark, waiting for reality to ambush me when I least expect it.
So…I click the link.
The page loads, and there they are, Teddy and Madison, my ex and my former protégée, wrapped around each other in the New Orleans Botanical Garden, all soft focus and golden hour light. Madison in a white couture sundress, I know she can’t afford on her second-tier wedding-and-party-planning company salary. And Teddy in the lux, Italian linen shirt I bought him three Christmases ago, the one he said made him feel like he was “trying too hard,” when I asked him to wear it to my aunt’s wedding.
Apparently, he doesn’t mind getting caught trying now…
The headline—New Orleans’ Newest “It” Couple Opens Up About Love, Life, and the Unstoppable Magic That Makes Them… Well, Them—threatens to trip my gag reflex, but I force myself to keep reading.
The journalist coos about their “compelling energy” and “refreshingly earnest approach to modern romance.” Madison is then quoted as gushing, “I finally understand what all the love songs are about. They’re literally about this feeling. Love. The real thing, though, the kind you don’t find very often these days. I’m just so grateful God led me to this incredible man.”
“Wow, love songs are about love. Who would have thought, you intellectually deficient traitor,” I mutter, feeling uncharitable.
But it’s Teddy’s quote that sends the “woman scorned” energy inside me surging to previously unimagined heights.
I have to read the section twice to believe the man had the fucking gall…
Madison reaches for Theodore’s hand as we settle onto a sun-dappled bench, framed by Spanish moss that drifts toward them on the breeze, as if it, too, longs to get closer to their magnetic energy.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” Theodore says, with the quiet conviction of a man who’s found his way home. “What Madison and I have… She’s shown me what real partnership is all about. What it looks like to build a life with someone who truly sees you, all of you, and welcomes your light and your darkness with open arms.”
He pauses, glancing at his fiancée with unmistakable tenderness. Madison squeezes his hand, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I’m genuinely grateful now that I didn’t settle down earlier, before I was ready,” Theodore continues. “It’s given me perspective. Looking back at those previous relationships, even the longer ones that felt so significant at the time… Well, I can see now they were more style than substance. About what looked good on paper, not what felt right in my heart, my soul. This is different. Madison is different. This is real in a way I didn’t realize was possible before she came into my life.”
Style than substance?
Good on paper?
The words blur on the screen.
Eight years. I gave this man eight years of my life. Most of my thirties, the decade everyone said I should be using to “settle down” and “get a ring on it,” I spent navigating Theodore James Delacorte’s emotional minefield.
But I didn’t mind. I was so certain he was the one. I never shied away from any part of him, including the darkest darks.
The memories come rolling in with the force of the storm surge that left NOLA in shambles this summer. Teddy, in a dark suit at his mother’s funeral, his hand gripping mine so tight my fingers went numb. I cancelled three client meetings to be there, held him while he cried, and stayed up with him until he’d cleaned every dress out of her closet and “the mother smell” was banished from the giant Victorian he’d inherited.
I couldn’t have done this without you, Char. I couldn’t have lived through it. This would have destroyed me.