He Chose My Best Friend, Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 07

He Chose My Best Friend, Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 07

The buzz of his phone vibrating on the floorboards jolted Ben from his numb stupor.

He snatched it, his heart pounding.

Was it her?

It was an email from their wedding venue. The subject line read: Regarding Cancellation Penalty.

Before he could delete it, his phone rang. The wedding caterer.

“Mr. Kline?” The voice was brisk and professional. “We received the cancellation notice. Per the contract, the deposit is nonrefundable, and there is a thirty percent cancellation fee. Ms. Ellis instructed us to contact you directly for all follow-up matters.”

“Fine, it’s canceled!” Ben snapped and hung up.

But the calls and emails kept coming, an avalanche of consequences. The photographer, the band, the florist… Mara had forwarded every bill, every contract, every mess directly to him, burying him in the ruins of their wedding.

He argued and explained until he was hoarse, finally shutting off his phone in defeat.

He fled the empty apartment and drove aimlessly through Chicago, a ghost haunting his own life. Every place they had ever been was now just a monument to his stupidity.

Late that night, he returned to Sloane’s.

She rushed to him the moment he walked in. “Did you find her?”

Ben opened his mouth, but no words came out. He couldn’t admit he’d driven around the city like a fool and found nothing.

The despair on his face was answer enough.

A small figure ran out from behind the sofa. It was Ruby, timidly holding out a cartoon Band-Aid. “Daddy, your hand…”

She had seen the knuckles he’d scraped punching the wall.

“Don’t touch me!” Ben jerked his hand away as if he’d been burned.

Ruby stumbled back, her eyes welling with tears.

Ben looked at her face, so much like Sloane’s, and all his rage, regret, and suffocating panic found an outlet.

His eyes turned cruel.

“Mara was right.”

His voice was quiet, but it cut like a shard of glass.

“You’re a mistake. You should never have been born.”

Ruby froze. A second later, she burst into tears.

Smack.

Sloane slapped him across the face with all her strength.

The force of it snapped his head to the side, his cheek stinging, but he barely felt it.

Suddenly, he was remembering.

Eight years ago, when his startup had failed, Mara had lived with him in an unheated apartment and draped her only coat over him while he slept.

When he’d had the flu, she’d stayed up all night, replacing the cool towels on his forehead and murmuring, “You’re going to be okay.”

Every time she talked about the home they would build, her eyes had a light in them he hadn’t seen in years.

He’d never thought any of it was that important. He’d always assumed she would be there, that he could keep her in place with promises and a little money, refusing to let go of either life he’d built.

Only now did he understand.

He had single-handedly destroyed the woman who had given him her entire youth.

And that was something he could never get back.