Page 57 of Substitute Bride

Kelly opened the door, and her face transformed with concern when she saw her sister. “What’s the matter?”

Rose tried to say something, but her face just twisted with emotion, a surge of despair overtaking her without warning.

“Shit,” Kelly said, pulling Rose into a hug. “You’ve been stupid, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Rose admitted. “I’ve been really, really stupid.”

They hugged for a minute, and then Rose pulled away and walked into the main entrance of the house. Kelly was closing the door behind her when their grandmother stepped out from the parlor, her face stern and thoughtful.

Kelly was shaking her head, although her expression was sympathetic. “You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”

Rose nodded, unable to speak.

“And he doesn’t love you back?”

Rose shook her head, the bleak reality of it breaking her heart again.

Her grandmother tsked her tongue, nothing soft about her expression at all. “You are foolish, young woman. You must believe me. You will wear Georgina Beaufort’s wedding dress soon.”

That beautiful lace wedding gown she’d only worn once when she’d danced in James’s arms.

It would be nice. It would be a dream come true. But her grandmother’s wanting something to happen didn’t mean it actually would.

Despite this reality, Rose couldn’t help but feel a little flicker of hope and awed wonder at the certainty of the words.

Because what her grandmother wanted always seemed to have eventually come to fruition before.

James stayed home from work, calling in to saying he was ill. It wasn’t far from the truth since he was feeling physically sick as he went to pick up Jill and Julie from school that day and told the girls that Rose wasn’t going to be their nanny anymore.

They didn’t believe him.

They thought at first it was a game, and then they told him he was just wrong. He kept trying to convince them, and he showed them her empty room when they got home, but they still didn’t think it was real.

They kept talking about how she was going to come back.

It was a nightmare. He’d thought they would be crushed and heartbroken, crying their poor little eyes out. But they didn’t cry at all since they didn’t believe it was really happening.

The entire afternoon was agony for him. He couldn’t take comfort in his girls the way he’d expected as all of them missed Rose. Instead, he kept having to tell them the truth over and over again.

Maybe tomorrow morning they would believe it, when Rose still wasn’t back.

He’d tried to call Rose a few times—once immediately after getting the letter and a couple of times with the girls so she could tell them it was really happening—but Rose wouldn’t answer her phone.

She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to see him again.

He knew as well as he’d ever known anything that it was over—before it had ever really begun.

The worst thing was not being able to drown himself in his heartache. He couldn’t drink himself into a stupor or go to bed and stew in the dark. He had to go through the normal aspects of life—making the girls’ dinner and taking them out to play and then getting them ready for bed.

All of it was brutally painful without Rose.

He finally got them into bed and they read several chapters of a book, all of them in Jill’s bed together. Then he put the book down and gave them both a hug.

“Rosie will be back tomorrow, I think,” Jill said with a sigh as she pulled away.

“Tomorrow,” Julie echoed.

James had to smother a groan. “I’ve told you over and over again that she won’t. She said she was gone for good.”