Page 91 of Finding My Charming

She nodded a few times before a smile slowly spread. “So, you finally made your choice?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean finally?”

She stood and made her way next to me. She wrapped me in a hug and brushed away my hair. “Oh, honey. We’ve been watching, and we all knew who was right for you. We just needed you to decide for yourself.”

“Who’s we?”

She chuckled and stepped back. Once on my other side and seated on another stool, she smiled at me. “Me, April, Beth, Grandma, Sherrie, and Ari.”

My jaw dropped. “You all have been talking about me?”

“Now, honey. Don’t get mad. We all care about you, and you only share pieces with each of us, so we had to talk to put everything we knew together to get the full story. Granted, it was only last week. But we knew who was right for you.”

I folded my arms on the counter and fell onto them.

“Elise, please. You know that you needed to do this on your own. You wouldn’t even have listened to Ari if she’d told you to choose Dallin. It had to be your choice or, you would have always wondered what if.”

I knew she was right. I was just mortified that every woman in my life was talking about me behind my back and thought she knew what was best for me but chose not to share that bit of information.

“I know this doesn’t make a break-up any easier, but you have such a great guy waiting for you. Not that I know much about him from you, but I did go in and have lunch, and I have to admit he’s a charmer.”

She winked when I lifted my head to glare at her. “You went in to see him?”

“Well, I had no other choice! Sherrie and Ari were the only ones who knew him, and we felt left out.”

“Who’s we?” Oh no. Please don’t let that include Grandma.

“April, Beth, and Grandma. It was a girls’ lunch!”

Well, that was it. I would never see Dallin again. My head fell back into my arms. Maybe I could call Vincent and convince him I’d had a mental breakdown and to ignore our last conversation.

“Oh, you are so dramatic. It was fine! We told him we were meeting your dad for lunch, but at the last minute, he couldn’t come so it ended up just being us.”

“Why did you have to tell him anything? Why couldn’t you just be silent, normal customers.”

“Because Sherrie introduced us as your family.”

I’m going to kill that woman. I sat up and glared at her again. “Sherrie was in on this?”

“Of course. How else would we have known which guy he was?”

“Name tags?”

“Oh please. Elle, it wasn’t a big deal. He was very pleasant and asked where you were.” She winked again.

“Where was I?”

“Sherrie said you were out with Vincent for lunch, so it worked perfectly.”

I tilted my head heavenward and prayed for strength not to come unhinged.

“Well, I’m glad that you all met him and approved. Now, I’m going to go to my room and try to figure out what I did to be born into this deranged family.”

I stood and walked out of the kitchen without a glance back.

“Good luck with that! Dinner will be ready soon.”

Chapter 27