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Stunned faces turn toward me.
I choke on air, my cheeks flaming hot.
Grace chokes and sputters like she’s swallowed a yellow jacket.
“You can have this ass too,” the woman continues. “When are you going to leave her, honey bunny? You promised.”
“Not now, babe, I’m about to squirt all over this—”
“Donald, cut the speakers!” Grace shrieks, waving her arms.
The sound stops, murmurs spread through the crowd, but I barely hear them. I barely see anything. The champagne glass isn’t in my hand anymore, and my feet are moving. Rushing across the grass toward the back of the house.
Bodies shift out of my path, the crowd parting, faces I don’t recognize.
Out. Out. Out.
I reach the house just as Braydon steps through the back door, straightening the tie I picked out for him this evening.
“Juney baby,” he says, and I’m revolted by the pet name. “Happy birthday.”
“Move out of my way, Braydon.”
He ignores me, wearing a benevolent smile like he’s gracing me with his presence at my bullshit birthday party. The one I should never have allowed to take place. But in a way, I’m grateful for it because now I know the truth.
Braydon lowers himself to one knee in front of the crowd of awkward onlookers. He removes a ring box from his top pocket. Words are leaving his mouth. I can’t hear them because my ears are hot and ringing at my own stupidity, but I can tell because his treacherous lips are moving.
Sound rushes back. “Juney baby? Hello? Juney baby? Will you marry me?” He gives an awkward laugh. “Don’t leave me hanging here. Kind of causing a scene.”
I snatch the ring box out of his hand and bounce it off his head, drawing gasps from the crowd. “There’s your scene,honey bunny.” And then I dart past him, through the expansive mansion, past those cursed family portraits that glare down at me disapprovingly.
I grab my purse on the way through the foyer, then fling the grand doors open and run down the stone steps. Gravel crunches underfoot. My faded yellow VW Beetle is parked near the fountain. Ol’ Rusty is the only part of me that I haven’t allowed Braydon to sell or change.
I scramble for the keys in my purse.
“Juney baby, wait!”
I get inside and slam the door, jam the keys into the ignition.
“June!”
I look up and find him by my window, his blond hair slicked back. He’s breathing hard and there’s a red patch where the ring box hit his forehead. Braydon’s always had that clean-cut frat-boy look, but now he’s panicked. Ruffled.
It’s hardly gratifying enough to ease the pain of his betrayal.
“June, stop acting like a fool and come inside. You’re embarrassing yourself,” he says. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Goodbye, Braydon.”
He slams his hand down on top of Ol’ Rusty. “You drive away, and you’ll regret it. You hear me? You can’t leave me, June. Even if you wanted to. I own you and everything you are. I made you.”
Tears sting the corners of my eyes, but I refuse to shed them in front of him. I put my foot down and speed off, out through the open gates, onto the road.
Two
CASH
“T minus 20 minutes!”I yell over my shoulder into the kitchen, while I repeatedly ram my finger into my phone screen. The fucking thing is refusing to cooperate, and today is not the day for bullshit.
