Chapter 31: Never The Best: Chapter 31

I did not want to meet Josie in public, but then I didn’t want to see her in private, either. I didn’t want to see her, period. But I had been engaged to this woman and almost had a child with her, so I felt I, at least, owed her a meeting.

The café Josie chose was pretentious as fuck, where everything from the decor to the drink names screamed, trying too hard. I’d barely stepped inside before I wanted to turn around and leave. The scent of lavender lattes and artisanal toast filled the air, and the clinking of overpriced China punctuated the low hum of chatter. It was the kind of place that felt curated, just like everything Josie did. How had I not noticed that before? I knew the answer to that because that was the kind of life I was living as well.

I knew Pearl thought she was the damaged one in our relationship and that I was somehow doing her a favor by being with her. What she didn’t understand—despite me telling her more than once—was that I was the damaged one, and she made me a better person. She inspired me to become a better version of myself, one I was proud of. I knew that a life with Pearl wouldn’t just be good—it would be great. And I wouldn’t have to compromise my values to have it.

Josie was already seated at a table at the back. She wore a crisp white dress that most definitely had a designer label. It made her look like the elegant socialite she wanted to be perceived as. Her blonde hair was coiffed to perfection, not a strand out of place, and her lips were painted signature Savannah red, which society women seemed to be born wearing. She looked immaculate and, like the café we were meeting in, screamed, trying too hard.

When she saw me, she got up, gave me her practiced smile, and then went on tiptoe to kiss me. I moved away.

“Whoa,” I reacted.

“Come on, Rhett, we can hug and⁠—”

“We did that when we were engaged. We’re not any longer.”

But, since you couldn’t take the South out of the boy, I held my hand toward her seat and waited for her to sit before I took my place across from her.

She sat primly, her nails painted the same color as her lipstick. She was always so coordinated. Pearl got her nails done and all that, but she was never this precise in her appearance. I preferred Pearl’s business style…well, mostly, I kept wanting to peel her suit off of her—there was something immensely seductive about seeing her go from business serious to sensuous.

Okay, stop thinking about Pearl naked, or Josie will think you’re hard for her.

“Thanks for meeting me,” she said, and her voice made sure that whatever blood had just flowed into my dick made a hasty exit.

“Of course. What did you want to see me about?” I inquired politely.

Her smile faltered slightly, but she recovered quickly, sitting up straighter. “I wanted to talk. Clear the air.”

“Okay.” I waited, not sure what was coming my way.

Before she could speak, a perky server came by and, out of no fault of hers, irritated the hell out of me. “Coffee, black,” I barked, and then added, “please.”

“Oh, sure. And you, Josie, are you good?”

Josie was obviously a regular here.

“I’m fine with my matcha latte.” Josie pointed to her milky-green drink.

The perky server left to get my coffee.

“We haven’t talked since you…,” she paused for effect, “left me. Rhett, you just dumped me in a restaurant, and then…that was it.”

Was there any good way of ending an engagement? Maybe I should’ve googled it.

“You gave me no choice when you decided to behave like I hadn’t ended our engagement,” I pointed out.

“I could hardly believe it.” She pouted. “Can you blame me?”

“I was as explicit as I could be, Josie,” I replied softly.

“But Rhett, we’re so good together. There is so much between us. Can’t you see that?” she pleaded, her eyes moist.

She looked beautiful as she made her case. I wondered, cynically, if she’d practiced in the mirror.

“Josie, the only thing between us is the fact that we used to be engaged. And, honestly, we should never have gotten there.”

She flinched at that, her cheeks flushing slightly. “You don’t have to be cruel, Rhett.”

“I’m not being cruel. I’m being honest,” I said sincerely. “Come on, Josie, we got engaged because you were pregnant and not because we were in love.”

Her jaw tightened, but instead of snapping back, she reached for her matcha latte, taking a measured sip. “You broke my heart, Rhett,” she accused.

I sighed and was glad when the server interrupted us with my coffee. When I simply said thank you, she looked at both of us and bounced away.

God, but I wasn’t in the mood for perky.

“I didn’t break your heart, Josie. What broke is probably your ego.” I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to be rude to her. No matter what she did to Pearl, I didn’t want to stoop to her level. I couldn’t control her behavior, but I could mine, and I didn’t want to behave in a manner that didn’t match up with my values of being respectful.

“And then at the soirée?” Her voice trembled now, and she wasn’t pretending; she was really distraught. “How could you humiliate me like that in front of everyone?”

I hated her sanctimonious horse manure. “Josie, are you forgetting how you, not only announced to the world about Pearl’s health issues, but made fun of her at the soirée?”

She cocked an eyebrow, the sophisticated persona slipping. “Look who’s talking. Weren’t you the one who said you had to roll her in flour to find the wet spot to fuck her?”

I closed my eyes and counted until ten because I didn’t want to say or do anything I’d regret later.

“Josie, I’m not here to discuss my girlfriend with you. You said you wanted to⁠—”

“Girlfriend?” she shrieked now. “How could you, Rhett?”

I looked around and noticed a few people watching us with interest. “Calm down, or someone will make a video, and that shit will go viral,” I warned.

“You mean like your little speech at the soirée?” she demanded, hostility dripping from her tone.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” I confirmed.

“You have no idea what my life has been like since that stupid soirée,” she shot back. “Do you know what it’s like to be shunned by everyone you’ve ever known? To walk into a room and feel their judgment, their whispers? Betsy Rhodes won’t even look at me anymore. Dixie May and Caroline are scrambling to recover their reputations. I’ve lost everything.”

I stared at her, unmoved. “And what exactly do you expect me to do about that?”

Her eyes snapped to mine, a flicker of anger breaking through her carefully composed exterior. “You could help me.” She leaned toward me. ‘You could tell people I’m not as horrible as they think. Remind them that I was your fiancée, not some pariah. We could say we’ve made up—that we’re together again.”

Was she out of her fucking mind?

“First things first, we’re never making up.”

“We don’t have to,” she said from between clenched teeth. “We could just tell people that until…you know things calm down.”

My eyes widened at her insolence. “You want me to pretend that we’re still together to save your reputation?”

“Yes.”

She had big brass ones, I had to give her that.

“The answer is fuck no.”

“Language, Rhett, and⁠—”

“Oh, cut the crap, Josie. I can’t believe that you think I’ll lift a finger to help you.”

Her nostrils flared rather unflatteringly. “I don’t deserve to have my life ruined because of one bad night.”

I chuckled at her lack of self-awareness. “Josie, you didn’t have a bad night. You publicly humiliated someone with deeply personal, private things you had no right to know in the first place. I can’t believe you have the gall to ask me for help. The thing is, even if I wanted to help—and I don’t—I couldn’t.”

Her composure cracked then, her face twisting with frustration. “You’re such a fool, Rhett,” she spat. “You always have been. Always so eager to play the hero, to act like you’re better than everyone else. But do you even know what’s been going on around you?”

I drank some coffee. It tasted like crap. “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked wearily.

She gave me a bitter smile, her tone drenched with derision. “You’re so clueless, it’s almost cute. Did you really think I wanted to marry you for love, Rhett? Or that I wanted a family with you? Hell, I wasn’t even pregnant.”

Her words struck me like a slap with such force that I actually blinked. “What?”

“You heard me,” she snapped unapologetically. “The whole pregnancy thing? That was your mother’s idea. She said it would be the easiest way to get you to propose, and, well, she wasn’t wrong. You played right into her hands.”

My stomach churned with disgust. “You lied about being pregnant? Having a miscarriage? That is fucked up, even for you.”

“Oh, grow up, Rhett,” she quipped. “Everyone lies. It’s how things are done. It’s about appearances, about securing your place in the world. But you’ve always been too naïve to see that. Too busy chasing your fantasies of being some kind of rebel to realize the game everyone else is playing.”

I pushed back my chair, standing abruptly. I was utterly blown away. “You and my mother are a piece of work. Lose my number, yeah? And never talk to me again. You might also want to tell my mother that you spilled the beans.”

Her eyes widened slightly, like she hadn’t expected me to walk away so easily. “Rhett, look, your mother…you can’t tell her that I…please. I lost my temper and⁠—”

“Either you tell her, or I will. You might also want to inform my father. He’s an asshole, but even he’s going to have a problem with you and my mother pretending that you miscarried the Vanderbilt heir.”

I kept my voice low, but I wasn’t sure if people could hear me, and if they could, well fuck them. I didn’t give a damn anymore.

“Rhett.”

“Is getting married into the right family more important than your happiness and a moral code?”

She gaped at me like I’d just asked her to explain quantum physics. As soon as she opened her mouth, I held up my hand to stop her from speaking. “That was a rhetorical question.”

I dropped a few dollars to pay for the coffee, turned, and walked out of the café.

I drove straight home as my mind replayed the conversation with Josie over and over. By the time I got home, I was positively fuming, but as soon as I saw Pearl on the porch with Aunt Hattie and Missy I felt soothed.

“Did the conversation go okay?” Pearl asked as I climbed the steps, her brow furrowing slightly.

I pulled her into a hug and held her tight.

She stroked my back. “Hey, whatever happened, it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

She had no idea! Being with Pearl was the best thing in my life. I pulled away and led her to the porch swing where she’d been sitting. I kissed Aunt Hattie and Missy on their cheeks, and then sank onto the swing next to Pearl. She cuddled into me.

“You should never have gone to meet that snake,” Aunt Hattie drawled. “She poisoned you with a bite or what?”

“Oh yeah,” I admitted.

Missy handed me a glass of iced tea. “You look like a man who’s been through a briar patch and back.”

“Close enough.” I gave her a faint smile and took the glass of tea from her.

“What did she want?” Pearl asked.

I took a long draw of tea, and set my glass down on the little wrought-iron table in front of us. “My help to fix her reputation.”

Missy snorted. “That girl has some nerve.”

“You have no idea,” I divulged. “Turns out, she lied about being pregnant to get me to propose. My mother was in on it; probably hers, too. They manipulated me, and I fell for it like an idiot.”

“My sister is such a vicious bitch,” Aunt Hattie snapped, enraged. “How dare she?”

Pearl’s eyes filled with affection. “You’re not an idiot, Rhett. You were being honorable, though…probably in a misguided way.”

She made me laugh. Even now, when my heart ached that my mother had wanted to ruin my life, Pearl brought me joy.

“Why is getting married so important?” I demanded.

“It’s society,” Aunt Hattie, who was the epitome of a single, independent woman, remarked. “After all, marriage is a social construct, with no bearing on human nature or respect for it.”

“I think marriage can be good if it’s between the right people,” Missy stated and then frowned. “Though, more often than not, it’s not between the right people, hence the high rate of divorce.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” I stroked Pearl’s back as I held her. “I believe in relationships. I believe in monogamy. I believe in partnership. But I don’t understand this blinding need to have a ceremony and marry into the right family. My father told me he was fine with me marrying Pearl. After all, she’s from a good family, which misses the point that I should be with Pearl because she’s fucking awesome and makes me a better person.”

“So, what’s the alternative?” Pearl ran a hand down my arm.

“To not get married.” I felt weary as hell. “I don’t ever want to. Not after all of this. The lies, the manipulation, the expectations—it’s not worth it. I’m done with the whole idea.”

The porch fell silent, and I caught the way Pearl’s peaceable expression flickered—just for a moment—before she looked away.

I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I wondered if I’d just opened a door I wasn’t quite ready to walk through. Did Pearl want to get married, and I’d fucked it up?