“Sex photos?” She shook her head and gave him a look of disgust. “You kids these days. No sense whatsoever.” She put her hand on the table. “If she chose to take dirty pictures, then she shouldn’t be ashamed of ’em. Let her accept the consequences of that too.”
“That’s just it, Nana. She didn’t approve of the photos. She doesn’t even know they exist, and they could destroy her career.”
“So Neil is threatening to release them unless you sign over your inheritance?”
“Once he realized how far I was willing to go, yeah.”
Her eyes were blazing. “I take it you need me to sign something to make this nice and legal.”
He cringed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sighed, looking even older. “Well, where is it?”
He slid the paper out from the file. What was he doing? He was asking his grandmother to sign her life’s work away to his maniacal cousin. And this was all his fault, because he was the one who’d spilled the beans about getting it all and setting the wheels in motion. “The document says I’m going to inherit everything except the house and the barn.”
“I told you that you’re going to get it all.”
“It’s safer this way. Give it to Kelsey. Then Neil has no chance at it.”
She peered into his face for a long moment, her gaze as penetrating and sharp as ever. “You’re really willing to give up everything for this woman?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do anything to protect her. Even if she never forgives me.”
She picked up the paper and ripped it into two.
“Nana!”
“I raised ya right, despite your mother’s influence. We’re going to make this right, but we’re not about to reward that ferret for his bad behavior. You’re going about it all wrong, boy. Time to draw up a new set of papers.”
He looked down at his phone, and his heart started racing. It was already three o’clock, and the wedding was at five. “I don’t know if there’s time.”
“You just get the papers and show up at the church. We’ll deal with the rest there.”
“And what will these new papers say?”
She grinned. “It’s time you learned from the master.”
Blair stood in the nursery of the First Presbyterian Church, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her wedding dress was on a hanger behind her. She’d never been like most girls, Megan and Libby included. She hadn’t thumbed through bridal magazines and picked flowers and wedding colors when she was in high school. Blair wasn’t a romantic kind of woman—at least not the capital “r” type of romantic many women went in for—yet she’d had some ideas of what her wedding would be like.
And this was so not it.
“Why are you doing this?” Megan pleaded for what had to be the millionth time. “Why are you marrying him?”
“I have my reasons.”
Her friends had been so dismayed when she called to tell them the wedding was still on, Libby most of all. In fact, she still hadn’t shown up. It was vaguely reminiscent of Megan’s wedding. Only Blair had been the hold-out then.
And Megan and Josh had been in love.
Blair sucked in a deep breath. “The wedding is in twenty minutes. I need to get dressed.”
“You don’t want to wait for Libby?” Megan asked in dismay.
“She’s not coming. Not that it matters.”
“How can you say that?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Are you going to help me or not?”
The door opened, and Libby walked in, already wearing her red taffeta gown. “You should be in a Hallmark commercial. One for anti-romance.”
“Zip it, Libby,” Blair said, stomping over to her dress and pulling it off the hanger.
Megan grabbed her arm. “Blair! It’s obvious your heart’s not in this. And how could it be after your night with Garrett?”
Blair closed her eyes and fought tears. After the events of the morning, she was certain the relationship was unsalvageable. But she couldn’t let herself think about that now. “I don’t want to talk about Garrett.”
“It wasn’t how it looked, Blair,” Libby said in disgust. “If you would get off your self-righteous high horse, you might be able to see that.”
Blair sucked in a breath and turned to her. “You have to trust me, Libby. Can you please just trust me?”
Libby shook her head. “I’m here as your friend, because I love you, but this is without a doubt the single worst mistake of your life.”
“Libby!” Megan shouted.
“You know it’s true, Megs,” Libby shot back. “You’re just too busy trying to pretend everything is okay to point it out.”
“This is Blair’s decision. We have to respect it.”
Blair ripped off her robe and grabbed the waist of her dress and started to step into it.
“Blair,” Megan protested. “Let us help you.”
“I don’t need your help. I can do it by myself.”
She poked her right arm through the sleeve while Megan stood in front of her. “But you don’t have to do it yourself. Asking someone for help isn’t a weakness.”
If only people would stop telling her that. Blair shoved her other arm through the sleeve. “My mother taught me that depending on someone too much is a recipe for self-destruction. I will never make that mistake.” Again. She was dangerously close to losing it. Well, all she had to do was make it through the service. Then she could fall to pieces.