“Wait...are you trying to tell us that you’re pregnant?”
Her mom’s words dragged Sadie back into the present. “Yes, I’m pregnant.”
Her mom clapped her hands and her dad’s eyes lit up. “That’s so exciting!” her mom gushed. “Our first grandchild. Oh, baby, I’m beyond thrilled.”
Sadie frowned down at the screen. “Wait, hold on...did you not hear a thing I said earlier?”
Her mom waved her words away. “That’s in the past. This is a new chapter.”
Really? Because it didn’t feel that way to her. “No, you don’t get to drop back into my life without an apology, pretending you didn’t let me down, you didn’t hurt me. If I hadn’t called you, would you have called me?”
She didn’t need an answer; she knew the truth. Sadie’s fingertips drifted across her forehead. “Okay, so I’m going to hang up. This conversation is going nowhere, which I should’ve expected.”
“Wait!”
Her dad’s face filled the screen, his expression mortified. “Don’t leave it like this, Sadie. What can we do to make this right?”
Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t think it can be fixed.”
“I want to try. I’ve missed you.”
“Phones work both ways, Dad.” But despite everything, she couldn’t just walk away. These were her parents, and her child deserved to know the only set of grandparents he, or she, would have.
Sadie gripped the bridge of her nose. “I’m going through hell right now, so maybe you can call me in a couple of weeks and maybe we can meet. I’m not promising anything but...maybe.”
“I’ll call.”
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. But it was up to them now. Sadie said goodbye and disconnected the call. One argument down, another to go.
Courage, Slade. You can do this.
She was about to lean on Beth’s doorbell again when the door opened and Beth stood there, her face anxious.
Before Sadie could utter a word, Beth started to speak. “I genuinely didn’t know Finn spoke French. The landlord called me, not the other way around. It was a sheer fluke that I was in Finn’s office when I took that call.”
“I told you to cancel the lease,” Sadie said, not sure whether to believe Beth or not.
“I know and I was going to do what you asked me but...” Beth’s expression was pure misery and her words dried up. Her eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip trembled.
Sadie swallowed, reluctantly touched by her friend’s obvious show of emotion, but also reminding herself that Beth’s action had resulted in the rift between Sadie and Carrick.
But really, if it hadn’t been Beth’s phone call, it would’ve been something else. Carrick would’ve found another reason to push her away, to mistrust her. Her resentment toward her friend dropped a level and she tipped her head to the side.
“Explain.”
“I wanted you to have a backup plan, in case things went wrong here in Boston. I know how much you love your apartment, how much you love Paris. That was where you fled to when things went south with Dennis. The city soothes you, you love the art, the vibe, the people. I asked your landlord to extend the lease by six months—after that I was going to either renew it or cancel it.”
“I would’ve noticed a rental payment to the lease, Beth,” Sadie said, exasperated.
“I was going to pay it. You wouldn’t have known.”
Sadie frowned, puzzled. “Beth, that apartment is expensive. Paris is expensive. You don’t have that sort of money to pay for an apartment you’ll never use.”
Beth looked defiant. “I have enough savings to cover it.”
Sadie ran her hands over her face, her anger draining away. Beth had been prepared to hand over her hard-earned savings just to make sure Sadie had a bolt hole, somewhere to run to where she felt safe. And if Finn hadn’t overheard her plans, Sadie might never have known about Beth’s generosity and sacrifice.
“I really hope you are going to be happy with Carrick, Sadie, and maybe Tam did exaggerate. She is a drama queen. But she’s my sister,” Beth said, her bottom lip quivering.