“Leo, if this is bad, I need you to just say it. I can’t take the slow version.”
“It isn’t bad. I swear.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
He gave a quiet, nervous laugh.
“Because I’ve been rehearsing this for eleven months, and I still don’t know how to start.”
Eleven months.
Almost exactly when my parents had cut me off.
A hundred possibilities rushed through my mind.
Another woman.
A hidden debt.
A lie about his family.
Something he’d done before we married.
A secret that would make me question everything.
My mother had trained me to expect a catch.
In my mother’s world, love always came with conditions.
I stared at the envelope.
“Before I open whatever this is, just tell me one thing.”
