Chapter 137

The phone rang to the last second before I picked up. ‘What do you want?’ My voice came out flat, because I wasn’t in the mood to pretend. I’d blocked Caroline’s number, Preston’s number, Catherine’s, Serenna’s. I’d even set my phone to filter all unknown calls. But one number slipped through. Franklin called me so rarely that I forgot I even had his number. He jumped straight into damage control. ‘Mirabelle, sweetheart, we just got out. Total misunderstanding, that whole thing. I wanted to apologise—’ ‘If that’s it, I’m hanging up.’ ‘No, no, wait—’ His tone flipped like a switch. ‘I was thinking, if you’re free, maybe come home for dinner sometime?’ He said ‘dinner’, I heard ‘trap’. ‘You actually think I’d sit down and eat with your lot again?’ Silence. Then some pathetic throat-clearing. ‘That was all in the past. This time we’ll treat you right, promise. Proper welcome and everything.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘You didn’t even tell us about the wedding. Not a word. We missed the wh