Happily Ever After Read Online Free

suddenly occurred to her.
    Why, indeed, should she wait for Harlan to return?
Furthermore, why should she twiddle her thumbs until her father and mother
returned from Paris to convince her everything was fine? Why shouldn’t she see
Harlan’s face when she tore up his damning letter? In fact, why should she send the letter at all when she could take it to him?
    She turned slowly to face Jonathon, her thoughts
stewing, her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t crying,” she assured him.
    “It seems y-you’re angry,” he sputtered.
    Sophie lifted a brow. “Quite!”
    “Sophia, my dear... I-I’ve never seen you like
this,” he managed to say.
    Sophia had never felt quite like this.
    With Harlan’s betrayal, something snapped inside
her, something slightly terrifying and exciting all at once. The simple fact
that she wasn’t huddled in a weepy pile at her desk and sobbing should have
alarmed her as much as it seemed to shock Jonathon. The poor man was staring at
her, mouth agape.
    Sophie tried for an even tone as she dismissed
him. The sooner he left her, the sooner she could begin making plans. “Thank
you so much, Jonathon, for bringing this matter to my attention.” She
straightened the parchment against her breast, ironing it neatly, resolved in
what she must do.
    She wanted to see Harlan beg for her father’s
money! She wanted him to fall at her feet and endeavor to convince her to stay
with him. And most of all, she wanted to rip his letter into a thousand little
pieces, and then walk away forever.
    “Sophia,” Jonathon began, taking a step backward
as she neared. Sophie couldn’t help but note his confused reaction. He’d
obviously expected a far different response from her. “I think perhaps you are
in shock,” he said, recovering himself, and planting his feet firmly.
    Sophie smiled thinly. No doubt he thought so.
    Certainly it was unheard of that a woman should
respond to such a case with anything other than pure hysteria, she thought
irately.
    “I’m perfectly fine,” she assured her fiancé’s
best friend, flashing him a smile meant to placate, even if her eyes burned
with wrath. “You may go now, and please, please, do not trouble yourself
further, Jonathon.”
    “Oh, but I must stay!” he protested at once. “How
can I come to you bearing such horrid news and simply leave you disconsolate?
You need comfort, my dear—comfort and friendship! And I am here to give
it to you!”
    Sophie folded the letter with cool deliberation.
“As you can see ... I am hardly disconsolate.”
    “But Sophia, my dear... this is quite unlike you!”
    Sophie smiled. “Why, yes, it is!” she agreed, and
batted her lashes at him, feeling quite the shrew, though with ample
justification. Men! Her father included, all of them were despotic by nature!
Well, she was quite through being a door mat!
    She went to Jonathon, laying a hand upon his arm.
She gripped him firmly and pulled him toward the door. “Thank you, dear Jon,
for considering me in this.”
    He had no choice but to follow... or make a scene,
and Jonathan, like Harlan, had no stomach for embarrassing spectacles.
    Her mind at once began to make plans. First she
would pay a visit to this Jack MacAuley Harlan had mentioned in his letter.
Someone at the university would know how to locate him. Then she would need to
pack. And money—she would need money, of course. And she would write a
letter to her mother and father so they wouldn’t worry when they returned and
found her gone. Come to think of it, they probably wouldn’t even notice, but
she should write them anyway. It was the proper thing to do, and, of course,
she always did the proper thing.
    She wondered about Jack MacAuley. She’d heard his
name mentioned before—a controversial fellow her father had called him,
and had heartily disavowed his theories—though Sophie didn’t much care if
he thought himself descended from blue monkeys; he’d do very well for her
purposes. If he could be bribed to