Free From Fake to Forever by Kat Cantrell Page A

“You misremember. We can never get Vegas back and it would be madness to try.”
    He nearly choked on the words and immediately wished he’d said something else, anything else. Because he knew good and well it wasn’t a lie and she didn’t misremember.
    Worst of all, he wanted it, too. Wanted to indulge in a woman who made him feel, made him forget. An oasis of connection and understanding far removed from the ugly battles playing out across the remnants of Lynhurst Enterprises.
    She banked the hurt in her gaze and nodded. “See ya. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
    * * *
    Meredith gave up on the idea of sleeping at around 2:00 a.m. Tomorrow—correction, today —already promised to be brutal since she’d spend hours in Allo’s torture chamber. But coupled with no sleep and Jason’s thorough rejection, she might as well get on a plane back to Houston.
    Surely a conversation with her father in which she admitted her mistake in Vegas and begged his forgiveness would be easier than the ups and downs of Jason’s deal. The worst part was she’d known what would happen last night when she went for broke. But she’d done it anyway because she couldn’t stop herself.
    She yearned for the thrill Jason evoked when he slid into her and the kinship they’d shared. Then there was the communication and affinity—they’d had it all once upon a time, and for some reason, he refused to acknowledge how great the two of them naked had been.
    But what if the Jason she couldn’t forget never surfaced? Hanging on to that fantasy was the surest path to never moving on.
    She slogged through the day, earning cutting remarks from Allo without even trying, a real bonus that went well with her mood. Avery never contacted her, and in an apparent attempt to give her what she’d asked for, Jason didn’t call, either.
    When she got back to her hotel, she booted up her laptop in an attempt to distract herself from the day, and an email from her mother put the cap on a supremely awful day. Thought you might want to see this , the note said and included a link to an online article titled: Miss Texas—Where Is She Now?
    Dread knotted Meredith’s stomach as she clicked the link. Exactly as she expected, a professional head shot from her pageant days filled the screen alongside the photos of two other women. She recognized Brandi MacArthur and LaTisha Kelley easily. Brandi had handed over her crown to Meredith when she won. And the following year, Meredith had handed her crown to LaTisha.
    Kicking off her heels, Meredith sank down in the plush chair, determined to read every word on the screen.
    The article wasn’t a smear job or a puff piece. It was a well-written factual chronicle of the three women’s lives since their respective reigns ended. Brandi was now a neonatal neurosurgeon working at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, married to David Thomason, the renowned heart-transplant specialist. LaTisha had taken a different path, receiving a master’s degree in theology and then signing on to become a missionary in Haiti. The writer expanded on their achievements in several glowing paragraphs, highlighting that the Miss Texas pageant had opened doors for these ladies, which they had walked through to enormous success.
    Meredith’s sole mention painted a sad but true picture—“Meredith Chandler-Harris works for her sister and is a second-generation Miss Texas. Her mother, Valerie Chandler, won the title in the eighties.”
    The article was kind enough to leave out the part where Meredith hadn’t achieved a tenth of what her fellow title-holders had. But it was implied quite well.
    Her mother hadn’t sent the link to be malicious. She probably saw nothing wrong with the fact that of the two lines devoted to her daughter, fifty percent were about Valerie. As a major contributor to the Houston social scene, her mother thought nothing of seeing her name in print.
    She also didn’t have a shred of ambition. But