Mark I hated the saying ‘go big or go home’ because that’s always how my mistakes always ended up. I could categorically say that my biggest mistake was Layla Townsend. My main one had been letting her go to have time and space to grow. I never expected her to be gone for as long as she was, and every minute of it hurt.

Now she’s back in town and won’t give me the time of day. I’m not afraid of hard work, though. She’s worth every sleepless night.

What I am afraid of is her family finding out our secret. Then again, maybe it’d work in my favor if they found out sooner rather than later.

At least that’s today’s excuse for me accidentally dropping the bombshell at a family get-together.

Layla Love and hate go together like love and marriage. The sad thing is, I don’t hate Mark, but I can’t go through life loving him, either. And then there’s the matter of marriage…

It was meant to be the best kept secret, but now that it’s out, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. How do you get over that level of hurt, regardless of the excuses for it?

This was where being a Townsend could come in useful because we excelled at driving people crazy enough to run in the opposite direction whenever they saw us. Mark used to get a lot of amusement watching people go through it. Let’s see how he likes it when he gets the full force of my family aimed at him.