30. Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Patrick
Red alert! Could someone explain how we’d walked ourselves into a surprise engagement party-turned-surprise…wedding?
Marcy sat frozen in place beside me at our table. “Arrest me now.”
“Uh…”
“Because there’s been a murder. My nonna. She’s dead. So very, very dead.”
Dividing my attention between Marcy and the dozens of gawking faces was impossible. Say something. Do something!
I got to my feet as a smattering of applause coursed through the room. A few whistles pierced the air and a “Go for it!” that sounded like Robby. I scanned the crowd and shot him a lethal glare. Could you not?
My gaze landed on my mother. So she was here. The nerve. My father stood beside her, neither of them looking guilty enough for their role in this chaos. After making a deal with the casino behind my back, did they think I’d be happy to see them? And what, now they were playing along with this wedding ?
“Thank you all,” I found myself saying to cut the silence, which had definitely veered awkward. I flashed my most winning smile. “We’re so grateful to be here. But I have to say it’s a bit too soon—”
“We’ll do it.” Marcy shot to standing. She looked at me with intense desperation in her eyes. “I can do this. We can do this.”
The clapping and hooting escalated. Someone called my name among the noise, possibly my father.
“Get married? Today? ” I blurted in what I’d hoped was only loud enough for her to hear, but who was I kidding? We were standing in the center of a ballroom with eyes devouring us.
“She knows .” Marcy seethed to me. She angled us away from peering eyes and spoke low. “Nonna’s calling my bluff. About the money. She told me before the food line that she went with asking for forgiveness later because it was my style . That’s exactly what I was going to do with the bakery.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Never mind, I got it. I pressed a hand to my head. “Marcy, we can’t just get married right now.”
She gripped my arm. “She wants us to admit…” She raised her brows, implying the words left unsaid. “So we call her bluff and we just do it. We do this. Today.”
Marcy wanted to marry me. Immediately .
This was what I wanted. I wanted to marry Marcy.
We had the license. We loved each other. I wanted this so much. A life with her.
For a long, steady moment, I imagined the next steps. She’d dash off to put on the family gown. The priest from her family’s church would prepare himself and stand by the arch. Our closest friends would gather as the bridal party, already dressed to the nines.
We could do this. I loved Marcy and wanted to be her husband. I wanted it more than winning the campaign. I wanted our lives to start together, so why not start now ?
But not like this. Not by force, to spite her grandmother for besting her. Marcy had been resistant to marriage all this time, but now she suddenly changed her mind?
Marcy yanked on my sleeve. “Marry me!” she shouted as a whisper. “Right now!”
I slid my hand across her shoulder and faced us toward the crowd again. “If you all could give us a few minutes. And let’s give Nonna Russo a hand for the surprise of the century.” I started clapping for effect, getting the guests to follow along. I hooked my arm through Marcy’s and led her away.
We made it through a side door to a darkened, partitioned-off section of the ballroom. I flicked the nearest switch and lights above us lit.
Marcy paced in a tight circle. “I can’t believe this is happening. She found me out. She’s probably known all this time why I wanted the money and now she’s all game on. Did you see the way she stared me down? We can’t let her get away with this. We should do it, but I’ll stay in this dress. I won’t wear their family gown.”
Emotions hit from every direction. I should have been ecstatic. Elated. But I felt sick. “Marcy, we can’t marry like this. It’s all wrong.”
She stopped pacing. “That’s exactly why we need to do this. We can prove to her—”
“This can’t be about proving anything. Do you hear yourself? You have the bakery. You got what you wanted out of this. Your grandmother is going to find out soon enough.”
“I don’t have the bakery. I put an offer on the bakery. The deal could get rejected. Just because Ribbity Ribben said he has people for that, if he’s mad enough, he could scrap the deal.”
My head spun. “Why are we talking about Eli Ribben when there’s a pop-up wedding for us on the other side of that door? We have to tell them this isn’t happening. ”
“Oh, so you’ve decided for us?”
“ You decided for us out there!”
“And now we’re going to look like flaky Millennials when we call it off.”
“I hate to break it to you, but this already looks worse than flaky.” Flaky was not the word. Absurd, maybe. Circus-like, minus the acrobatics. “Do you even want to marry me?” My throat constricted at the words. “At all?” Quieter, but necessary.
Her confidence flickered. “What? Of course I do.”
“Neither of us intended to walk out of here tonight as husband and wife. We thought this was a charity event related to my campaign.”
She folded her arms. “Obviously, but we also signed a marriage license. So I’d say things have gotten real.”
My heart raced. “The only reason you signed that document was to get your money. It’s never been about me. Or us. It’s always been about the money for you.”
Hurt slashed across her face. “You don’t believe me that my feelings for you are real? That when I told you I loved you, I meant it?”
“Of course I believed you, but this—” I flung my arm toward the door. “Is not a reasonable situation. None of this, today, is about love.”
“We both had our reasons for this arrangement.” Her voice came across firm and fierce. “Both of us lied to get where we are now. Don’t try to pin this on me. This was your idea.”
A rebuttal stalled in my throat. She was right. I’d been the one to suggest this entire obnoxious idea in the first place. I couldn’t blame Bea Clark. I could have walked out of my parents’ library and kept on with my life. But I hadn’t. I’d walked out of that room and into that diner and asked Marcy to join me in my lie. She might have crafted lies of her own, but I’d been the one to encourage her .
Worse, I’d let myself believe maybe this would work. That if we went ahead with small plans, we could end up engaged and married.
I’d deceived myself. I couldn’t blame anyone else for that.
I loved her. And I loved her too much to give into this gimmick. Marrying Marcy was exactly what I wanted, but the details were all wrong. How was it that getting what I’d dreamed of had now turned into telling the woman I loved that I couldn’t marry her?
The clerk’s words at the courthouse rang in my head. Divorce is expensive. The last thing I wanted was to rush this wedding and find ourselves in a spot where the D-word would even be considered. Not because of money, but because if we started out on a lie, I couldn’t promise that divorce wouldn’t be a possibility when life grew tough. I didn’t want to build a marriage on lies and spite.
I said as much to Marcy. “We need to course correct. Tell your grandmother why you want the money and end this game you two are playing.”
Marcy’s mouth fell open. “What if I don’t want to?”
“What are you so scared of? She’s your grandmother who loves you. She’s not going to disown you. You’ve built up this fear of her and it’s like you can’t see past it.”
Fury boiled in her eyes. “You don’t get to determine how I handle my life.”
“This decision affects both of us. If we can’t agree on when to marry, then we shouldn’t at all.” A spring sprung loose. “Let’s be honest here. Really, really honest. You told our friends and family you wanted to marry me out there when you’ve repeatedly said you don’t want to get married at all . The engagement was never supposed to be real, even if I’d duped myself into believing it. Marrying me was only ever a means for you to get the thing you really want.”
Which wasn’t me. Her dream could go on entirely without me .
Her slackened expression told me she knew I had her number. She didn’t want to marry me today, and probably not at all. We’d gotten caught up in the whirlwind of it all, tricking ourselves that any of this was reality.
I waited for her to say it wasn’t true. But it was. We both knew. She’d gotten what she needed and I wasn’t it.
I desperately wanted to fix this. If we marched back out there for a surprise wedding, this hurt could all be over, to the delight of our friends and family.
Except…would they be delighted? Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure Robby had been the one to shout to go for it . Our friends wouldn’t want us to rush. I’d seen their blur of faces when we’d left the ballroom. They were as shocked at this turn of events as we were.
To fix this, we had to come clean. That was it. “I’m sorry I raised my voice.” I took a breath. “Now we need to end this. Tell your grandmother the truth or I will.”
Marcy stepped closer and tilted her chin up. “Then you admit to everyone we aren’t engaged. That you did it for the campaign. If this is over, then it’s over for both of us.” Her eyes glistened with tears.
“Is that the deal, then? We both come clean and then…” It hurt too much to say the words.
“And then it’s over.”
The words sunk heavy and final, like a shipwreck settling at the seafloor.
Over. We would be over. My insides threatened to tear through my skin. I couldn’t get enough air. This was it. This was the thing I’d feared most. That we’d lose everything if she knew how much I loved her. I’d had it right before this horrible plan. Better to live with unrequited love and friendship than to face heartbreak like this when it all went sideways .
A knock sounded, and the door creaked open. I had half a mind to yell at whoever was knocking. Matteo angled in. “You guys okay?”
Definitely not okay. Nothing was okay. Double doors waited on the other side of the room leading to the hall. I needed to get out of here.
“Folks are getting restless,” he said.
“Patrick, you can’t leave.” Marcy sounded murderous.
I’d already made it halfway across the room. The pain, I’d never felt like this before. Never in my life. I could barely stand straight. All these years of loving her and I’d fallen for the idea she might love me back. That we could be happy together.
We had a love built on lies. All the way from our first kiss, when I’d pretended I didn’t love her, and I ran. Just like I was running now.
I needed to get to those doors so I could breathe again.
An arm hooked into mine. “ Patrick .” Marcy managed a secure grip. “If this is going to end, we both face them out there. Together.”
I looked back at Marcy. My own beliefs would ring hollow if I wasn’t willing to tell the truth. I refused to let her do this alone. One last act to support the woman I’d never marry. I’d tell everyone it was all a lie. “Deal.”