Chapter 3
Chapter three
Forrest
After your behavior at the church, I need a little space.
Heading to Tahiti with the family. Have fun at the house.
Will be out of service for 10 days.
We can talk when I get back.
Isent the messages to Birdie, then snapped my phone shut.
That would give her enough time to cool down and for me to talk to Phee and the kids.
Not what I expected to be doing today, but I could always book another trip to Ireland with Birdie.
“How the hell did you even get into St. Martin’s?” I asked as the kids and I boarded her luxury yacht.
It was such a—Phee thing to interrupt the ceremony. My god.
And, honestly, hadn’t I been expecting a display of some nature ever since Paige cast her as the lead in the Phantom of the Bloody Opera?
I had.
Because Phee absolutely hated to see me with any other woman, let alone someone much younger and sweeter like Birdie. So her going to great lengths to get me back was classic.
Her jealousy was absolutely legendary, although I thought she’d just attempt to slash the tires of my limo like she usually did.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I had demanded as the rest of my wedding guests filed out of the cathedral.
“Not here,” Phee said. “We can’t talk here. Too many paparazzi. Come with the kids and me on a little cruise to Tahiti. Just until we have to be back to start rehearsals.”
“All right,” I said.
I’d had to bend down quickly to pick up the ring Birdie had thrown at me and pulled something in my back. After all, the ring was only valued at 2.5 million dollars, absolutely something to just throw on the ground and leave.
So I was not in my mood to talk to my fiancée at the moment and perfectly happy to let her stew a bit.
Why the hell had Birdie been so pissed? I felt intensely irritated over that frozen sculpture. I had gotten the Duke de St. Ars-sur-Formans out of retirement for that damn ice sculpture and Birdie had destroyed it 18.5 minutes into its lifespan.
Phee was supposed to be the dramatic one, not Birdie. Birdie was my peace. Had always been. So what the hell was with that outburst?
Bouncing blue waves pulled our yacht out to sea and my children clinked glasses.
“To Dad’s wedding day,” Hieronymus said.
I leaned back against the railing sardonically.
“Oh my god, you and Mother,” Paige cried.
“Hell of a duo,” I said, but I was too pissed to drink champagne. Birdie’s face kept running in my brain.
Five minutes. That’s all I had asked for.
“Dirty martini,” I barked to the bartender on board.
“The Duke de St. Ars-sur-Formans is going to give me hell for this,” I said irritably, pulling at my bowtie. “It didn’t have to go down like that.”
“When it comes to Birdie, yes, it does,” Paige said tartly. “She likes. . . scenes. She has no breeding.”
I frowned. “She’s not usually like that. Don’t be overly harsh on her.”
“Yeah, but the gossip mags are going to be full of this,” my daughter squealed, getting out her phone.
Full of Birdie hitting me with her bouquet, destroying an ice sculpture, and storming off? Yes.
I sipped my martini and looked out over the bright blue of the Pacific Ocean.
“Oh my god, look at these headlines,” Paige cried. “MUSIC MOGUL DUMPS GOLDDIGGER brIDE, LEAVES HER SOBBING AT THE ALTAR.”
I felt a frisson of irritation.
“I didn’t leave her at the altar. She’s the one who stormed off.”
“Well, actually,” Hieronymus said, and he was always kind of a well-actually guy, but today I was not in the mood, “If we want to get technical, you were leaving to talk to Mother. So yes, while Birdie did technically vacate the premises first, it was clear you were leaving her at the altar.”
I said nothing, looking over Paige’s shoulder as she scrolled through the headlines.
Surely Birdie was going to ignore this ridiculous gossip, right?
The wedding hadn’t been canceled. Only postponed. I had made that very clear to her.
It occurred to me that these headlines did not express what had happened very well, and that Birdie could hardly help reading them, in fact, she had said before the wedding that all the media attention on our wedding would be great PR for Paige and Hieronymus’ first time directing.
Guilt stabbed me and I turned on my phone.
“How are you getting service out here?”
My phone still had zero bars.
“Just lost mine,” Paige said with a regretful sigh. “I’ll keep checking. We might get service in a day or two.”
It also occurred to me that producing a show starring my ex-wife who had interrupted our wedding, even if it was directed by my daughter and son, might not sit very well with Birdie.
And now she might be stewing in this knowledge for ten days, potentially impacting an easy angry fuck to reconciliation when I got home.
Damn
Phee came onto the deck, looking very pleased with herself, adjusting her dress so it showed even more of her oiled-up tits.
Paige and Hieronymus rushed to kiss her on both cheeks.
“Mother, you look impeccable,” Hieronymus said. “The picture of class and style. How could anyone resist you?”
She laughed and draped herself gracefully in a deck chair, her eyes on me.
“Forrest, darling, I swear you outdo yourself at every wedding. A custom-made ice sculpture of you and your newest pet of the week? Very droll. Too bad she smashed it, though.”
To hear her talking about Birdie was like rubbing salt on how pissed-off I felt.
“How did your latest divorce go?” I countered. “I see you got a parting gift of new tits from that Norwegian tech billionaire.”
She flushed angrily.
“This isn’t a breast job. I’ve been drinking beet smoothies.”
I shrugged.
“Mother, you should have seen her!” Paige giggled. “Every little detail was supposed to be just right. And she had to work like a dog just to get Daddy at St. Martin’s 30 minutes late. You know what he’s like. Artistic. Temperamental. He can’t be tamed.”
“We weren’t that late,” I said.
Was that the perception of my relationship with Birdie? That she had to drag me into marriage?
“Yes, the two of us are the same, aren’t we?” Phee purred, stretching her long legs out on the deck chair. “Such intensely carnal creatures that we must always chase our pleasures. Wherever they lead, and to hell with what societal expectation are.”
“Of course Daddy had an ironclad prenup anyways,” Paige went on, one hand dripping with diamond rings raised in the air. “From here to here with restrictions and limitations. You know him. He’d never let some random woman made a dent in our fortune.”
“Daddy is a very clever man,” Phee said.
The look she gave me was challenging as hell, and I recognized it very well. It was that fuck-me look, that let’s-hate-fuck-it-look.
I could tell she wanted me to come over to her, was expecting those heaving, oiled-up tits to entice me, but I felt annoyed. Even the banter felt stale.
Of course, the prenup was only standard, but still. . .
Beautiful, sweet Birdie, who had signed the prenup my lawyer had given her without complaint.
I sat down into the deck chair next to Phee.
“What the hell was so important to say to me that you had to interrupt my wedding?”
I tore at my bowtie irritably. Birdie had been so insistent on a full tuxedo, but the details hadn’t registered much with me, and the sight of the bowtie she’d agonized over felt like an uncomfortable rebuke.
Surely Birdie didn’t think she had to drag me into marriage?
Quite the opposite was true. I never did anything I didn’t want to.
“You’re making a mistake marrying that girl.”
“And why is that?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Forrest. You cannot marry a woman who just wants your money.”
“Is that all?” I asked, disgusted. “Either way you’re not getting any more of my money so what the hell do you care?”
I drained the rest of my martini as unease began to creep all over my skin.
Phee pouted, then tried a different tactic as she scooted closer.
“Maybe we should give us a shot again. After all, we’re going to be working together for the Phantom of the Bloody Opera.”
Her puffy lips were just under mine, her bosoms heaving artistically as she arched her back off the deck chair so she was practically in my lap.
“Hell, no, I don’t want to get back together with you. Why would I want to do that?”
“I know you can’t stay away from me, you brute. We’re always off and on.”
“Well turn your menopause dial to off, Phee, because it’s not happening.”
She jerked up and glared at me.
“Darling, you don’t want Paige and Hieronymus to be unhappy, do you?”
“What the hell do they have to do with it?” I snapped.
“They don’t like Birdie.”
“And why the fuck would I care what they have to say about it?”
I glared at my children, and they both looked startled and began to deny their dislike.
“Oh, so you’d rather be with that little--golddigger than make your family happy?” Phee hissed. “Actually choose a woman you have something in common with?”
I laughed contemptuously. “Birdie’s not a golddigger.
You just think every woman is as mercenary as you.
She didn’t even ask to look at the prenup.
She just said she didn’t want my money and signed it.
It may shock you, because you’re so jaded yourself, but Birdie isn’t out for my money. She’s a sweet angel who adores me.”
Phee smirked, leaving big red prints all over her wine glass.
“Well, if she’s so perfect, why are you here with me?”
Shit.
That’s what it’s going to look like, isn’t it? That I’ve left Birdie and chosen my ex-wife.
And suddenly I have no damn clue why I thought it could ever be seen as anything else.
I’ve made a huge mistake, and I need to get to Birdie and talk my way out of this.