Chapter 27
Meirna
“You don’t look married. Are you married?”
“I dunno, sweetheart. You should have a glow about you.”
“She does. However, she looks different.”
“Different how?” A pause, then an eye-opening, “Ohhh. Like a man has gone in and claimed—”
“Sharon,” I chide, gaping at her in—not only surprise, but sheer terror that she’s thinking about sex at all.
I mean, good for her and stuff, but I don’t want to think about it in the context of how much she likes Richard.
And Richard is my buddy.
He is eighty-two years old, who may need some help in that department, and it’s just a solid no for me.
“What?” she says, hiding her shit-eating smile behind her manicured hand. “You look happy, sweetie. Ain’t nothing wrong about that.”
“But you look like you’re on edge,” Vicki, Sharon’s bestie, tacks on. “Did he do something?”
“What—no.”
Yes.
Yes, he did.
After the carousel ride, there wasn’t a moment after that when Bronte didn’t have his hands on me in some capacity.
Whether it was holding my hand while we walked through the cobblestone streets and soaked in more of the Christmas magic in Prague or his palm resting on my upper thigh while we watched, maybe, twenty minutes of How the Grinch Stole Christmas—classic.
But that was the PG version.
After those twenty minutes, he fucked me on the couch, in the kitchen, when I went to grab some water. I rode his cock through Elf, and he had his face between my legs during something or another.
When he carried me to bed, it was with his arms wrapped around my middle and tucked safely into the safety net of our Christmas honeymoon.
The next morning, we roamed around without a plan. He kissed me without asking, and the natural progression of how that began to be okay and comfortable with me didn’t really set in until we got on the plane back home and I looked back on everything.
I have a husband.
Who’s not Bobby but his twin.
We fucked me until I couldn’t breathe anymore.
Who was sexy as fuck, broody as hell, and I crave more time with him.
However, is that safe for me?
We never did talk much about what happened when we went back to our old lives. I knew the conversation would need to be discussed eventually. Nonetheless, I couldn’t break the magic of Prague to kill it with semantics and dream killers.
“Is this part where you tell us you think you’re pregnant?”
I’ve questioned Sharon’s sanity before—mean, I know—but I’m becoming certain she’s been watching too many telenovelas and starting to think they can be a reality.
“I’m not pregnant,” I confirm flatly. “Just…still in honeymoon bliss.”
I wish.
Coming back to New York City was daunting. I love my work with the non-profit, but heading back to my PR job and sitting in an office all day makes me scarily loathe the inevitable.
Apparently, I need to go on vacation more.
Or, I’m ready to move on to something else.
“Any plans for that?” Vicki pries, trying to sound innocent and soft. “You’re going to make beautiful children.”
Thank God not with Bobby.
The idea that I could be sitting here with Sharon and Vicki right now, completely ignorant of everything Bobby’s been doing, makes me sick to my stomach.
Heaven only knows how many years I would’ve wasted with him before I discovered the truth. Before I’d have to start over mentally, emotionally, and grieve something that was supposed to be sacred.
But now that Bronte forced himself in and made himself known as a potential fill-in, it doesn’t hit as hard as I think it would if he hadn’t.
“Thank you,” I force from my throat. “But I have things to do before I think about kids.”
“Is Bobby okay with that?”
I meet Sharon’s gaze and recall how much she likes him. He charmed her pants off because that was his specialty. It’s what drew you in and made you blind to everything else, apparently.
“He’s going to have to be,” I reply. “I’m not ready.”
Sharon and Vicki share a look, I’m sure picking up on my animosity toward a future with Bobby.
However, a future with Bronte…my mind has been opening up to that.
“Meirna,” I heard Bonnie coo, her always friendly and chirper tone hitting my ears. “Bobby is here to see you.”
I smile, despite myself.
Bronte said he’d be swinging by to see me within a day or two because he had some things to take care of. And I noticed that I didn’t suspiciously think something crazy.
Immediately rising from my chair, Sharon and Vicki are beaming because I probably am too. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me for a second.”
“Take more than a second,” Vicki quips devilishly. “There’s that vacant office—”
“Vic, stop,” Sharon lightly scolds as I begin for the lobby. “She’s a young woman. A lady.”
“Is that what you tell yourself because that’s where you and Richard were last Saturday?”
Gross.
No.
God.
Ugh.
Stepping quickly through the threshold, I enter the lobby, excitement brimming through me to see Bronte because, honestly, I missed him. Being back to my life before everything happened feels freakishly weird and inadequate.
I love being here at Silver Pines to visit my seniors, and I want to continue working to make this place a magnificent place for them to live.
However, everything else feels like it no longer fits. It’s stale and old, something that feels like a distant dream even though it wasn’t that long ago.
“Hey, babe.”
My feet screech to a halt before my gaze flicks and locks toward that voice.
That voice that lied to me.
That voice that filled my head with dreams and aspirations about being a power couple while I still tried to get this man to eat a hamburger.
I may not have stupidly noticed it before, but I do now.
Bobby has more of a baby face than Bronte does. Bronte has sharper edges, and I immediately notice that Bobby isn’t as tall.
Not by much, but still, I notice it.
And his mother standing behind him like this place is so beneath her that she may catch age and reside here in the next two minutes.
She’s not far off.
“Meirna,” she notes, her voice this fake sound of concern and distress. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
“Why?”
It’s not Bronte who used me to save Bobby’s face and was about to get me involved in a loveless marriage.
Because Bobby doesn’t love me.
He just needed the idea and stature of me to raise himself up. To get himself out of the trouble he’s currently in.
“What do you mean, why?” she presses, her face skewed and no amount of Botox can hide the crow’s feet slightly protruding along her eyes. “You were kidnapped. You were tricked into—”
I raise a palm to get her to shut up and glance around for Bonnie, who’s not sitting behind the reception desk.
I may not be an employee here that could get fired over it, but I don’t need my personal life sprinkled around Silver Pines because it will reach everyone’s ears by the end of the day if Catherine keeps spewing the truth in this lobby.
“This conversation is inappropriate to have here.” I grind out. “And I’m not having it now.”
Bobby steps forward, almost sheepishly, as if I’m going to lash out and jump him if he gets too close.
I just might.
“Meirna,” he mutters. “I know there are a lot of things that have happened—a lot of untrue things. I love you, baby. I’d never hurt you.”
“Save it, Bobby. It’s over.”
Catherine steps forward as if I’m out of line and purposely left him at the altar.
“You made a commitment. And, as a woman, you follow those commitments because they don’t come along every day.
” Her face softens, but it’s still fake as hell to me.
“Meirna, I know this has all been hard. I can’t imagine what you went through and the betrayal you must’ve felt when you realized…
it wasn’t Bobby you married, but our troubled son.
He…he hasn’t been in our lives because of things he did to our family and… it was hard on us, but—”
“Your son cheated on me and has been cheating on me for God knows how long,” I carp back low and underneath my breath. “So, yeah, it felt like a betrayal.”
“It’s not true,” Bobby objects solemnly, looking at me like I just said he couldn’t have a puppy or tickets to a Yankee game. “None of it. I couldn’t do that to you. We had plans—a future we talked about often. Why would I do that if we’ve built so much—”
“Mob. Image. A failing company,” I impart flatly. “Everything about us was fake.”
His brows clip tightly together, and I’m literally surprised that he’s putting this much effort into this.
Since Catherine is here, I’m guessing she’s making him do it.
“My parents are millionaires, Meirna,” he claims. “If I needed the money, I would have gone to them for it. Not a mob.”
I lift my shoulders because I don’t know the logistics only the text messages I’ve seen.
Nonetheless, I’m not going to stand here and argue about it all day.
In fact, I’m not going to waste another minute talking to a family that didn’t want me in the first place because I wasn’t good or rich enough for their perfect million-dollar family.
“Like I said—” I cross my arms along my chest. “—I’m done talking about this.”
Catherine inches closer and the woman doesn’t know how to read a room.
“There was a wedding that didn’t happen and we saved your face by stating you had a vicious case of food poisoning from the restaurant we ate at for your rehearsal dinner.
However, this needs to be dealt with and moved along.
It’s yours and Bobby’s reputation at stake now. ”
Color me confused, but I thought once you were married, you couldn’t get married while being married.
Oh, wait, you can’t.
“What were you expecting to do?” I inquire just to drag this conversation along a bit longer and to see what resides in her stupid head. “Because I’ve been gone for about a week now.”
A bit of relief floods across her face as if she won a point in this battle with me coming along and following through with these so-called commitments that I never signed my name to.