Chapter 40 – Chrissy #2
“Still not over the whole pretending-to-be-two-people thing, Mr. Stonewood,” I whispered back. “But we’ll work on it.”
He huffed a quiet laugh that felt like a promise.
The officiant cleared his throat.
“If you’ll sign the license?”
We did, keeping it quick and efficient, with Henry and Lucia signing as witnesses. Granny Irene added her shaky signature last, beaming like she’d just won the lottery.
The room felt lighter after that, the sunlight slanting golden across the green leaves and multicolored blooms. Lucia pressed flutes of champagne into our hands — non-alcoholic for Granny so it wouldn’t affect her meds — and raised hers.
“To new beginnings. And to kicking ass tomorrow.”
“Hear, hear,” Henry echoed, clinking glasses.
Granny cackled.
“That’s my girl.”
We lingered a while longer, the four of them trading stories.
Lucia teasing Henry about his ‘questionable’ orchestration of this event, Ben recounting tales of times he’d spent with his mother in the lodge’s rose garden.
Granny Irene held court from her chair, declaring Ben ‘a fine catch, even if he had started out life as a spoiled rich boy’ which had him choking on his champagne.
When the nurses from Bayview arrived and said it was time to take Granny back to the hospice, I hugged her tight, breathing in the familiar powdery floral scent of her.
“Baby girl,” she murmured in my ear, voice a little foggy but warm. “You look so happy.”
“I am,” I whispered. “I am, Granny.”
“Good,” she said. Then, sharper, “He better keep you that way, or I’ll come back and haunt his ass after I die.”
I choked on a laugh.
“Please do.”
She patted my cheek, then let the nurses wheel her away, waving the whole time.
The room slowly emptied after that. Lucia made a big show of telling us she’d ‘handle cleanup’ and that we were not to step foot in her kitchen tonight.
Eventually, it was just me and Ben and the faint echo of our voices in the high-ceilinged solarium.
He stood near one of the tall windows, hands in his pockets, staring out at the dark sweep of the lawn. Ice hadn’t fallen again, but the frost on the windows catching the afternoon light made it look like a magical winter wonderland nonetheless.
I walked up beside him, my dress whispering over the floor.
“Hey,” I said softly.
He didn’t look at me right away.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
A humorless sound escaped him.
“Define ‘okay’.”
I bumped my shoulder gently against his arm.
“Define it however you want.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Part of me…” He exhaled. “Part of me can’t believe this is real. That you’re here. That you’re my wife.”
The word sent a little shock through me. I was his wife.
Part of me wanted to flinch at the possessiveness and ownership baked into the word, but part of me adored it, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
But the bigger part of me? The bigger part warmed at feeling so cherished.
“And the rest of you?” I asked.
He finally turned to look at me.
“The rest of me,” he said slowly, “is waiting for the universe to notice we’re happy and take a swing at us.”
I opened my mouth to tell him not to be so dramatic. Then I remembered whose life I’d walked into.
Fair point.
“Well,” I said instead, “if it swings, we swing back. Harder.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up.
“You planning to punch my stepmother in the face when she shows up?”
I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together.
“Yeah,” I said. “You bet your happy ass I’ll punch her in the face if it comes down to it.”
His laugh was low and startled, the sound going straight through me. He pulled me closer, hand sliding to my waist, and brushed his lips across my forehead.
“For tonight,” he murmured, “I just want it to be this. You. Me. No tests. No challenges. No games. No drama. Just us, enjoying our first night together as husband and wife.”
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
We stood there in silence, watching the light fade, our reflections faint in the glass. For the first time in a long time, I let myself feel hopeful. Married. Chosen. Not as a prize, not as a test… but as a partner.
Maybe, just maybe, we could have something resembling a normal life after all of this. Maybe the worst was behind us.
We were halfway up the stairs to the master suite when Henry’s voice echoed up from the foyer.
“Ben!”
There was something in his tone that made every muscle in my body tense.
Ben’s grip on my hand tightened. We traded a look — Are you hearing that too? Yeah, I am — and turned to peer over the banister.
Henry stood below, phone in hand, his face grim.
“What is it?” Ben called down, his voice hardening.
Henry hesitated for half a second, eyes flicking from Ben to me and back again.
“Sorry to crash the honeymoon, kids,” he said. “But we just got word from my guy at the airport in Mobile.”
My stomach dropped.
“What kind of word?” I asked, dread coiling low and cold inside me.
Henry’s gaze locked on Ben.
“Vivian’s jet just landed,” he said. “She’s here early.”
The fragile, hopeful future I’d just started to picture in my head shattered like thin ice, and I remembered, very clearly, that marrying the man who thought of himself as a beast had never guaranteed that we were safe from the evil witch in his life.