Chapter 18
18
RAVEN
The One where you kiss the wrong groom while waiting for the right one.
" I t should have been him.” I didn’t say the words out loud, but I knew Ace heard them anyway. With him, I realized, I didn’t need all the words. As much as he made fun of me for it, he knew just as much with the unbearable heaviness of silence.
I could see the shift in Ace’s stance like whatever we’d shared over the last two days was gone, completely drained from his soul and in its place the devil I always knew.
The one I needed when I was in pain.
The one I probably needed now in order to get through this.
If he said one more thing that was sweet, one more thing that made me feel undone, I would crack.
It was something I couldn’t afford to do.
"I’ll pretend it’s someone else if you do,” he whispered with a smirk.
“Believe me when I say I could be getting laid right now instead of…” He shrugged.
“Saying I do.”
"And I couldn’t?” I fired back.
Ace leaned in, his lips twisted into a wry smile. “Clearly, you already did.”
“Low blow.”
"Was there blowing involved, though?
” he snapped.
"God, why was I even feeling?—“
"What?” His blue eyes lit up. “Feeling what?”
"Nothing,” I lied. “Nothing but hatred, disgust, but for a second I did feel guilty about the scars.”
"I’m used to them.
Old and new, they all mean the same thing, a part of me I never deserved in the first place, gone forever,” he rasped.
“We should go, it’s time. I’ll be the one waiting at the end of the aisle with a scowl in my face.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’ll try not to sprint.”
As I turned, his hand landed on my shoulder.
He squeezed and pulled me back against him.
“Remember to close your eyes, remember to imagine him, it will make saying yes to the monster a lot easier.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Says the monster.”
“I would know best. After all, he has to wrestle with his own reflection in the mirror on a daily basis.”
I took a deep breath.
“I can do that.”
“Good.” He cursed under his breath and dropped his hand.
“That’s good.”
I didn’t remember walking to the church doors, only that my dad was standing there in his black tux with his arm out like I had to take it, like I had no choice.
A week ago I took this long walk and thought my life was over.
I thought it couldn’t get worse.
Today I wasn’t saying goodbye.
Today I was saying hello to a brand new life I’d never asked for, one I didn’t want—with Ace, in order to protect the one that was taken from me with Louis.
Before Louis I would have maybe been excited.
Ace and I didn’t get along for obvious reasons, but at one time, he was all I saw when all he did was look through me.
"You look beautiful,” Dad said.
I took his arm. “Thank you.”
“Deep breaths,” he whispered. “It will all be over soon.”
How wrong he was.
How very wrong.
"Yeah.
” I was so good at lying to my dad’s face now.
“It’s for the best.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You look anxious.”
“I’m happy.” Another lie as the music started.
The doors opened, the choking sound of the organ echoed off the large walls of the sanctuary.
Everything was dripping in beautiful lilacs and at the front dozens of red roses like the ones I was carrying.
It smelled like perfume.
It felt like death.
Each step that brought me closer to Ace was like betrayal, a knife getting shoved deeper and deeper into my chest or maybe deeper into Louis.
I stumbled around ten feet from the front.
Ace locked eyes with me and pointed to the corner of his right eye then closed it.
Right, close my eyes.
Imagine Louis.
So I did.
I imagined his brown eyes and blond hair.
I imagined his infectious smile and the way he always talked into his wrist like he was part of the secret service.
He’d gotten more serious toward the end; then again, we’d gotten serious.
Imagine you’re walking toward him.
Imagine it’s Louis, not Ace.
We stopped walking. Dad turned me toward him and leaned in kissing my left, then my right cheek.
“Who gives this woman?” the priest asked.
“Her mother and I,” Dad answered in a bold voice.
Ace stepped down and held out his hand.
Dad placed mine in his and it was over.
I was already Ace’s by that one small movement, and another De Lange had joined the Five Families by way of marriage.
Just like that.
I smiled at Ace, and the smile he gave back to me almost seemed real except for the tears of anger in his eyes.
His hands even shook when it was time to exchange the rings, right along with this voice.
Anyone watching would have thought he was obsessed with me, in love even.
If only this marriage wasn’t a farce.
"You may now kiss your bride,” the priest announced.
Ace cupped me by the chin with both hands and very gently pressed a soft kiss to my mouth, his lips moving smoothly over mine. I was thrown off by how gentle the kiss was, how he had the perfect amount of pressure to make it look believable but not so much that I felt like he was about to invade my mouth.
People clapped all around us.
I continued to imagine it was Louis and clung to Ace.
When his tongue met mine. I let out a gasp and kissed him back, my arms wrapping around his neck while he lifted me off the ground.
Cheers and whistles erupted as he ended the kiss and pressed a final one on my nose, my body slid down the front of his.
What a mess.
Because for a second—I forgot about Louis completely.
For a second. It was only Ace.