Chapter Ten #4
What was implied in Owen’s message was that Jace, despite being from Banberry, was new to the group and should defer to those who knew the couple to decide how to proceed. Aurelie didn’t disagree.
Jace seemed to hear the unspoken words as well. His mouth pressed into a thin line that went white. His bottom jaw trembled, belying his anger.
“I see. Well, welcome back. Good luck with your friend. Aurelie? We should go.”
Aurelie froze. She didn’t want to go; she couldn’t go.
She needed to help support Jackie and Steve as their friend, their neighbor.
But she was also a wife—Jace’s wife. For now, anyway.
The problem was, no one in the room knew that except for her and Jace.
It added to the weights around her neck like a noose.
Her heart split into two. One side ached to talk to Jace, to get him to see their side of things and curl up against his chest as she had every night for over a week.
The other side wanted to tell him off right then and there. She had a commandeering father, asshole brothers. She didn’t need a husband—a fake one at that—dictating her every move as well.
She avoided looking into Paige’s eyes, the lies too big to hide anymore. She’d gotten married to a man she’d known less than two days. Her father was out of prison. Her visa had been denied. Even though her chains were fancier, gilded, they still shackled her to someone who didn’t want her.
After what seemed like an eternity of silence, she looked up and met Paige’s gaze.
“What does he mean we should go?” Paige asked, her mouth pulled tight. “Since when are you two a we? You said you weren’t dating.”
Aurelie fumbled for an explanation that wouldn’t sound as crazy as the truth, but nothing came. Jace chimed in.
“Since her father got out of prison and there’s a halt on her visa. Since she needed to fix that before he found out where she was and helped her deportation along.” Oh God, she hadn’t even considered that. A look from him said he knew something she didn’t.
Had his lawyer friend said something?
Owen moved to the edge of his seat as Paige stood, her hands balled into fists at her side.
“What. Did. You. Do?” she hissed. Each word was measured, trim, and curt. Paige’s eyes sank to Aurelie’s hands, and she gasped. Aurelie couldn’t conceal the tan line that had already started to form on her left ring finger.
“Nothing I didn’t feel was necessary,” Aurelie shot back, though her voice wavered. Why did she always end up feeling like a chastised child around her friend? Sure, her decision had been rash, but it was her decision to make. And one she’d fix as soon as she was able. That was always the plan.
Yeah, until you decided to fall for the guy.
Had she? As soon as her head asked the question, her heart answered with a resounding yes.
Dammit. This was so much worse than she had even imagined.
Owen’s eyes followed his wife’s, growing larger the longer he stared at Aurelie’s finger. Exasperated, she held up her hand with the ring she’d stowed in her pocket, waved it at her friends, whose mouths fell open.
“You’re engaged?” Sophie asked. Aurelie could have hugged her for the smile that lit up Sophie’s face.
Sophie was a hopeless romantic and had fallen almost as suddenly for Brad a year and a half ago.
The whirlwind relationship that followed was nothing short of a fairy tale. “Oooooh, let me see the ring!”
Aurelie held it out, ignoring the grumble from Paige. She needed support right now, and if Sophie was there to give it, then that’s who she’d focus her energy on.
“It’s gorgeous! When did this all happen? Have you thought of a date yet? Ugh, it’s just soooo romantic!”
Aurelie laughed, despite the heaviness of the day’s events that still hung over them. She held out her ring for Sophie to fawn over. It wasn’t like Aurelie had done something wrong, evil. Still, something nagged in the back of her mind.
“Now wait just a second,” Paige said, her voice booming over the brief respite of joy.
“This is crazy. You can’t be engaged. You just met.
I don’t care how hot this guy is, or how much you want to help Aurelie—which by the way we are talking about in a minute because you didn’t tell me your visa was revoked.
Getting engaged is serious. You can’t just use it as a band-aid. ”
Aurelie’s chest constricted with pain as if it had been hit with a crowbar.
If her mother was still alive, she’d have told Aurelie the same thing.
But her mother was gone, and it wasn’t Paige’s job to act in her place.
Aurelie needed a friend, not a parent. Especially now that her dad was acting with malice that threatened her life.
“You two don’t know much about each other,” Owen added.
Again, Aurelie was lost for words. She’d been tried, judged, and convicted before she could even utter a word in her own defense.
Jace stepped in again.
“We’re not engaged,” he told the group, defiance in his words. Where she’d been happy to let him save her earlier, now his persistence annoyed her. It undermined her ability to stand up for herself.
“Well, then, explain the rock on her hand, please.” Paige matched his furrowed brow, his stoic stance, his jutted lower jaw with her own. Aurelie held her breath as she waited for the words to fall, damning words that would only solidify her sentencing.
Guilty and put away for life.
“We’re married.”
Paige’s jaw dropped, and in the split second it took her to fully process Jace’s words, he continued, effectively cutting her off at the pass.
“And before you say anything about how utterly stupid we are, or how we’ve ruined our lives, let me say something.
” Paige’s mouth closed, but her body was tensed, coiled as if ready to launch at Jace if he said one wrong syllable.
She nodded, and the rest of the group followed her lead, nodding their approval as well. All eyes were pinned to Jace, but Brad’s and Owen’s shifted back and forth between Jace and Paige as if worried one or both might break the tenuous peace.
“It was the only way I could think to save her from going back,” he started.
“What makes you think it was your job to save her? She’s got us. We’re the ones who are here every day, building a life, supporting one another. You’ve been back a little over a week, Jace. Stop acting like you’re a white knight sent to save us poor town folk.”
He winced, giving a small exhale that escaped almost inaudibly. Even Aurelie knew that was an unfair jab. But it had no seeming effect on Jace.
“May I continue?”
Paige’s exasperation was not so quiet, and came out more as a grunt than polite approval. Aurelie watched from the sidelines, both terrified and in awe.
“I came here thinking I’d sell my dad’s ranch to the highest bidder, maybe hike and explore a bit while I was back in town.
I never thought I’d get here and find myself smack dab in the middle of a place I needed to leave to see the beauty of.
” Aurelie looked at Paige and saw tentative understanding. She had done almost the same thing.
“I also was reacquainted with a group of friends who felt more like home than any other place I’ve ever been.
So, I got wrapped up in this whole ordeal with the Puckman guy, with Aurelie’s dad, with my dad’s ranch before that.
Trust me, no one is more surprised by the last ten days than me.
But it was the right thing to do, marrying Aurelie to keep her here.
I wouldn’t have done it if there were any other way.
Don’t you see that? She needs to be here for you, for Jackie.
So, you can think I’m a monster, that we moved too quickly, but that was our only damn choice.
She barely had days before she was going to be deported. ”
Paige’s forehead wrinkled in consternation. Her hands clenched and unclenched, but she didn’t say a word.
“And now?” Sophie asked. “You can stay?”
“It seems that way. I have a hearing next week, and an interview before that, but it seems pretty straightforward.”
“Damn,” Owen said, shaking his head, and breaking the crippling quiet.
“Like I said,” Sophie chirped, wrapping Aurelie in a hug, “horribly romantic.”
“Fine. I see the why, but couldn’t you have involved us? We’re her family.” The way Paige said that last word made it sound like a curse.
“We wanted to, but there wasn’t time. Aurelie has to be out of the hospital by the end of the month. It needed to happen as soon as possible to get her paperwork situated.”
“I get it, man. But, whoa. I mean, this is heavy. You’re married,” Brad chimed in. Still, a smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
Jace smiled. “We are. And hopefully it’s enough to keep her dad off our tails, get her back to work. Now it seems even more important Aurelie gets to stay, with Jackie and all that. I’m not saying I agree with it, not by a long shot, but I see y’all’s point. Aury needs to stay here at any cost.”
Aurelie stood beside her friends, her hands on her hips, her head rocking back and forth as it followed whoever was speaking about her, about the problems she faced, about her life.
Her life. It was hers to live, and yet, they spoke about it as if she weren’t there to explain her reasons for why she’d done everything she’d done in the past few days.
Or worse yet, like she wasn’t capable of doing so.
Because all the big, bad men in her life made her weak and inferior, of course.
Anger rolled around in her stomach, acidic and all-consuming.
The only thing that tempered it was the anguish that came from replaying Jace’s words over in her head. They’d married because it was her only choice. She was stuck between the monster in the islands or the one she’d just legally shackled herself to because it was the right thing to do.
Which meant she’d played the fool yet again.