12. Zinnia
12
ZINNIA
MEANING: FRIENDSHIP; LOYALTY; I MISS YOU
OCEAN
________
C orsets weren’t any more comfortable to sit in, but I needed to get used to it. At least for the next week.
Laura burst into the kitchen while I was arranging my flowers and informed me that I needed to be on my best behavior between now and the wedding, and that included making sure if I was photographed that I looked my best.
One week. It was a sacrifice I could make. And once again, it was easier to give in than to fight, even if it chipped away at my soul.
Allowing myself to be forced into an improperly fitted corset was the lesser evil. Because I knew if I didn’t, the week would be nothing but her forcing her hand in other ways. She would still try, but at the very least if I gave her this one thing, she would let me breathe. Figuratively.
Which was why I currently squirmed in my seat as I waited for Trinity and Isolde at our favorite brunch place. We hadn’t been here together since Isolde moved across the country. Rin and I didn’t feel right coming here without her.
They approached at the same time, and Trinity fell into the chair across from me dramatically. I’d chosen a table outside because it was such a beautiful day. “I need a mimosa in my hand fucking immediately. Thanks to work, I didn’t get to party my ass off last night.”
“I think you partied just fine,” Isolde said with a laugh as she leaned down to hug me. “Hey, O.”
“Hi.”
Rin shoved her sunglasses back and stared at me. “First of all, how dare you drop that bomb on us and leave . If I’m going to be edged, I would prefer it to be a tattooed Alpha. Or a set of them. Second, what the fuck ?” She whisper shouted the last bit. “Spill.”
“Let’s get drinks first and order. Cause I have a feeling you won’t want this to be interrupted.”
“Damn.” She grinned. “Getting serious.”
I ordered a mango mimosa and a cheesy omelette. They made them amazingly here. But I knew there wasn’t escaping the conversation, so I might as well rip off the bandaid. “You guys know how my trust is locked until thirty-five?”
“Yeah,” Rin said. “And it’s really fucking stupid.”
“Well, Frank came with an offer. A pack who’s making a business deal with him needs to get married, and they wanted it to be me. Before you ask, no, I have no idea why. And he wants it badly enough that he agreed to sign the trust over to me early if I stay married to them for a year.”
Isolde froze with her mimosa glass halfway to her lips, and Rin slumped back in her chair, staring. “Okay. Wow.”
“Yup. Stay like that for three days and you’ll be around where I am now.”
“You’ve known about this for three days?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s what you’re going to give me shit about? I barely had time to think about it myself while getting everything ready for Ellie’s wedding.”
“Sorry.” Trinity winced. “Still wrapping my head around it.”
“You said you had no idea who last night,” Isolde said. “Do you know now?”
I glanced around to make sure we weren’t attracting attention. Last night I hadn’t asked if it was a secret. I assumed it wouldn’t be, but I also didn’t know if they wanted to make some kind of big announcement. So I leaned forward, and they came to meet me. “The DuPont Pack.”
Trinity’s eyes went so wide they could have popped out. “Excuse the fuck out of me?”
Looking back and forth between the two of us, Isolde frowned. “Should I know who that is?”
“Probably not. I didn’t,” I said. “I imagine Rin does from work.”
Isolde’s mouth formed into a little ‘o.’ Trinity was a reporter, and though she’d recently been promoted, she’d previously done profiles of celebrities and interesting people. Part gossip, part human interest, part sex appeal.
“Yeah,” she said. “They’re billionaires. Like literal billionaires. They own half the clothing industry, and if rumor is correct, they do a lot of designing themselves. You know Cheria ?”
Isolde blushed. Her Alpha Hawk had taken her to the lingerie store and practically bought out the place before a naughty photoshoot he had planned for her.
“Yeah. I’d say I remember.” Her voice was hoarse, and she took a drink as I giggled.
“They’re the ones who own it,” Trinity said. “They also own Caesura , the bridal company, Cliff’s Edge, Starling Designs, and Extasis. More, but I can’t remember what else. They’re rich enough that they get attention but also not famous enough to attract paparazzi all the time, thankfully.” She looked at me.
That was a good thing. I hadn’t even considered it when I did more research last night.
Rin cleared her throat. “They also happened to be smoking hot. They’ve had a couple of photo leaks, but nothing mind-blowing. Mostly people trying to make something out of nothing. You, my friend, are a lucky girl.”
Was I?
I did feel lucky, because of all the Alphas in the world, these men seemed kind, and Rin was correct about how hot they were. “I’m mostly relieved about the trust,” I told them. “Frank signed papers. I’ve already made copies, put them in my safe, and,” I leaned down and grabbed the copies out of my bag. “Will you each hold on to one?”
Isolde frowned at the envelope, but she took it. “Sure, but why?”
“I don’t trust them not to ‘lose’ it when the time comes.”
“Wait—” I saw Trinity’s mind working. Then I saw her reach the conclusion I had. “If he can sign it over early… fucker .”
“Ocean,” Isolde said. “Why do I get the feeling you have a lot more to tell us than just about this marriage? Which I still have a lot of questions about, by the way. But this first.”
“Because I do. And before I do, I just want to say I’m sorry. There are a lot of things I should have told you before now, but I didn’t want to make you feel as helpless as I have. You’d want to help, and there’s no way you can, so it didn’t matter. But now I’m getting out.”
Trinity raised her hand, already wanting a refill on her mimosa. “Looong brunch. Got it. Start from the beginning.”
We all burst into laughter. Fuck, I loved my friends. They always made me feel better, and telling them this felt like lifting a weight off my chest.
So I started at the beginning.
Trinity looked at me and slurped the bottom of her third mimosa. “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d kill you for keeping all of that to yourself.”
Isolde snickered, but she felt the same. “I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us.”
“You know it’s not that. I just…” I sighed and shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s shitty, and I’ll never understand why my parents made that choice, or why Frank and Laura never changed it if they could all this time. But this is helping. I’ll finally be able to get away from them. And don’t get me wrong. They’re awful, but let’s not pretend I don’t have a lot of things going for me. I run my own business and I live in a mansion. Things could be worse.”
Grabbing one of the dessert menus the waitress left, Isolde handed it to me. “You live in a mansion where you’re verbally and financially abused, and physically, based on the fucking corset. Just because you’re better off than someone else doesn’t negate your pain, O.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. No one could argue that I didn’t have a good life, even if there were painful aspects to it. “Yeah. Just another week, and then it won’t matter.”
“Tell her to fuck off,” Rin said. “Seriously. The papers are signed. What is she going to do?”
“The papers don’t do much until the actual wedding. Until then, she can and will make my life miserable if I don’t give in on some things. It’s a wedding for a marriage lasting a year. I don’t have to have everything perfect for something that’s temporary. She can have some of it if it gets me to the finish line.”
Both my friends’ faces told me they didn’t agree, but they’d already made that clear while I told them the story.
“I’m ordering us cake,” Isolde said. “You had to leave before the wedding cake last night, and that’s a travesty.”
I laughed. “Was it good?”
“Delicious. And no, Warren did not smash cake in her face. They were painfully adorable.”
A cake. Fuck, I hadn’t even thought about a cake. It was a good thing they’d hired a wedding planner, because this was already overwhelming.
“Are we invited?” Trinity asked.
“Yes.” The answer was immediate. I might not be insistent on everything, but this was one. If I was getting married, even if it was fake, I wanted my friends there. “I don’t imagine it will be a big wedding, since it’s so fast, but I want you there. The only reason they’re probably going through the actual motions at all and not just having it at a courthouse is the public relations aspect. Please don’t tell anyone about that,” I added.
“We won’t,” Isolde said.
I looked at Rin and stared at her until she held up her hands. “Cross my heart, hope to die. I won’t tell anyone. And I won’t need to. I told Isolde because she needed the guys desperately. You’re literally marrying yours, so there’s no need to intervene.”
“It’s a fake marriage, Rin.”
Isolde raised an eyebrow as the cake was set down in front of her. “What was it they said? That they wanted it to be a very real marriage?”
“You know what I mean.”
Isolde nodded, cutting a slice of cake and giving it to Trinity. “I do. And I’m the first one to say that I’m with Rin, here. I put up a fight, and I was wrong. So I’m proud of you for saying yes, and I’m fully rooting for those Alphas to sweep you off your feet.”
That sounded… amazing. But I couldn’t believe that. They were from a completely different plane of existence on every level. I would just be a visitor for a while before being cast back down to earth.
“And,” Isolde added. “If you say anything against it, I’m going to be the one smashing this cake in your face. Got it?” She looked stern as she held out the plate.
I tried to hold it together and failed miserably, the three of us collapsing into laughter. God, it felt good to have time like this with them again. Like I could breathe even though everything was pressing down on me, including the corset.
Something flashed in my eyes, and I recoiled. “What the hell was that?”
It was already bright outside, and I didn’t see anything that would have reflected. Then I did. A man with a camera stood down the sidewalk, the lens pointed in my direction. “Fuck.”
Both Trinity and Isolde turned to look, and Rin jumped out of her chair. “Hey, fuckface.” She was gone before we could call her back. I couldn’t hear what she said, but it was loud, her hands waving, and the man looked scared.
I covered my mouth with my hand, stifling a laugh. “Should we help her?”
“No, I think she’s got it.”
Rin flipped the man off before stomping back to the table. “I know that asshole. Not like I’m friends with him, but I know who he is. He’s a paparazzo. So someone must know about you and the DuPonts.”
“How? This only happened last night.”
“You said you agreed on Thursday, though.”
The thought of calling them made my stomach flip with nerves. But if this really was for public relations, then the last thing they needed was a random headline. And they needed a picture of a fat girl laughing and eating cake even less.
So I pulled out my phone and found Micah’s number. They’d all texted me last night so I had theirs too. I swallowed as I held the phone up to my ear.
He answered on the second ring. “Hello, beautiful.”
My entire face flushed with heat. “Hi.”
“Ocean?” He must have heard the shake in my voice. “Are you all right?”
“I think so. I’m having lunch with my friends, and a photographer came up and took my picture. I didn’t know if this was all… secret or not. I was eating cake, and you probably don’t want the first image of your new wife to be with a face full of cake.”
He chuckled in my ear. But it wasn’t a laugh of mockery. Instead, it was warm and honeyed, giving me chills despite the heat. “No matter the photo, I have no doubt it’s lovely. But you’re right, we were hoping to come out with the wedding pictures all in one go. Do you know who took it?”
“Do you know the guy’s name?” I asked Rin.
She shouted it loudly enough for Micah to hear, making him laugh all over again. “That makes sense. He’s one of the ones who likes to try to catch us with our pants down. Not that he’s ever done that, because there’s nothing to find.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone other than my friends, and they’ve been with me the whole time.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said gently. “You telling someone hadn’t even entered my mind. But I appreciate you telling me so we can take care of it. Or rather, Cameron will take care of it.”
The way he said it made it feel like ‘take care of you .’
“Thank you.”
“Has Geneva called you yet?”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “No, not yet.”
“She should be doing it soon. And we still need to hear about your rings.”
“I’ll…” I swallowed. “I’ll think about it.”
“Please do. And call me if anyone else gives you trouble. We’ll hire you a bodyguard if we have to.”
My mind stuttered. “I’m sure that’s not necessary.”
He chuckled again. I was going to have to build up some kind of immunity to that sound if he—or any of them—continued to make it. There was only so much I could do to keep myself from melting. “If it is, we’ll make it happen. Please have fun with your friends and don’t worry about this.”
“Can they come to the wedding?”
A silence stretched out on the other end of the phone. When he spoke, I realized it was a silence borne of shock. “Of course, Ocean. It’s your wedding too. Whoever you want to be there is more than welcome.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll talk to you soon.”
He ended the call, and I stared at the phone until Rin laughed. “You’re so fucked, aren’t you?”
“No,” I said immediately. “And yes, you guys are invited.”
“Perfect. Now we can really help you plan.”
She dove into talking about the kind of flowers I should request based on meaning, but I kept glancing at my phone. I had a sneaking suspicion that Trinity was right.
I was well and truly fucked.