7. Daisy
7
DAISY
“ T his is going to be a real ‘hello, darkness, my old friend’ moment.”
Lana Del Ray crooned over the speakers about love and nostalgia as I prepared to marry the man I hated more than anything else in the world, including those keto fish balls that my mom used to bake when she was writing her diet cookbook.
Reese set the broken bouquet on the makeup table next to me. In the mirror, she cast a concerned reflection.
“I keep hoping my real Mr. Darcy will burst through the door and carry me off to my happily ever after or at least the burger place down the street.”
“When you’re married,” Reese reminded me, “you can eat as many burgers are you want.”
The hairstylist was trying to tease my hair into an elegant chignon.
“Don’t bother. My hair is too frizzy for that,” I told her.
“If you’d use that clarifying shampoo my lifestyle brand sells after you get out of the ocean, it wouldn’t frizz like that.” My mother tried to smooth down my ragged hair.
I swept the bouquet onto the floor. In his little ring-bearer vest, Dorian yelped.
“So, you’re the one who tossed this out of the window,” Reese remarked.
“I’m Anna Karenina, forced to marry a man who never understands her true self,” I declared.
“How much have you had to drink?” Reese picked up the half-empty champagne bottle.
I was exhausted. I had tossed and turned all night until finally giving up and flipping through my favorite Victorian gothic novels, needing the wisdom of women who’d had to marry men they despised.
“I’m doing my own makeup.” I waved the makeup girl away and staggered over to a mirror.
Armed with drugstore mascara and thick black eyeliner, I did my best to make myself look like the Corpse Bride. Then Reese and my sisters helped me struggle into the dress.
“You’re supposed to lose weight before your wedding, not gain five pounds,” Alex grunted as she and Granny Madge tried to force the zipper up.
“My life is ruined. I needed éclairs. I had to ask my thesis advisor for an extension on my paper, and then she made a big deal in the lecture about how people need to plan better and take this PhD program seriously,” I wailed. “I’m an A student. I don’t get in trouble in class.”
“At least you don’t have to quit your program.” My mom sighed as she took in the sight of my disheveled hair and makeup.
I clutched Dorian to my chest.
“He’s getting cat fur all over your nice gown.” My mother tsked, trying to dust me off.
“Just safety pin it,” Reese finally said when my sisters couldn’t close the back of the gown.
“Absolutely not. Suck it in, Daisy,” Alex ordered. “Reese, help me. You have masculine arms.”
Stuffed into the white dress, its little pearly buttons threatening to burst, I kick-walked and kick-walked all the way across the sunny lawn to the seaside chapel.
My father waited in the vestibule, cleaning his tear-speckled glasses while he sniffled.
The twins fanned me as Granny Madge blotted at my sweaty forehead.
Brooklyn handed me my new bouquet, upcycled from my granddad’s funeral last year. The black crepe-paper flowers were a little dusty, but with the new oversized black bow, they made a big statement against the ivory gown.
“Your wedding pictures are going to be real attractive.” Reese added a few more bobby pins to my hair.
“This is the death of my innocence,” I said darkly.
“In more ways than one, potentially,” Reese said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Shhh!” I kicked my friend and promptly got my heel stuck in the layers of the gown’s lace. I was still stumbling around like a trapped pigeon when the string quartet struck up the wedding march and the double doors were flung open.
“Fuck it.”
I ripped the hem of the dress.
“It’s only a month, Daisychain.” My father gripped my arm as he escorted me toward my future husband. “We can handle it, right? And you and Aaron can weekend here in the Hamptons, and your mom will cook all your favorite foods. I’ll come visit you at the coffee cart.” His shoulders shook with sobs.
I patted his arm. “Let’s just take it a day at a time, Dad.”
“Daisy, I’m so sorry.” He wept as he escorted me down the flower-lined aisle.
Family, friends, and nosy neighbors all stood up. No one was crying or happily remembering their own wedding instead. Everyone looked confused or a little shocked.
Not Aaron, though. Wearing a dark suit—not even a tux, just his normal everyday charcoal-gray business suit—he was impassive in front of the altar. The sunlight, filtered through gathering storm clouds, poured in through the tall angular windows of the chapel, sharpening the dark contrast he struck, like he was a demon I’d summoned.
All the earlier confidence left me, leaving me feeling small and anxious.
Even through the gauzy veil, the disappointment—no, the disgust —was obvious on his face. He wanted to marry one of my thinner, prettier sisters.
I regretted the dress I’d chosen, wishing I’d listened to Alex and dieted last week. Shit, I wished I’d picked a nicer bouquet.
Aaron’s lip curled.
I felt small and dumpy beside him when my father left me with one final teary hug.
Crushing the ribbon in my tight fingers, I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. I was marrying for duty, not love.
I would never love Aaron Richmond. Not anymore, anyway.
His eyes were a sharp relief of green as he leaned in.
“You look like you were hit by a truck.”
The words stung.
I hated that he still had that power over me, that he could pluck my emotions like a puppet master.
Thankful for the veil and the heavy makeup, I blinked back furious tears.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me, that I cared what he thought. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Oh yeah?” I hissed out of the side of my mouth. “Well, that suit makes your butt look flatter than my grandmother’s tits.”
I stole a glance at the groom.
He wasn’t fuming. Instead, he… smirked?
“She’s known me for almost twenty years, and yet she never learns.” He leaned in. Onlookers might have thought the groom was stealing a kiss.
Instead came his mocking words. “Remember, Princess, I always know when you’re lying. You think I look good.”
Self-satisfied, he faced forward.
The priest began the ceremony.
My heart thumped in my too-tight bodice. I was panicking.
It was just like that last time, fifteen years ago, when I’d slowly walked toward him, waiting, backdropped by the sea, believing I would get my first kiss and fall in love with the boy of my dreams.
Then he turned into a waking nightmare.
And completely ruined my life.
“I wish I’d never met him.”
“Ah, did you have your own vows you wanted to say?” the priest asked, a questioning look on his face.
I shook my head.
Aaron’s eyes bored into the side of the veil.
“Then repeat after the me,” the priest said kindly. “To have and to hold…”
“To have and to hate.” I glanced at Aaron quickly. “— hold .”
“For richer or poorer…”
“It better be for richer!” One of the twins giggled.
My teenage self had been such an idiot. Starving and sweating the summer I’d turned fourteen, just to attract him, to get his attention, all while he’d thought I was some disgusting pig, his punching bag, his victim.
And he still did.
“’Til death do us part.”
I wish.
Aaron slid a matching wedding ring on my left hand. It clinked almost inaudibly against the cold diamond engagement ring.
Aaron had ruined my life that day, completely ruined it, and no, I wasn’t just being dramatic. Now I was going to have my first kiss with the man I hated.
Yeah, like I said, he completely ruined me. Or rather, didn’t.
The priest smiled wanly.
“You may kiss the bride.”
I braced myself.
“Not yet.” Aaron’s deep voice rolled around the chapel.
A man I didn’t recognize approached, thick leather-bound book under one arm. He handed Aaron a pen then opened the book to the last page.
Two lines. Bride and groom . What the hell had my ancestors been thinking?
Aaron drew his signature, meticulous and legible with a slight flourish on the final D . Then he handed me a fountain pen.
I wanted to curl up and sob. I’d wished on the monkey’s paw when I was fourteen that Aaron would fall in love with me and ask me to marry him. Now here I was about to chain myself to a monster.
Do it for your siblings.
The ink was acid as I wrote my name in cursive on the line above “Bride—Coleman,” like I’d done hundreds of times that summer—Aaron Richmond and Margaret Coleman, bound together in holy matrimony.
The man sprinkled sand on the ink then nodded slightly to Aaron.
I closed my eyes as the delicate lace of the veil brushed my face and caught slightly on my mascara-heavy eyelashes.
“Just get it over with.” Words cursed through gritted teeth.
He leaned in, like I’d wanted him to do fifteen years ago, to give me the most perfect— no , the most horrible first kiss a woman ever had to endure.
But instead of the panty-melting kiss my teenage self had fantasized about receiving from Aaron, it was the barest brush of his mouth against the corner of mine.
That was almost…
Almost nothing. An asshole move was what it was. He was mocking me, giving me one more humiliating dig—not for an audience but just to remind me that he had the upper hand and always would.
The cellos sawed the wedding march as Aaron dragged me down the aisle, Dorian loping and mewing behind us. My new husband barely stopped for a picture of me in my black-streaked veil on the top of the chapel steps.
Cars honked congratulations as we marched the two short blocks to Aaron’s grandparents’ house. The train of my expensive dress dragged on the sandy ground, catching on the scraggly branches of sweet pepperbush.
I was married. To him.
My mouth was dry. I needed champagne. And a hit man.
The inside of Ragnor’s house was cool when I tripped over my hem after Aaron.
A server in a starched white shirt handed me a glass of champagne.
I drained it. Then another.
“Just bring the bottle.” I ripped the veil and diamond-encrusted tiara off my head, sending bobby pins raining around me.
Dorian batted at the fluttering veil.
I nodded politely as grateful, trust-fund-dependent, older Coleman relatives congratulated me on my wedding.
“We had no idea you were seeing anyone, dear.”
“I always told Marybeth to be careful, that she didn’t want to end up like you—single and working at a café at your age. But you had one in the bag, didn’t you?” Great-Aunt Tina smiled weakly.
“Tits like those?” Granny Madge bullied over to her sister-in-law. “Of course she did.”
“Don’t worry, you can take a lover,” Gran whispered to me behind her hand. “Women of your station sleep with the gardener. I saw that lackluster kiss up there. That man is sexually repressed.”
“He was just trying to be a gentleman,” Jordan swooned.
“It’s so Regency hero,” Brooklyn agreed.
“She’s just precious.” Reese patted my little sister on the head.
“Now I wish I’d married him.” Jordan sighed longingly.
“The Coleman girls have no sense of self-preservation.” Reese shook her head.
“Word to the wise,” I warned. “Aaron is a wedding bouquet of red flags.”
“No, he’s not. He gave you a tiara.” Brooklyn modeled it while Jordan stole the dazzling Monaco royal necklace that had been the collar around my neck.
“You look like a princess, dahling!” her twin cooed.
They did look like Disney princesses.
I, however, was more like Shrek’s stepsister.
“I want cake and alcohol.” I grabbed my skirts.
“Maybe you should eat some protein and drink water?” Reese said delicately.
“I need a sugar pick-me-up if I am going to survive the reception from hell.”
The cake was a five-tiered confection with fresh flowers and mounds of buttercream frosting. Aaron and Aurora were chatting next to it.
Aaron’s mouth twitched as he made a joke. It must be love if your brand-spankin’-new husband is shit-talking you to the high school mean girl he used to date.
Aurora and Aaron. The perfect couple. They were meant to be. Their names would even monogram nicely. Aaron and Aurora Richmond. It was fate. We all knew it. Aurora just wanted to remind me, to put me in my place.
Aaron’s ex glanced over at me then tipped her head back and laughed.
In her pale-yellow dress, which leaned closer to white than lemon chiffon, she looked more like the beautiful blushing bride than I did.
It wasn’t fair. I had dreamed my whole life about my wedding day, how it would be the most perfect day of my life. I’d wed a man who adored me, and I would have a very long engagement, long enough to hire a personal trainer to help me look magazine-worthy in my wedding dress.
Aurora giggled at something Aaron said. I was transported back to high school, watching the prom king and queen make fun of me.
The angry tears rose.
Aaron and Aurora exchanged a knowing look, like they were the in-love married couple and not me and him.
I forced down the tears.
It wasn’t study hall.
It was my own goddamn wedding.
Sure, it was a forced marriage—no matter what my parents said, I didn't have a choice. But the least Aaron could do was have one goddamn shred of respect for me as his new wife.
“Daisy!” Reese tried to stop me.
“It is too late,” I said. “I have had no sleep and even less to eat in the last forty-eight hours, and Aaron and that skank are now between me and my own freaking wedding cake.”
Aaron’s green eyes rested on me.
“Can’t wait for the cake cutting, Coleman? I'm sure that’s what kept you going during the ceremony.” To anyone else, those words might be an innocent, mildly joking observation.
But I knew him.
The remark was a hidden knife right in the ribs.
I'm not going to cry because of him.
Not anymore.
Aaron took a step back when he clocked the fury on my face.
“You want to repeat that?” My manicured nails dug into my palms.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, taking another uncertain step back.
“No.” I raised my voice above the murmur of friends, family, and nosy neighbors who had come to gawk and eat the food.
“Go ahead. Tell everyone how you think it’s funny to mock me for wanting a piece of my own fucking wedding cake. Guess what, everyone?” I hollered. “Aaron is marrying none other than Dump Truck Daisy.” I used the nickname I’d been bombarded with all through high school.
“Coleman, shut up. I have clients at this wedding.” His deep voice was laced with warning.
I did not care.
“Really? Clients?” I made an exaggerated turn to Aurora, whose eyebrows were raised on her Botox-injected forehead. “Are you paying him for sex?”
“ Coleman .”
“No, you shut up, Aaron.”
He grabbed for me, but I darted away from him toward the towering wedding cake.
“Why you always do this?” he hissed. “You make a huge deal about everything. You twist what I say to fit your agenda.”
“My agenda?” I screeched. “What about your agenda? You’re the one flirting with your ex at our wedding.”
“We didn't even want to get married. You hate me,” he bellowed at me.
“Damn right I do!” The cake was slightly cool under my fingers.
“ Don’t you fucking dare, Coleman. ”
The fondant slid on my palms as I hauled back and threw it .
My husband dodged the top tier of cake.
The porcelain bride and groom, happier than Aaron and I would ever be, sailed past him and smashed against the refreshment table.
“Dammit, Coleman,” he cursed, sprinting to the French doors that led out to the patio.
As one of my shoes connected with the back of his knee, the other cracked the punch bowl.
Aaron swore.
Older relatives screamed as I picked up the next two tiers of cake.
Aaron’s brothers were in the corner, taking bets as he raced to freedom.
“Did I miss the toasts?” An elderly woman on a walker was helped into the house.
Aaron skidded, narrowly avoiding bowling over Great-Aunt Maxine.
He backtracked and ran to the front door, putting himself right in the path of two layers of champagne wedding cake with raspberry filling and buttercream frosting.
I was not the most coordinated person in the world, but darn it if I didn’t feel like Tom Brady scoring a touchdown as that cake landed all over Aaron’s bespoke suit and carefully parted hair.
His brothers collapsed to the floor with hysterical laughter as Aaron stood there in the middle of his grandparents’ living room, the cake that had splattered on him plopping onto the carpet.
I reached for another armful of cake.
Aaron raced across the room as people screamed. He grabbed my arm, smearing frosting on my lace sleeve.
“Put it down, Coleman.”
I threw another handful right in his stupid face.
“You deserve it.”
Cake squished between my fingers as he struggled with me, my dress shoes sliding in the frosting.
I didn’t care that I was wearing an expensive dress and diamonds or that I was in an impeccably decorated house on a prominent street in the Hamptons. I hauled back and kicked him in the balls—well, as close to the balls as I could reach in the dress.
“Oof! Daisy!” Granny Madge called. “I thought you always said you wanted lots of kids.”
“Not his kids.”
A snarl split Aaron’s handsome face. “I’d never give you children.”
“Like any woman in her right mind would want to carry around one of your children. She’d have to sleep with Mace under her pillow.”
The shot landed.
His eyes were dangerously cold.
“I don’t know why I was even surprised you were available for this marriage.” His nostrils flared. “Of course you were single. Nothing about you would be appealing to any man. Even the money is barely worth it. I’m counting down the days until I divorce you.”
“I told you you’d regret marrying me.” I struggled against him.
He shoved me back into the table.
We stood there, separated by the no-man’s-land of wedding cake, fuming at each other.
“Ma’am, your champagne.”
The server handed me an ice-cold bottle with mist wafting out of the glass mouth.
“Don’t give her that. She hasn’t eaten anything… uhhhh…” Reese grabbed the back of her neck, wincing as I hefted the bottle and glugged a third of it.
Aaron wiped at the frosting on his face.
“Oh yeah.” I raised the bottle to my lips again. “With the champagne goggles and the frosting, you actually look palatable. It’s almost a face a mother could love. Maybe I can get into this marriage.”
“ Fuck you, Coleman .” He grabbed the back of my neck as I downed the rest of the bottle. “Get your shit. This wedding is over.”
“Cool. So I don’t have to be married to you?” I twisted off the frosting-covered rings and threw them at him. Dorian pounced on them.
“No,” Aaron said slowly, scooping up the cat and the rings deftly then taking two steps to the door. “I said the wedding . The marriage is still on, whether you like it or not.”