Chapter 28
For a while, Marisa just stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The video was a dark, blurry concoction accented with neon lights that looked like they came from glowing beer signs.
Which made sense. The arms next to each other in the shot, only visible from the elbows down and filmed from above, were resting on a bar.
She could practically feel the sticky furniture rings and sliminess of the paper coasters resting beneath the dirty martini glass gripped in the impressively manicured hand on the right.
A hand that was precariously close to the thickly knuckled one that had been holding hers all night.
Alec.
But that was where the fuzzy feelings ended, at least the ones that had been gliding her around through the best night of her life.
There were no faces shown, just the conversation’s audio transcription scrolling along the top as two unmistakable voices spoke.
“Since when do you notice anything that isn’t rugby related?”
Phoebe. Marisa would know that voice anywhere, especially the grating trill on the upward inflection whenever the woman’s indignation would fire up. Lord knows Marisa had been on the receiving end of that experience more than she’d wished.
The word notice ground on her quickly unraveling nerves, given the shocking headline of the video.
ALEC ELMS FAKES RELATIONSHIP . . .
With her. As in, Why did he bother to notice her?
The subtext was all over the sentiment, and the implications were quickly becoming a raging sea she had no hope of swimming through.
And just when she thought she’d calmed her limbs enough to keep her floating and stationary, Alec’s voice in the video sent her reeling against the rocks all over again.
“I was damn foolish.”
“I . . . know . . . the difference between right and wrong.”
“It was a mistake . . . but this has all gone too far.”
Those were all his words, spoken in his brogue, but Marisa recognized none of them. No sweet inflections. No tender humor.
Just phrase after phrase of painful . . . Oh, God, she couldn’t hear this. If she watched any more, she was liable to vomit all over Monica’s carefully crafted tablescapes.
And yet she couldn’t look away, and she sure as hell couldn’t look at Alec, who had remained at her side glued to his phone, his posture torturously stiff in her periphery.
“Marisa . . . She’s not your girlfriend.”
Her stomach sank at hearing her name, a confirmation of her implication in whatever the hell she was watching, but still, she couldn’t look away.
Because she knew what would come next, and like any good car wreck that stole much more than it saved, she had to witness it for herself.
“No, she’s not. I’ll . . . be leaving her alone.”
Tears rose up until the words before her were nothing more than a blurry sheen of betrayal.
Marisa tossed the phone into her bag, grabbed her coat, and ran out the back entrance of the tent. Her heels’ frenzied scrapes against the shoveled walkway mimicked the frantic beat of her heart as the damn muscle gasped out whatever confidence she’d worked so hard to fill it with.
“Marisa!” Outside the tent, Alec’s head was on a swivel. Once they locked eyes—hers tear-rimmed, his crazed—he wasted no time vaulting over a large garbage can to get to her. “Marisa. This . . .” He held up the phone. “I didn’t say . . . Those weren’t—”
“Your words? They sure as hell sounded like your words. Unless you think Phoebe was wrong and I’m actually dating a slew of other Scottish guys in North Jersey.”
“Dammit, can’t we just talk about this without the sarcasm?”
“Why? Why are you allowed to have your armor, but I’m not? Why are you allowed to meet with her and have a private conversation about me, and I’m not allowed to combat it with the only weapons I have?”
“Jesus Christ, will you just listen to me? Please.” Something akin to heartbreak twisted his features, strengthening the plea in his voice and causing her resolve to falter slightly.
“Explain,” she bit out, trembling from rage rather than cold. “Now. Why were you even with her, after how she treated me?”
Alec shook his head in frustration, dragging a hand over his face. “I set up a meeting with her, aye. But I did it because I discovered her involvement in sabotaging your efforts for the Ball.”
Her blood froze. “What?”
“The Jamaican ginger extract. She was the one who snuffled up all the supply after she saw how popular your gingerbread post was on social media. I confirmed it with the grocer when I was trying to see whether I could get a quantity in for you by some bloody miracle.”
Marisa’s throat tightened around the few breaths she could still summon. “I don’t believe you.”
“You should, because it’s true, and I went to confront her about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to drag you any further into my mess. Lord knows I’ve fucked up enough already.”
“That’s what partners do, though. They drag each other into their messes, knowing they’ll each have the other to lean on through it all.”
Unless she’d read the room wrong this whole time.
Unless they weren’t actually partners.
His sentiments from the video rose up to strangle her over and over again, with nary a stammer or misstep to be found. Nothing but smoky, low-timbred surety delivered in the precise number of words needed to deliver his message. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“Marisa . . .” Alec entreated.
“I can manage my own life, you know,” she said through a thick throat. “Despite what my family thinks, or what the whole fucking world thinks, I can manage it. I’m a person capable of making the right choices.” She stomped her foot, but even that couldn’t help the statement sound less hollow.
“Of course you are. You’re brilliant. Marisa, you’re—”
“Just not someone you could trust to help you sort through your mess, even though you had no problem swooping in and tidying up mine. Without asking me.” Then she looked at him and had to hug herself tighter for the only strength she could rely on.
“Why did you say those things? Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie. I lo—” He called back whatever he was about to say and kicked a neatly packed mound of snow instead. “For fuck’s sake, I didn’t lie.”
“Were those your words? Tell me the truth, Alec. Was it your voice that said those things to Phoebe? Were you the one speaking to her?”
He couldn’t lift his eyes to meet hers. “Aye.”
The dagger of his declaration sank deep, so deep that she had to take a step back to steady herself lest she crumple to the ground and trip over her shredded heart.
The tent’s rear flap was swept aside, and Eden came running over to them. Her chest was heaving, and it was clear from her bewildered expression that she’d been trying to run damage control at the booth and was failing miserably.
Because Marisa, and by extension her business, was a failure, a fake, and now the whole Internet knew it, too.
“Monica’s looking for you. What do you want me to tell her?”
A numbness had begun to take hold, packing Marisa’s veins full of cement. The lights on the Christmas trees surrounding the tent couldn’t even infuse her limbs with the warmth needed to combat the sluggishness.
But they were strong enough to illuminate one thing she was kicking herself for not seeing earlier.
“I’m glad you were able to get your coat back from Phoebe,” Marisa said, gesturing to the familiar woolen peacoat Alec had thrown on, a coat she’d not given another thought to all the time they’d been together the past couple of days.
She’d never thought to ask how it had been returned to him or when.
The fact that he’d kept it from her seemed to hurt far worse than his public treachery.
Marisa lifted her chin and accompanied Eden back into the tent to deal with whatever shit storm had begun swirling around and mucking up everyone’s Christmas Eve.
Alec didn’t call after her and didn’t follow her.
Because what more could he say that he hadn’t already told the world?