32. Cole
THIRTY-TWO
COLE
I sat between huge bouquets of flowers next to Alba’s bed. Her legs were in casts, and two big bruises hugged the bottoms of her eyes. Her mother sat on the other side of the bed dressed in a Chanel twinset in baby blue, hands clasped on her lap, head bowed.
The soft beep of hospital equipment punctuated the silence of the room.
Mrs. Enders cleared her throat. “Do you think this will throw the wedding preparations off?” Her eyes were the same piercing blue as Alba’s, watching me from the other side of the bed.
I shifted, slipping my phone back into my breast pocket. Guilt tasted sour on my tongue; I hated lying, and it felt like it was all I’d done for the entire week that I’d been back in the city. It was Saturday now, with the midday sun shining over the stark white of the hotel room, and I didn’t know how long I could keep up the charade. “I’m not sure about the wedding preparations,” I hedged.
“Alba said you two were working on seating arrangements recently. Anything you can share with me?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Frowned. “Did you not see the seating chart when you and Alba went over it a few weeks ago?”
Mrs. Enders’ frown deepened. “When we went over it? Honey, Alba’s been hush-hush about everything related to the wedding ever since you chose the venue. She didn’t like my entirely optional, helpful suggestions about choosing somewhere more appropriate?—”
“Wait—you haven’t been helping her plan the wedding?”
“I wish! If you only knew how many times I’ve tried to ask her how things are going! You know I have friends all over the city, right? If you two are struggling with the planning, I’ll be more than happy to take some tasks off your hands.”
I blinked, mind reeling. All those times Alba had said she was going to her mother’s house to work on wedding planning…had they been a lie?
The woman on the hospital bed beside me remained silent and asleep, even when I studied her face as if I could learn her secrets by osmosis. Had I known her at all?
“…and I told her that roses are classic. You must have roses in at least your centerpiece arrangements, if not her bouquet. And not to mention the boutonnieres! But Alba thinks she’s getting orchids. Orchids! Now, if we were talking calla lilies, I might be able to…”
“Mom,” Alba croaked from the bed, a moment before her eyes opened. My ex-fiancée met my gaze, blinked, and turned her head to face her mother. “Mom, stop.”
“Honey, I’m only saying. The flowers?—”
“There won’t be any flowers.”
I froze. “Alba—” I started, then stopped. I’d sat in this hospital chair playing the dutiful fiancé because I wanted to give Alba the chance to recover before we announced our breakup.
But as Alba inhaled, I wondered if that was the real reason. Maybe, deep down, I was still afraid of what would happen when the end of our engagement became public. Would my father still talk to me? Would I still have a job? Would I end up exactly as I had all those years ago, when I discovered that my entire childhood had been a lie?
Maybe all my talk with Carrie had been just that—talk. Really, I wanted to squeeze out the last few moments as the dutiful son and soon-to-be son-in-law, because that was the disguise that felt the best to me. Before we announced the end of our engagement, I could still pretend to be the man my father wanted me to be.
“No flowers?” Mrs. Enders repeated, scandalized, hand flying to her chest. “Alba! Now, I’m as modern and forward-thinking as the next woman, but no flowers ? Have you lost your mind?”
“No flowers,” Alba repeated, “because there’s going to be no wedding.”
Mrs. Enders stared at her daughter. Her face turned red as her eyes bugged, and then she turned to face me. I inhaled, mind whirling as I tried to think of the right words, when the older woman stood up in a rush. “Where’s the call button? Nurse! Nurse!” She pointed to Alba. “Stay there. There’s something wrong with your brain. Cole, what are you doing? Give her CPR! She’s dying!”
“Mom—”
“CPR?”
“Nurse!”
“Mom, stop. Let me?—”
Mrs. Enders dove for the call button at the same time Alba did, and a tug-o-war ensued. Mrs. Enders let out a dramatic cry as one of her fake nails went flying. I stood up, hovering on the other side of the bed, feeling useless and unsteady.
The older woman won, yanking the remote from her daughter’s hands. “Ha!” she exclaimed, triumphant, fumbling to mash the call button half a dozen times.
“Mom. We broke up!”
Mrs. Enders stared. The door burst open, and a nurse rushed in. “Yes?”
The older woman, still red-faced, turned toward the nurse. She pointed at Alba. “My daughter is having a mental breakdown.”
Alba smacked her face with her palm. The nurse watched her, frowning.
I cleared my throat and put my hands up in a calming motion. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”
“I’ll say!” Mrs. Enders exclaimed.
“Mom, the wedding’s off.”
Mrs. Enders glared at her daughter, then at me. “Talk some sense into her!”
I shook my head. “She’s telling the truth. We broke up. There isn’t going to be a wedding.”
There was a short, awful silence, and then the woman who might’ve been my mother-in-law crumpled to the ground in a dead faint. The nurse, who’d been watching us with a pinched, unamused expression, jumped into action.
I sat back down on my chair with a heavy sigh, lifting my gaze to Alba’s. “Really?” I asked. “Now?”
My ex shrugged. “Better than dragging it out. This way we can both move on.”
While more medical staff rushed in and tended to the older woman, Alba and I watched each other. There were a thousand questions cycling through my mind. Where had she gone, all those evenings? To her lover, I was sure. Who was he? How long had they known each other? Where had she been going when the accident happened? How many lies had she told, and why did I suddenly care?
Alba leaned back on her pillows and closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling with a big sigh—and I realized she didn’t owe me any explanations. How could I blame her for any of it, when I’d been just as checked out? We’d been doomed from the start, and she was the one who’d been brave enough to admit it.
Sliding my hand over Alba’s, I squeezed gently. She opened her eyes and met my gaze, blue eyes steady and unafraid.
“Good luck, Alba,” I said quietly, ignoring Mrs. Enders’ theatrics on the other side of the room. “I wish I could’ve been the man you needed.”
“No you don’t,” she said, a teasing lilt to her voice. For a brief moment, I remembered what it had felt like to meet her two years ago, to be dazzled by her beauty and her charisma, to be swept up in the feeling of belonging and making my father—my only family member—proud.
Then I thought of Carrie. The electric, undeniable need that swept through me anytime she was near. The yearning that had never died, even after seven years. The bubbly happiness I felt every time she laughed. Everything I felt for Carrie was so much deeper, so much more real. It wasn’t based on doing what I was supposed to do. It wasn’t an attempt to build a family, simply because I’d never had a real family before.
I felt all those things for Carrie because it was love. Maybe it had been love from the very start, when she glared at me, bloody and bruised in that hotel parking lot.
“You deserve to be happy,” I finally told her, and peace settled over me.
“So do you,” she replied.
I pulled my hand away and walked out of the room. My eyes were drawn to the nurses’ desk, where a man leaned as he spoke to the woman sitting behind the computer. He was as tall as I was with dark brown hair. He wore a leather motorcycle jacket and carried a helmet in his left hand. When he looked up, he watched me with hard, brittle green eyes. I didn’t recognize him, but he dipped his chin as I passed. When I got in the elevator, I saw him turn in the direction of Alba’s room.
Sighing, I let the doors close on that relationship. By the time I got to the ground floor, my phone was ringing. I looked at the screen with no small amount of trepidation. But there was only one thing to do. I swiped to answer.
“Dad,” I said .
“Son,” he replied, and the breeze ruffled the phone. He was still down south, probably overlooking the golf course from the club’s sunny patio. “Ted just told me you and Alba are broken up.”
A familiar fear slammed into me, making all my nerves ring. My father was disappointed; I could hear it in his voice. I wasn’t the perfect son, who married his best friend’s daughter, who toed the line as I was meant to. I was me—and this might be the moment he’d reject me.
As I walked toward the exit, I checked my watch. I had time. And I knew that even if my father rejected me, it didn’t change the fact that I’d met someone who had thought of me as long and hard as I’d thought about her. I’d met someone who had been supportive of me even when we were strangers. Someone who made me want to be a better man.
Carrie was out there, and even if my father turned his back on me the way my adoptive family had, I would always have her. After all, fate had brought us back together. We were meant to be.
“We broke up,” I confirmed, holding my jacket closed with one hand while I crossed toward the taxi stand outside the door. “We decided that we weren’t right for each other. There are no hard feelings.”
My father sighed. The seconds dragged by, and I reached the first cab waiting in the lineup. The driver nodded to me.
“Well,” Chuck said. “Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t easy. Alba is okay?”
“She’s the one who broke it off with me,” I admitted.
My father huffed. “Better to call it off before the wedding. Cheaper than a divorce.”
Snorting, I opened the door to the cab. “That’s one way of looking at it. So…you’re not…mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“I just thought…marrying Ted’s daughter…maybe you’d been hoping that I’d slot into the family that way.”
“Nice and tidy, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Son, you’ve slotted into my life just fine without marrying my best friend’s daughter. I’d be mad if you lost me half a billion dollars on a bad trade. But this? This sounds like it was a good decision for both of you.”
Relief lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders. He wasn’t turning his back on me. He wasn’t excommunicating me simply because I hadn’t married the woman he’d introduced me to. Our relationship didn’t hinge on me always doing and saying the right thing. He cared about me for me.
It wasn’t the rejection of my adoptive family all over again. I still belonged in this life, this circle, even without the wedding ring to prove it. And I had a feeling that once I told him about Carrie, he’d be thrilled that his future daughter-in-law was a golf aficionado.
I sank into the creaking leather seats in the back of the cab, leaning my head against the headrest as I said goodbye to my father. Then I met the cabbie’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Gershwin Theater,” I said. “If you get me there before the matinee show starts, I’ll give you a hundred-dollar tip.”
The man nodded, started the meter, and took off.