Chapter Twelve. Rowan
TWELVE
Rowan
I just want this dog and pony show over. The lilies of the valley that are fucking everywhere when I hate lilies. The overabundance of the color pink, of people asking me how very excited I am, and the tapping of forks on wineglasses by people hoping that I’ll rush over to Chad and kiss him.
There’s a reason I’m out here—off the barge and standing inside the boathouse—observing my own engagement party from afar, and it’s not because I long to get back to my guests.
“That’s only for the wedding reception,” I stated loudly and bought more time, but I’m not naive in knowing it’ll only stall for so long.
You’re selling the lie, Rowan. Selling it all while catching glimpses of Holden Knight and the misery etched in every ounce of his body.
“Honey, if you keep looking like your dog just died, people aren’t going to really believe you’re so thrilled about marrying Chad,” my mother says with that fake Southern charm tinting her tone.
I lift my glass of wine to my lips and don’t respond. It’s easier that way. Lying is way harder than I thought it would be.
“Try and look a little happier, huh?” she says.
“I understand you’ll have nerves and cold feet, but this was simply meant to be—our two families merging in the most beautiful of ways.
” Someone laughs in the distance, out on the barge.
“Come on. Let’s go. The boathouse isn’t where the woman of the hour should be hiding. ”
“Mom. I needed a minute and I’m taking it.” From Chad’s overbearing presence, the gazes on me, and the squeals of excitement from people whose opinions I don’t give a flying fuck about.
“But honey, the guests are here to see you and Chad. To celebrate you.” She steps up beside me cautiously. “It’s simply not polite to hide out here when everyone wants to see the blushing bride.”
As overbearing as she’s always been in wanting me to marry Chad, there seems to be some sort of reservation on her part now that I am. Almost as if she can sense that something isn’t right.
Sell the lie. Isn’t that my new motto?
“I know,” I say softly and try to fabricate a justification on the spot. “But this is a lot for someone like me who hates all the pomp and circumstance.”
“There are going to be a lot of these little events over the next two months, Rowan. You’ll—”
“That’s not what I agreed to. I said I’d give you one event other than the actual wedding and rehearsal dinner. You agreed—”
“There’s the bridal shower. The bachelorette party. The—”
“I agreed to one. This is your one.”
“Rowan.” She snaps my name out as if it’s going to knock some sense into me. Never come between Emmaline Rothschild and her plans—especially when she feels they are moving her further up the social ladder.
“What?” I turn to face her, to meet eyes the same color as mine, and wonder if I want her to see through me or if I don’t want her to.
She reaches out to touch a strand of my hair but then pulls her hand back. “I don’t understand your hostility. These are all normal things, normal celebrations that happen when one decides to marry the man of their dreams.”
I struggle to swallow at the thought. Chad, nice? Yes. Convenient and willing? Even more so. But the man of my dreams? Not even close.
Only one person flashes through my mind at those words and my chest immediately constricts at the thought. He threw that away with lies while I’m trying to make something of it with my own.
“These are all normal things for who? For you? For Westmore society? They’re not me and never have been, so quit trying to make me fit in that box you’ve been lining with barbed wire my whole life.”
“Is there something going on here that you’re not telling me?” she asks as music starts playing again at the party.
“Like?”
“I don’t know.” She runs a hand down the back of my hair, and I’d give anything to be able to lean into her touch and grab an iota of comfort from her.
But I can’t. I haven’t been able to for years.
I’m not my forever seventeen-year-old twin sister, Cassie, and I’m more than scarred from escaping that barbed-wire box my mom’s tried to contain me in.
Her gasp startles me. “You’re pregnant.”
I sputter. “What?”
“That’s why this sudden about-face with Chadwick, isn’t it? You got pregnant and instead of you tarnishing our name, he’s being the upstanding man I always knew him to be and marrying you.”
“Um . . no.” I’m rarely flustered but I’m just that. And leave it to my mom, a definite product of Westmore, to make this all about Chad being the upstanding person if that were the situation. “That is not what happened.”
She glances down to my abdomen and a smile flickers at the corners of her lips.
I swear tears well in her eyes but I can’t quite tell in the dim light.
“Oh, honey. You should have told me. This is … this is just wonderful.” She frames my cheeks with her hands and peers into my eyes.
“You’re not showing. We can tell people the baby came premature.
That way your reputation will stay intact.
No one in this town likes an irresponsible mother who has sex out of wedlock. ”
Did we just step back into the 1950s?
“You’re out of your mind, Mother. I am not pregnant.”
“You’re in denial. It’s normal. I know these things,” she says as I step back and shake my head. “It’s okay. I’ll keep your secret, but just know this only proves to me that Chad is the man I always knew him to be.” She puts her hand over her heart, her mind made up despite my protests.
“No. He’s not. I’m not. You’re. Not. Listening.” I roll my shoulders.
“Your hormones are surging. That’s why you’re being so irrational.”
“If you want me back at the party, you’ll go back to it yourself right now and give me some space,” I grit out.
“Row—”
“And if you have any hope of me going through with this wedding, you won’t breathe a word about this fucking ridiculous conversation to a soul.”
She takes a step back but I can feel the weight of her stare and the misplaced compassion oozing off her. “It’s our little secret,” she whispers.
“Go,” I order her. “Just go.”
I can see her nod in my periphery as she walks away but know she doesn’t believe me. For her, it’s the only reasonable explanation why, all of a sudden, I agreed to marry Chad. And now that I think of it, presumably for everyone else at this party.
But telling her I’m doing it to get more voting shares and a little bit of control of something I no longer own sounds even more illogical than her pregnancy reasoning.
But even in acknowledging that, fury races through my veins and owns me. I stare out the window of the boathouse as I mentally prepare myself to go back to a party I don’t belong at despite being one of the guests of honor.
I don’t know how long I stand there—a song changes on the barge, laughter rings out—but there is no part of me that is going to believe the hype I’m selling myself that I need to go back there.
No doubt my mom will be here in moments to rope me back into making another fake-smile-filled appearance.
And as if on cue, footsteps shuffle behind me.
“What part of leave me alone did you not understand?” I snap but then jolt when I turn around to find Holden standing there with lifted eyebrows.
Jesus. My breath hitches and my heart lurches at the sight of him. Especially when I am here trying to avoid the very situation he ran me into.
“Trouble in paradise so soon?” he asks and fiddles with the cuff link on one sleeve.
The sunburst cuff links. The ones I gave him. The ones that led me to the discovery of his betrayal.
And he’s both callous and arrogant enough to wear them to my engagement party.
Callous because if he has connected the dots—a signed contract in an unlocked drawer sitting just below where I left the damn cuff links—then he’s throwing it in my face.
And arrogant because he’s wearing a heartfelt thank-you I left for him for the best night of my life to my engagement party.
Does he wonder why I left them so haphazardly without a note and then turned around within days to be engaged? For a smart man, he’s blinded by something and I’m not exactly sure what that could be.
“Why are you here?” I ask, ignoring his question.
“My car is boxed in. The valet is trying to find the driver of the car who parked in front of me. I have a feeling I’ll be here for a while. Believe me, if I had my choice, I wouldn’t be here at all.”
“And why’s that? Is it tough seeing something you thought was yours stolen right out from under you?” I ask and lift my brows. I could be talking about me or my company. Either works in this situation.
“Touché,” he murmurs and holds my gaze. “Have you fucked him yet?” His nostrils flare and his jaw sets as he waits for an answer.
“How is that any of your business?”
“You are my business.”
“I was your business. Now I’m just … an employee.”
“At least you know your place.” His voice is steely and gaze intense but nowhere near as cutting as his words.
“You sure as hell made sure of that, didn’t you?” I look for an escape, but of course Holden is standing at the only exit in this stupid boathouse.
“Never claimed to be a saint, Sunshine, but I don’t have a fucking clue what this is all about.”
“Just like you acted like you didn’t know who I was that first night we met. Smoke and mirrors, Holden. It seems that’s all you are.”
All I can do is shake my head. One minute aloof, the next minute possessive. He seems just as goddamn confused as I am by all of this.
But that’s on him.
Not me.
“Rowan. We’re speaking two different languages here. Again.”
“And I’ve given you every opportunity to speak the same one and you failed. Again,” I parrot him and sigh. “I’m done expecting better from you.”
“I warned you who I was. I let you see more than most. Lesson fucking learned.”