CHAPTER 31 ALEXIS
Gregory covered with a bachelorette party that was a total fabrication, but my dad somehow bought it.
While I want the next week to slow down, it seems like time speeds up. My dad fills my every waking moment with wedding details.
Photo shoots.
Small engagement parties with various groups of well-known celebrity guests.
Vendor meetings.
Sales pitches.
Instagram ready content.
More photo shoots.
Fake smiles I’m trying my hardest to pass off as real.
He’s covering all the bases. It’s exhausting, and I barely have time to get in touch with Danny as we get closer and closer to the big day.
He left for Vegas a couple of days ago, and I’m not sure what he decided about his dad because we haven’t had enough time to talk about it.
But news hasn’t yet broken about our secret affair, so I’m banking on the fact that Danny is somehow keeping him quiet.
We only have one more day that we need him to stay quiet before the wedding.
If he comes out with our tape after that, at least the wedding will be over. It’ll sound like old news from a scorned old man—or something along those lines.
I keep telling myself that, anyway, because the alternative of him actually giving that tape to the media is scarier than I’d like to admit even to myself.
I wish I could see it. I wish I could know how clear my face is, whether it’s obvious that it’s really me and not just some lookalike.
Apart from the World Series “Kiss Seen Around the World,” Danny and I have never been linked together publicly—even though we’ve done our fair share of linking privately.
Maybe Gregory knows what Danny decided about his father, but I haven’t had much chance to chat privately with him this week, either. I’m sandwiched between my father and Brooks pretty much everywhere we go. I feel like a prisoner in my own home more than ever.
I think they’re purposely not letting me out of their sight because they’re afraid of what I might do if I get out.
They’re afraid I’ll run.
I can’t pretend like Danny’s words haven’t played on repeat in my brain since he said them.
“Marry me.”
Marry me.
Was he serious?
And…what if I did?
What if I ran out on this wedding? What would my dad do, really?
I’m sure he’d find a way to make it happen anyway. He’d rope me into the wedding I never wanted so he could get his damn merger.
I keep thinking there’s no other way out of this, but what if there is?
What if Danny’s right?
What if the merger could still happen without me marrying Brooks?
He said it would make it easier. He said it would help the merger go through quickly. He didn’t say it wouldn’t happen without this piece.
Danny’s words repeat while I sit at yet another engagement party with some of my father’s business associates.
Marry me. Be with me.
It’ll solve all our problems. You can’t marry Brooks if you’re already married to me.
He’s right.
And the more I think about it…the more I want it.
But I can’t just duck out on all this now.
And so I smile as some designer helps me into a dress to wear to our rehearsal at the ranch the night before the wedding.
Marry me. Be with me.
I play off the tears as happy ones while I walk down the aisle toward Brooks at the rehearsal, a few close business associates and family members gathered with us, everyone keeping their eyes on my every move.
Marry me. Be with me.
I force a fake smile as my father looks proudly down at us as our officiant. He gives us a quick summary of the order of events, and then we’re free to go to our dinner.
Marry me. Be with me.
His words play more heavily as the clock ticks on toward the day of the wedding, and as morning dawns after a restless night, I check my text messages.
I have one from Danny sent late last night after I must have gone to bed.
DJ: I’m at the Ritz in Santa Barbara, building 9, room 26. I’m here and close. Tell me what I can do to help you.
I stare at his text.
Tell me what I can do to help you.
I don’t have a text waiting for me from my future husband.
We parted ways last night without so much as a kiss, but I didn’t kiss my father, either. My father stayed the night in the same three-bedroom suite as me, presumably to ensure I didn’t run out on this whole nightmare.
I’m not going to run, though I have to say, the text from Danny this morning makes me want to.
I don’t want to reply back this early and wake him, so I take a quick shower first.
When I get out, I have another text from him. I pull on the fluffy white bathrobe as I read his words.
DJ: I’m awake and thinking about you. I wish I could talk to you.
I wish I could say the things I need to say.
Things like don’t do this. Things like I love you.
Things like I was serious when I said you should marry me instead.
I know I’m risking a lot by texting this to you, but I’m desperate.
We can’t waste a year or two or even another fucking minute. Don’t marry him. Marry me.
I stare at his words as tears heat behind my eyes.
I hear a knock at the door.
In a fit of panic, I delete the message.
It doesn’t matter.
I don’t need that text.
I memorized the beautiful sentiment the moment I read the words. They’re engraved on my heart forever.
“Alexis? You okay in there?” It’s my dad.
“I’m okay! Just got out of the shower!”
“I’ve ordered some breakfast for you. Should be here any moment. Happy wedding day, my darling girl,” he says.
I can’t help when the tears start their freefall.
This is wrong. All wrong. So wrong.
And yet, I float through the motions anyway.
I don’t bother with my hair and make-up since a crew is coming up shortly to do it all for me.
I don’t bother with much of anything, really. I’m not hungry enough to eat, so I pick at the egg white veggie omelet my dad ordered for me.
“I have the final prenuptial agreement,” he says. He pushes some papers over toward me. “It’s fairly basic and protects your assets should you decide to seek dissolution.”
I should read it. I know I should…and so I do.
But my frame of mind isn’t what it should be right now.
I flip through it and see the words but don’t really comprehend them.
It says whereas a bunch of times and something about marital assets, separate assets, debts, and spousal support.
It looks pretty standard to me, yet the pen is poised in my hand as I contemplate what to do.
I have to sign it. I have to get this lie underway.
My father encourages me gently to try to eat, attributing my behavior to nerves…not to heartbreak.
But that’s what this is.
Pure and simple.
There are no guarantees that Danny is going to stick around and see this through with me. I hope he does. I pray he does. But I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
There’s a lot at stake and a lot for us both to lose…particularly given his past and the very values he holds dear.
I sign the paper.
There’s a knock at the door.
My father answers it and returns with a box. He opens it first to ensure it’s safe, and then he hands it over to me with a crinkled brow of curiosity. “There’s no note. Who’s it from?”
I look inside the box to find a single chocolate long john and an order of crispy bacon.
My chest feels heavy as I stare at the food.
I close my eyes as I lie to my father. “I have no idea.”
“Then you shouldn’t eat it.” He pulls the box out of my reach, and it feels so symbolic as he keeps finding ways to pull me further and further away from Danny.
The stylists descend.
I start with a massage for relaxation. I’m too tense, they tell me.
I have a manicure and pedicure.
I get my make-up done.
My hair.
I slip into the dress.
I don’t feel anything.
I haven’t written Danny back.
I don’t know if I can. I don’t know what to say.
I’m sorry.
I smile for the photos before the ceremony.
It’s not real.
I wish I had a friend here to talk me out of this.
I wish I had a friend here to tell me I’m doing the right thing.
I wish I had a friend.
“It’s time,” my father says to me.
I nod.
“I’ll see you up there,” he says. He moves to stand in front of me. “I love you, honey. Thank you for doing this. You’re doing the right thing, and I promise, it’ll be a year at most, and maybe you’ll even change your mind about Brooks by then.”
Change my mind?
Change my mind?
I haven’t changed my mind in the four years I’ve been seeing him. I’m not going to in the next year, either.
I offer a small smile and a nod, emitting no clues about how I’m really feeling here—like I’m dangling off the edge of a cliff and there’s nobody there at the bottom to catch me.
Except there is.
Danny is waiting at the bottom to hold me in his arms.
My father hugs me one last time before he heads out of the bridal suite so he can take his place at the front of the stage to officiate this sham.
I’m alone for a minute.
And it’s one minute that has the power to change everything. Everything.
I have a man twenty minutes away who loves me for me and wants to marry me because he loves me. I have a man in the suite next to mine who wants to marry me for a business transaction.
So why am I marrying the wrong one?
I only get one life.
I signed it away when I was sixteen.
I likely signed more of it away when I carelessly signed those papers this morning.
Why am I continuing to let my dad control it for me?
I stare at myself in the mirror.
I didn’t choose this dress, or this hairstyle, or the crown atop my head. I didn’t choose the flowers or the location.
And I certainly didn’t choose the groom.
There’s a knock at the door, and I draw in a deep breath before I head over to open it.
Gregory stands there.
“Ms. Bodega. A lovely sight to behold as always.” He nods cordially at me, and I just stand there staring a bit dumbfounded at him.
“It’s time, ma’am.” His words are meant to nudge me.
I step out of the bridal suite into the empty hallway.
I look to my left.
Just beyond that door, all the guests are seated.
The groom is waiting for me. My father is waiting for me.
I look to my right.
Out that door is a vehicle that the man in front of me holds the keys to, and that vehicle could take me just twenty short minutes away straight to the man I love.
Straight to the man who has been waiting to hear from me since early this morning.
Straight to the man I want to be with.
I look left again and right again.
“Alexis?” Gregory says, prompting me again. “You have to go.”
My eyes fix on one door as I make a choice.
I press my lips together and nod.
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 4, BASES LOADED