Chapter 8 #2
As Patty Swanson gave one final smirk before exiting, I noticed Lacy’s expression— which told me all I needed to know. She needed to see Anton. Now.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, excusing myself. I caught Savilla’s eye and motioned for her to stay close to Lacy.
The three additional women—Myrtis, Charlotte, and Bella Rivera—seemed unbothered by Patty Swanson forcing them to be an addition to the wedding party’s festivities. Or perhaps they’d seen her manipulate enough situations that they knew the drill: Fall in line or get left behind.
I started toward the place Anton was supposed to be that evening: the Billiards Room. I calculated the fastest route, taking a staff elevator, and as I stepped onto the second floor, I almost ran straight into him. He was pacing back and forth in the hallway, his face both surprised and bothered.
I could list off the things that might be troubling him, starting with his mother at the top.
“Thank God I found you,” I said quietly, looking around to make sure no one else was nearby as I pulled him toward the balcony overlooking the gardens, a place where we would be assured of privacy.
“You were looking for me?” Anton asked distractedly, before realizing that if I was seeking him out, then something must be wrong. “Is it Lacy? Where is she?”
“She’s in the Carriage House with the bridal party… and three extra ladies that we did not plan on hosting this evening.”
“Oh God.” Anton’s hand went to his brow as he groaned. “I’m sorry. My mother is…” He couldn’t seem to find the words at first. “She’s… persistent.”
“She’s definitely that. She dropped off those extra guests to crash the bachelorette party.”
Anton grimaced, but there was a look of hope in his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, Charlotte and Myrtis will probably keep to themselves and gossip about nonsense back home.”
I gave him a pointed look. “Would they maybe gossip about, I don’t know, you and Bella Rivera?”
Anton’s eye twitched.
“Yep, she’s there right now, making herself comfortable,” I confirmed. “Apparently, Patty wants us to treat her like one of the family, and if I had to guess, I’d say she’s hoping that you’ll trade Lacy in for Bella before the weekend is out.”
Anton grabbed his stomach as if I’d just punched him in the gut before recovering enough to say, “Lacy knows I only want her.”
I frowned at this man. If he truly believed that anyone, even our bold and confident Lacy, could stand up against his mother without any insecurities or vulnerabilities showing, then he didn’t realize the subtle cruelty Patty Swanson could inflict.
I’d known her for maybe an hour, and I could already tell she was like a spider with a bite that goes unnoticed until the poison has already set in.
Anton cowered a bit under my disapproval and slumped back against the wall, reminding me of his drunken state two months earlier, when he’d been the one insecure and pining for Lacy after the death of her high school sweetheart. “Bella and I… we… it was never serious, not to me.”
“And to Bella?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. She probably expected… something.”
“Something round and shiny?”
He lifted a shoulder as if to say, Maybe.
I still couldn’t tell if he was playing dumb or if he was actually this dense, and he seemed to sense as much.
“We grew up together,” Anton said, trying to explain.
“Same grade level, same Sunday school classes, same kickball team—the Swanson Swans, if you can believe it. My parents always joked about me and Bella getting married someday, and when I was in my listless phase after college, trying to figure out how to tell them that I didn’t want to run the family business, she was there and… I don’t know, she was familiar.”
“How familiar?” I asked, although I already knew the answer. They’d obviously dated, and she’d hoped it would end in marriage. His mother had hoped for that as well.
“We dated for three years, but I never asked her to marry me. In all that time, I didn’t even bring up the idea.” His expression said he was at a complete loss to explain the appearance of this woman.
“Did Bella talk about marriage?”
Anton nodded as his cheeks reddened. “Mother took her to Houston to look at rings, and she gave me a list of the settings Bella liked.”
My irritation with Anton was growing by the second. “And you didn’t stop either of them then and there?”
“I did,” Anton said, hands outstretched as if to prove his innocence. “Eventually, I broke things off.”
“Eventually?”
“It took me some time.” His face crumpled.
I crossed my arms, waiting for him to continue. There was something he wasn’t saying.
“A year, okay? It took me a year. I wrote her a letter, telling her things were over, then I packed a bag and left for Houston. I stayed on a college friend’s couch. I got a job as a waiter, and a few months later, I met Lacy while she was there for a conference.”
“So, Bella hasn’t seen you since…”
“Since the day I left, I swear.” He cringed at his own words. “That must’ve been almost two and a half years ago now. I know how it sounds, like I’m some kind of…”
“Coward?” I finished for him.
“I’ve never been good at letting people down,” Anton admitted. “It was easier to leave.”
He wasn’t wrong. Leaving was easier in a lot of ways, but it was something I’d never even thought about doing. Not when Momma got sick, not when my aunt shoved me into a beauty pageant, not when Savilla needed to know she had a sister. These were the moments that one had to rise to the occasion.
I would’ve never expected Anton to be the kind who would do a woman dirty like that— skipping town without a glance behind. It made me suddenly nervous for my friend.
“I’ve learned a lot since then,” he said, trying to reassure me. “But my past is my past. Either way, I didn’t invite Bella this weekend. I swear.”
Despite my frustration with Anton, I believed him. If he hadn’t even wanted to break things off with Bella in person, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted her celebrating his nuptials.
“Is this why you didn’t want the rest of your family arriving until tomorrow? Did you think something like this might happen?”
“Not this.” He sighed. “Never this. My mother can be overbearing, but I never thought she would interfere to this extent.”
“She doesn’t want you marrying Lacy,” I said as directly as possible, mainly because in less than forty-eight hours he was supposed to marry my friend and I did not want her heart broken by him or his mother—or anyone else. “How are you going to address that?”
Anton swallowed and lifted his head, trying to find his courage. “I’ll talk to her.”
“To your mother? To Bella? To Lacy?”
He nodded fervently. “All of them.”
“And what will you say?”
“I’ll tell my mother that I love Lacy and she needs to stand down.”
I raised an eyebrow and lifted my chin, prodding him to continue.
He swallowed hard. “I’ll tell Bella that I’m sorry that I wasn’t brave enough to end things face-to-face.”
“She deserved closure,” I said, feeling very much like some kind of life coach that I had no desire to be.
“She did,” he nodded. “That’s what I’ll say.”
“And Lacy?”
To his credit, Anton’s face softened at her name. “I’ll tell her that she’s the only person I’ve ever felt this way about. That when I imagine myself at eighty years old, I see the two of us sitting on a porch swing and watching our grandchildren play in the yard, the mountains hovering behind us.”
That answer sounded like a good one, but it wasn’t me he had to appease.
At that moment, I heard a step behind us. It was Lacy, her face mottled as if she’d been crying.
“Savilla released me so I could find you two,” Lacy said. Her eyes brightened when she looked at Anton, who rushed forward and scooped her into his arms.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathed into her. “I had no idea that my mother would be so…” He seemed unable to finish the sentence, which made sense when there was really no good way to describe how his mother had behaved up to that point.
Lacy and Anton held each other for a full minute, and I wondered if I should head back to the Carriage House.
Just as I was about to turn around and leave the two of them to talk, Lacy pulled back and wiped at her eyes, addressing Anton.
“If you promise me that you had no idea what your mother was up to, I’ll believe you,” she said, more generous than I might’ve been under the same circumstances.
It was a credit to how much she loved Anton, I was sure.
“I swear, Lacy, I had no idea my mother was dragging along almost my entire family two days early—much less inviting extra ladies to the bachelorette party,” Anton said, staring into her eyes.
“And I swear I’ll take care of everything so she won’t interfere anymore.
” He hesitated. “I didn’t invite Bella either, so I can talk to her, ask her to leave. ”
Lacy bit her lip and studied her fiancé. “No,” she decided. “If you tell me that you didn’t invite her—and that you don’t have any lingering feelings for her—then I’ll believe you. She seems off-putting, but I don’t think it’s Bella who’s pushing herself on to you.”
The implication was that any pushing was coming from his mother, which seemed accurate.
“I love you,” Anton said quietly, his forehead pressed against Lacy’s. “Only you.”
As they shared a quiet moment I scooted back to give them privacy, catching a flash pass by in my periphery, a quick shadow that flittered away as fast as it had come.
I stepped toward the darkness, a tingle running up my arms to my neck. Someone had been at the edge of the corridor, listening to us.