Julia #2
Maybe I should tell him the truth—I mean, now that we’re married, I guess it’s going to come out, isn’t it? Or perhaps not. The way he framed it, this is nothing more than something he has to do, not the start of some long and beautiful romance.
But if he knew…if he knew what I was running from when I met his son, maybe he would see it differently. God, I don’t know if I want to tell him. I hardly even talked to Andreo about it, after all, and there’s a reason for that. I want it to be behind me, I just don’t know if it ever can be.
We arrive outside his gated mansion, and the large steel gates pull back when the car draws up outside. I guess he must have security watching this place at all times, making sure that he never has to wait longer than a second to get inside.
I shift slightly in my seat. I don’t know exactly what his business is, though I doubt, given the sheer intensity of the security on this place and his willingness to go this far to protect me from its enemies, that it is anything legal.
I try not to let that thought linger too long in my mind as we crunch up the driveway, toward the house, still in the wedding dress I put on when I thought I would be marrying his son.
He offers me a hand to get out of the car, but I ignore it, stepping out and gazing up at the house. My new home. I guess I’m going to have to get used to that…
A rush of defiance courses through me as he makes his way up the large steps toward the house. Two stone lions sit on either side of the door, both posed mid-roar. I cross my arms over my chest, and he stares down at me. “Julia, come on.”
“You think I’m just going to stay here with you?” I ask him. “Play along like a good little—”
“I think you need to get inside,” he tells me, his voice edged.
The door opens before him, two guards standing parallel to the lions before it.
I know I’m outnumbered here, and that I would do well to act like it, but there’s a part of me that just doesn’t want to make this easy for him.
Doesn’t want to back down, no matter how crazy this day has been.
“What are you going to do to me?” I demand.
His chin lifts slightly. “What do you mean?”
“It’s our wedding night, after all.”
His gaze hardens, the mere suggestion of it enough to shift his mood entirely. “Julia, I told you, I did this to protect you,” he growls, making his way down the steps once more.
I tense, half expecting him to grab for me and pull me inside like Andreo would have done, but he doesn’t lay a finger on me.
“You’ll have your own quarters,” he assures me. “Your own space. But you can’t get to it standing out here. Come on. Now. With me.”
Something in me finally snaps, and my shoulders slump. I realize how ridiculous I must look, digging my heels in like this, standing outside this place in my wedding dress and acting like I have any clue what I’m doing.
Finally, I do as I’m told, and make my way up the steps behind him, into the polished dark wood surroundings of the foyer.
My eyes are trained to the ground, but I still remember the place well, how amazed I was when I saw the level of luxury that Andreo had to his name.
The marble sculptures that dotted the hallway, the red-carpet-draped stairs that led up to the expansive second floor.
Back then, it had seemed like a miracle that I would even get to taste a small slice of this life, but now it feels more like a threat, a prison I might not be able to get myself out of.
“Marcia,” Antonio calls, and a woman, dressed in a smart black suit with her dark brown hair cropped short to her head, rounds a corner. Her eyes dart over to me, and she seems to take me in for a moment, no doubt wondering what the hell some runaway bride is doing here.
“Take Julia to the guest quarters. Send someone to Andreo’s apartment to collect her things.” He looks over at me. “Anything in particular you need?”
I shake my head, not quite able to speak yet. He tilts his chin in acknowledgement, and Marcia steps forward, gesturing along the corridor.
“This way,” she tells me, and I allow her to lead me out of the foyer and to my room. I need to be alone right now, anyway—it’s probably better for me.
But as my dress drags along the floor, I feel a lump leap into my throat.
No matter how bad things were with Andreo, how scared of him I found myself over the years, I had convinced myself—perhaps stupidly—that things would shift when I had that ring on my finger.
That all the pain and all the suffering and all the mess that I went through when I was growing up would fade to nothing when I had this picture-perfect life laid out ahead of me, that all I had to do was see it through and I would be alright.
“Do you need anything? Something to eat? Water?” Marcia’s curt but not uncaring tones cut through my reverie, and I look up to realize that I’m standing in a bedroom—an empty bedroom, one that is clearly not kept for anything other than those passing through, devoid of detail or personal effects.
I shake my head. “No, I’m okay. Thank you.”
She nods, and pauses for a moment in the doorway before she leaves, as if there’s more she wants to say, but she thinks better of it. She pulls the door shut behind her, and as soon as she’s gone, I sink down onto the bed, tears brimming in my eyes.
I don’t even know what I’m crying about.
I look down at my arm again, to the bluish bruises that are fading on my skin.
I could be married to the man who gave me those.
As much as I might have wanted to think he would change, what chance did I have of really seeing that happen?
How many women have been in the exact position I was, praying and hoping against hope that the wedding would make everything better?
I was a fool to think things would change, as much as I had deluded myself—as much as I had known that he’d have made my life hell if I’d tried to say no when he got down on one knee for me.
But now Andreo is just someone else who has turned his back on me. Someone else I have been abandoned by. Someone else who decided that he had a better option than me, and went after it.
The rejection seeps deep into my bones, not just from Andreo, but from Antonio too.
I thought I would spend my wedding night tangled up with the man I loved, but instead I’m sitting here, in this beautiful wedding dress, untouched lingerie underneath, knowing that nobody wants me.
At least, not enough to give me what I know I need.
I curl up on the bed, lay my head on the soft pillow, and stare at the bedside table beside me. I have no idea what happens now. But what I do know is that I have never felt more alone.
I run my thumb along the wedding band on my finger, and realize I still have on the engagement ring that Andreo gave to me last year.
Angry, I sit up, pulling it off and dumping it in the drawer, shoving it shut so that I won’t have to look at it.
He doesn’t deserve to have me wearing it anymore, that symbol of his commitment to me, given that he refused to even see it through.
As I lay back on the bed, I hold my hand out in front of me and look at the band Antonio slid onto my finger. And something, deep down, shifts.
Antonio…he was there for me when nobody else was. He doesn’t seem to care what people will think of him, how they might judge him for stepping in to marry the woman his son was meant to make an honest woman of. He didn’t do it because he wants to get me into bed, but to protect me.
And as I stare at that ring, and think on everything it symbolizes, that strange feeling deep down in my belly begins to get the better of me once more.
It is my wedding night, after all—and there are certain things that a bride should never be left waiting for…