Chapter 18 Olivier
Olivier
One month before the honeymoon
For the next few days I thought of nothing else but Reese’s slim waist, the mole at the top of her chest, the raw softness of her voice.
My mind ping-ponged endlessly. We could never do this.
We couldn’t not do this. Every time I tried to push that night out of my thoughts, Reese came back with a vengeance.
I swore I smelled her perfume everywhere I went.
When I walked into the bar again the following Monday, her face brightened with the warmest, most stunned smile. It disappeared just as quickly, but I saw it. I saw it.
“What are you doing here?” she said, wiping down the counter.
I took a seat on the far edge, away from a group of three men. “You must know,” I said, making sure they weren’t paying me any attention.
“People will talk,” she said, casting glances around.
“Tell me to leave you alone,” I whispered. “Tell me to never come near you again. Is that what you want?”
She stared deep inside me.
“Is that what you want?” I said again with much more conviction than I felt. Slowly, I got up and watched as her throat tightened. “I’ll do whatever you say. Do you want me to go?”
She shook her head ever so slightly and then, speaking so low I wasn’t sure I was hearing it right, she said, “I close up at one. My car is parked two streets back. Don’t show your face in here again.”
I did as told, heading out into the cool spring night.
A few blocks away, I stumbled into another bar and waited for her.
When the time came, I found the old Chevy easily; the street was empty.
For the next few minutes, I paced back and forth on the sidewalk.
If I kept my body moving, my mind might leave me alone.
Then she was there. Immediately, I pulled her to me and kissed her. It felt like we were a couple going home from a night out but with the thrill of the first time. Of the unknown.
“Is this okay?” I whispered, scared to the bones that she was going to say no.
She nodded. I kissed her again. It was even better than the first time, maybe because I’d been so unsure it would happen once more.
A few minutes later, we got into the back of her car, T-shirts flying over heads, limbs banging into windows, knees digging into the fake leather seats.
I had a condom in my wallet and took my time retrieving it, giving her plenty of opportunities to say, Stop. Wait. No. We can’t. This is all wrong.
She grabbed it from me and ripped the packaging open.
Afterward, I held her in my arms and breathed in her soft neck as I lulled her, keeping her as close as I physically could.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said after a long while.
My left arm was numb from the uncomfortable position, and it was late enough that Cassie might wonder where the hell I was. I had to go home. I couldn’t go home. Not yet.
“But you will,” Reese said.
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t lie to her. Couldn’t tell her the truth, either.
We met again and again and again, often at roadside motels neither of us could afford.
When I was with her, I didn’t care about anything else.
I held her tight, every part of our naked bodies touching, our skin in permanent contact, sharing our most intimate thoughts into the early morning.
In those moments I felt truly at peace, like I never had before.
Of course, we could have gotten caught. We probably almost did, several times, but Cassie wasn’t even that much of a problem.
The money arrived, finally, and she was constantly out shopping or drinking with her friends.
Sometimes they’d drop her home only a few minutes after I’d left Reese.
I probably still smelled of her. How reckless we were.
I was still technically looking for a job in the area, but my focus quickly turned to being with Reese whenever she wasn’t working.
I worked on the inn, taking the rusty bike to the closest hardware store to get tools and supplies, which Cassie begrudgingly paid for.
I fixed squeaky doors, ripped up the wallpaper, and battled with a leaky faucet until I conquered it.
I had plenty of free time and YouTube taught me new skills I didn’t want to learn every day.
At first it was the perfect cover: it gave me something to do, something that would please Cassie, with all the flexibility to fit into Reese’s life.
Soon, I started thinking further: the new and improved inn could be good for me.
It was a new purpose, a potential new career.
Something worthwhile to fill my time for the next two years.
I also worked on the next steps of my green card application for the immigration lawyer, filling out documents, answering questions about my parents’ birth places and the addresses of my previous employers.
When Erica Min asked about whether we’d set a wedding date, I replied with a vague Working on it!
Life was good, considering. I daydreamed of the next moment when I could hold Reese in my arms, and everything else faded into the background.
The words came out about six weeks after that first night. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Reese was putting her underwear back on and swung around; her eyes shot wide open, like she’d never heard that before.
And then it hit me: she’d never heard that before.
She’d mentioned a guy she’d dated for a while, a toxic relationship in which she got attached too soon.
Since then she’d stuck to one-night stands, sometimes with guys she picked up at the bar, but never locals. She didn’t like the gossip.
“Reese,” I said, reaching for her waist. “I’m in love with you.”
She flicked my hand off and started to pull on her jeans. “No, you’re not.”
Her voice was cold, her body stiff all of a sudden.
I had sensed the darkness within her before, had guessed the deep wounds that kept her at that dirty, smelly bar when she was clearly smart, with so much potential.
In that moment it felt like I’d barely scratched the surface—that there was a lot more pain she was grappling with.
It made me want to stroke her hair and tell her that everything would be okay.
I was there now and I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
“I’m dead serious,” I said. “I’ve been thinking it for a while, but I was scared to admit it out loud. I love you. Please, look at me.” She did. “I love you.”
She breathed deeply, in and out. In and out.
“Would you ever come to the city with me?” I continued. “There’s nothing keeping you here. Maybe you just need a fresh start. I know you’d love it there.”
“And Cassie?” Reese said.
She didn’t wait for my answer and went back to getting dressed, clasping her bra with swift moves before adjusting the straps on each shoulder.
I swallowed hard. It’s not like I forgot, exactly. I just didn’t want to have to think about her. Of course I wouldn’t be going back to the city anytime soon. “I don’t want to be with Cassie. I never did.”
Reese’s head whipped around with surprise again. For a split second, the immigration lawyer’s face filled my mind. I could answer all the questions she asked. I was still completely screwed.
“But you’re still with her,” Reese said.
It wasn’t a question. We’d both gone into this with our eyes wide open and the situation hadn’t changed.
I was with Cassie. An old family friend of the Quinns, Madeline Richardson, had put in a word for me with an art gallery owner two towns over who might need a part-time manager, though it wouldn’t be until the fall.
The inn was looking a little better every day.
My life could fall into place, if I let it.
Reese retrieved her shoes from the other side of the room. She was about to slip out of here, and I couldn’t let her leave. She had to know my feelings were real, but the only way to do that was to give her the truth. The scary one.
I shuffled over to sit on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. “Cassie and I aren’t actually dating. I’m not her boyfriend, I just…have to be with her. Fuck, it’s so much more complicated than that.” I buried my head in my hands, dread filling my lungs. “Cassie and I, we’re married.”
Reese jerked back, her eyes bulging. She looked like she’d been shot in the heart.
“You’re married?” Her tone was flat. Resigned.
“I can explain.”
“Since when?”
“We did it at City Hall, in the city, before we came back here.”
I worried Reese would storm out then, but she stood there, frozen.
So I kept talking, starting from the beginning: losing my job, my visa, booking my flight back to Paris, and feeling so depressed about it all.
I spared no details about meeting Cassie, how aloof she’d been, how easily convinced at the same time.
How I thought, right until the moment the civil servant asked the questions, that she was going to change her mind.
How weird it felt when she didn’t. We were married. In it together now.
And then, the most important thing of all, the fact that I’d been mulling over for weeks now: “I would give anything to have met you first.”
Reese chortled, then shook her head, like she wanted to push away that part of the story, to make sure it never touched her. “You’re married,” she said in a whisper.
I got up and started to walk toward her, but she recoiled in such an obvious manner, raising her hands in front of her chest in protection, that I stopped.
“And I can’t divorce her. I have to be with her for two whole years and pretend to be happily married until it all goes through. I can’t do anything until then.”
Even as I said it, I no longer believed these things would happen.
Two years was a long time to feel hopelessly miserable, even before I fell for Reese.
The truth was, I could divorce Cassie and marry another American citizen, if Reese would have me.
But doing so before my permanent green card was granted would be like throwing my application into the trash.
I’d have to start all over, losing months in the process.
Worse: it would raise a huge red flag with the Department of Homeland Security.
Marrying one woman you barely know is one thing, but marrying two, back-to-back?
It would never work. And then, of course, there was the money.
Cassie was already pissing it away. These two million dollars were wasted on her.
“If I could choose,” I added, “I’d choose you. I want to be with you.”
Reese’s jaw went slack. “I’m so freaking stupid. Every time! Every single time. I don’t know what I was thinking. Don’t ever come near me again.”
She stormed past me, fury seeping out of every pore. For a long time I stood there, staring at a brown patch of humidity where the wall met the ceiling. The situation with Cassie was already headed for a complete disaster. Soon I wouldn’t just lose Reese, but everything.
I didn’t know if there was a way to fix this, to be with Reese and get rid of Cassie. To get rid of Cassie and keep her money. To have everything I could possibly want: Reese and the money and the green card and the freedom to go back to the city and start all over again.
But if there was a way, I would find it. And if I did, then that’s exactly what I would do.