Chapter 23
RYAN
Back in New York after almost a month spent trying to walk Maggie away from the edge of the cliff she kept insisting on racing back to, I stood in her parents’ house, listening to her and her mother yell at each other.
I’d rather not have been here at all, but I was starting to suspect that I’d become the Pembrokes’ communal emotional support animal.
While I paced their exquisite Fifth Avenue foyer, I did my best not to eavesdrop, but Maggie and Adelaide were making it pretty hard not to overhear them. Neither woman seemed interested in keeping her voice down, and every now and then, Cliff interjected as well.
As I studied a crystal chandelier that looked like something out of the Great Gatsby, Adelaide’s voice drifted down the hall once more. “You cannot possibly be serious. A carnival, Maggie? People are going to be talking about this wedding for years. Let’s not give them a reason to ridicule us.”
“At least it will give them something interesting to talk about,” Maggie snapped. “This is what I want, Mother. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“Yes, well, I want to be sipping cocktails on a tropical island with a reasonable daughter who is already happily married.” Adelaide sniffed. “You could’ve been, you know. You and Daniel could’ve had all this behind you.”
“Maybe we would’ve if that wedding hadn’t made me feel like I couldn’t breathe,” Maggie insisted. “And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to plan my own big day. As it is, the groom is your choice. The rest should be mine.”
“Perhaps it could be if you weren’t being ridiculous,” Cliff said with more than just a hint of disapproval in his tone. “Honestly, Maggie. Woods and a carnival? It sounds like the set of a horror film.”
I started pacing again, fully understanding why Cliff and Adelaide were so sure Maggie was playing some kind of game. Even to me, the list of demands she’d sent them on our way home from Chicago had seemed outlandish.
If I was Cliff, I would’ve fainted at number four—and I was still fairly certain number seven involved fire. Maggie insisted we’d only need cool-burning smoke bombs to get the effect she was after, but I wasn’t convinced.
Either way, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, unable to believe that this was my life now. My phone kept buzzing with incoming emails and texts, but instead of working, I paused in front of an elaborate flower arrangement and squinted.
Are those fake? They’re too pretty to be real, but they don’t look fake either.
“How’s it going in there?” Marcus asked, appearing at the top of the staircase leading into the foyer from the upper levels. “Have they made any progress yet?”
“No.”
He sighed, pausing with one hand on the balustrade to listen when another round of shouting started up. “Those are my conditions, Mom. Take them or leave them.”
Marcus winced. “If this works, I’ll give you the money.”
“I don’t care about the money,” I said without even thinking about it.
At this point, I was starting to feel like a broken record, but at the same time, I kept asking myself why I didn’t just take it. The Pembrokes offered continuously and it wasn’t like they were hurting for it.
And yet… I can’t bring myself to say yes. Which has to mean something. It’s almost like the reason I’ve stuck around this whole time is because I actually care about her, but that can’t be it.
Shaking off the thought, I refocused on Marcus as he descended the stairs. “I think it’s a moot point anyway. I doubt this is actually going to work.”
He chuckled, groaning when their mother yelled something about becoming a laughingstock if Maggie was serious about any of this.
Then he inched toward the hallway and glanced back at me.
“You should still think about taking the money. God knows, you’re earning it.
This is the second time you’ve brought her back, Ryan.
No one else has even been able to do it once. ”
I slid my hands into my pockets. “She might be here, but she’s not going to agree to go through with it unless your mom lets her plan the wedding.
Trust me, not even I’m going to be able to talk her out of that.
I haven’t talked her into or out of anything, actually.
It’s all her. I’m just giving her the space she needs to figure it out. ”
“Either way, Maggie probably would’ve been in Bora-Bora by now if not for you.” He offered me a small smile. “I always thought I was her favorite, but then you came along. I think she and I are just too far apart on this one. We owe you, Ryan. Big time.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
He shrugged. “That doesn’t make it any less true. Also, in case no one has actually said it properly yet, thank you. I honestly don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t been around right now.”
I almost told him that they’d managed just fine without us for years since my father’s arrest, but I bit back the retort. The Pembrokes weren’t bad people. Marcus wasn’t personally responsible for our ostracization and he and I had never been close.
Getting into it with him about this would only make me look and feel bitter and weak, which wasn’t really my jam. “You’re welcome, man. Good luck trying to convince your parents that they made the right call if they do cave.”
“Thanks, I’m going to need it,” he said. “I’ll be in Dad’s study if they need me, but I really hope that doesn’t happen.”
“I’ll pray for you,” I said solemnly, resuming my pacing once he’d disappeared.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Maggie was yelling when I tuned in again.
It sounded like she was about to start tearing her hair out.
“This is who I am, Mother. I’m just a weird little creature who somehow invaded the illustrious Pembroke lineage.
I get that, but if Daniel is going to marry me, he deserves to know what he’s getting himself into. ”
“There is no if about it,” Adelaide argued coolly. “Daniel will marry you because he, unlike you, understands duty to his family and the power of this particular association. You’ve already humiliated the man once. Do you honestly want to do it again?”
“Of course not.” Maggie scoffed. “I just don’t think a wedding that’s a little different is something to be humiliated about. In fact, non-traditional is sort of the in thing right now.”
“No, it’s not,” Adelaide insisted, sighing loudly. “Regardless, Pembrokes are trendsetters, not followers, so it doesn’t matter. We have always been the very embodiment of elegance and grace, Maggie. That need not change.”
“Fine, then we’ll make it an elegant carnival and I’ll do my best to be graceful.”
“There’s no such thing as an elegant carnival.”
When Adelaide started listing all the ways in which carnivals were tacky, I shook my head and accepted that she wasn’t going to win this round. As I spun to pace my way across the foyer again, Cliff came striding toward me.
Adelaide and Maggie were still arguing, but Cliff looked like he’d reached the point where his patience was running on fumes, his cheeks slightly red and his jaw tight. “If you’re serious about planning my daughter’s delusional wedding, you’ll be paid well.”
God, not this again.
I almost sighed, but instead, I flashed him the smile that’d gotten me into more boardrooms, panties, and bars as an underaged kid than I could count. “That’s still not necessary, Cliff. I’m doing it as a favor to my mother.”
He looked back at me for a beat, then shook his head, grunted, and walked down the same hallway Marcus had disappeared into.
Once he was gone too, I finally bent over to study those flowers that’d been bugging me, only just stopping short of actually feeling the leaves when yet another throat cleared behind me.
“Pretty, aren’t they?”
I spun to find Maggie standing on the other end of the foyer.
Today, she’d pulled her hair up into a ponytail that shone gold in the sunlight streaming through the high windows behind her.
She had almost no makeup on, and she’d nearly given her mother a coronary in her jeans with a regular, fitted black tee.
As far as I was concerned, she looked hot as hell but in a platonic way. Obviously.
She also looked smug, which could only mean bad things for me. “What happened?”
“I’m getting my carnival,” she whispered when she got closer, pumping her eyebrows before heading for the staircase. “We won, Ryan.”
We? No.
I stared after her as she crossed the polished wooden floors, her hips swaying ever so slightly from one side to the other. It suddenly looked like she didn’t have a care in the world, but I suspected there was something pretty important she’d forgotten about.
Again.
“Have you talked to Daniel yet?”
Her shoulders stiffened and she paused for a beat before glancing back at me over her shoulder. “Not yet, but I will, Ryan. I just needed to get the go-ahead from my parents first.”
She spun back around and ascended the stairs without looking back, disappearing into the cavernous depths of the house while I just stood there, staring and wondering where this left me.
I’d successfully seen her back to her family.
By all logic, that meant I was free to leave without her, but I still hovered for a minute, knowing my job wasn’t quite done yet.
Evidently, there was now going to be a wedding that I’d have to help her plan, even if the mere thought of it made my stomach churn.
And not because I was going to have to figure out how to hire at least a dozen carnies. Although that was going to be a nightmare, it wasn’t really the part that was bothering me. The reason I felt sick to my stomach was because it was her wedding.
I didn’t like the thought of that at all.
If this had been just another family obligation, another problem to solve, or another deal to close, I would have known exactly how to handle it, but I’d spent the last month watching Maggie become who she was when nobody was telling her who she was supposed to be.
Now, I was supposed to stand on the sidelines and watch her marry someone else.
And I’d agreed to help her plan the event where she would be doing it.
It seemed crazy. I knew this woman—probably better than anyone else right now.
I knew she didn’t want to do this and I knew that even while we were planning, she was going to keep searching for a way out of it.
But on the other hand, I’d gotten her through the first hurdle. She was back with her family. Finally, for the first time in too many weeks, I would have some space to breathe. Maybe that would help.
Yeah, it’ll definitely help.
I would have my bed and my apartment back. Maybe it was even time to go out and find someone to blow off a little steam with. My stomach sort of curdled at the idea of doing it, but I just needed to get out of this odd little bubble she and I had found ourselves in.
It couldn’t be that hard.
Circumstances had kept us in much too close proximity for a while, but now that our cohabitation was over, all those fucked up things I’d been feeling would go away. I was sure of it.
I just had to push through.
It’s only up from here. It had to be.