Chapter Forty-Four Julia
Chapter Forty-Four
Julia
Valentine was right. The storm had only gotten worse.
Julia stood alone in the lounge area, near the windows that overlooked the gardens.
Water slammed viciously against the glass, and every few minutes, thunder cracked overhead, so loud that it made her jump a little.
It was midafternoon, but the sky was pitch-dark, occasionally split with flashes of lightning like jagged wounds.
She didn’t mean to linger at the window like this, moping over her canceled wedding. She had just needed a minute of silence. She’d been sitting with Abby for too long, talking circles around this whole disaster, trying without success to figure out a solution.
“Julia?”
She turned to see Harry approaching. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand, and in the other, a slice of chocolate cake on a scalloped-edged plate. He led Julia toward an alcove in the corner of the room, tucked away from everyone else. Bemused, she followed.
“Sorry that I left you with Abby for so long. I was trying to—well, I was trying to fix things. Then I decided to bring you this.” Seeing her confusion about the cake, Harry added, “I asked Nicole if we could dig into the wedding cake, but Frances isn’t here, so this was the best I could do.”
Julia let out a strangled laugh at the absurdity of his statement.
Was her fiancé seriously apologizing because the pastry chef they had planned to fly down from Manhattan couldn’t make it?
That was just one of the thousand small things that would be wasted about this wedding.
What about all the food—the oyster shooters with lemon foam, the lump crab bites on toast, the tiny servings of lemon sorbet arranged on those little spoons?
What about all the custom paper cocktail napkins, printed with Harry in defeat, one needs it.”
“Napoleon,” Harry said. She looked over, surprised that he recognized the quote, and he shrugged. “I had my issues with the man, but he was right about wine, at least.”
Harry must have been as tired as she was, because from the way he’d spoken, he’d made it sound like he’d been friends with Napoleon.
Again, Julia was struck by the urge to laugh, a laugh that might all too easily turn into a sob.
Her emotions felt fragile, as if she were a water balloon and might burst at any moment.
“Anyway, I’m not sure I would call this a defeat.
” Harry deftly peeled the foil from the champagne bottle.
The cork emerged with a hiss, and he poured the wine into their glasses, bubbles dancing lightly to the surface.
“I think we’re still celebrating, don’t you?
Celebrating that we’re here, and safe, and we have all these cases of wine that are rapidly going bad, since they’re stored in wine lockers that don’t have power. ”
“It’s okay,” Julia started to assure him, but Harry gave a bitter laugh.
“It’s really not. I think my parents might have…” He trailed off without saying more.
“Might have what? Deliberately planned our wedding when they knew a storm was coming? This isn’t anyone’s fault, Harry.” Julia placed a hand on his arm.
Harry looked like he was going to say something else, then shook his head and handed Julia one of the glasses, brimming with champagne. “Well, we might as well have a glass while it’s still cold enough to enjoy.”
Julia took a slow sip. The champagne, crisp and bright with a subtle aftertaste of honey, brought her back to that long-ago night in Queenstown when they had ordered champagne. Back before she knew who Harry was.
Before she knew how challenging their relationship would become, weighed down by family and money and expectations.
“You’re still upset,” Harry observed, watching her. He tilted his head. “No, actually—you’re angry.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know anger,” he replied, which struck Julia as a funny thing to say. She lifted the glass and took another sip.
“I am angry that this happened,” she admitted at last. “And I’m afraid.”
Harry passed her the plate of cake. Julia held it but didn’t take a bite.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of the storm,” he promised. “This building is state-of-the-art, very secure against flooding. We may not be especially comfortable here, but we’ll be safe.”
Valentine’s words from this morning echoed in her head. Harry will come to hate you for it—and worse, he will come to hate himself.
“I’m afraid of losing you,” she confessed.
Harry’s eyes were affectionate and warm. “Julia, you won’t lose me. Not now, not ever.”
“You don’t understand! I’m afraid of what might happen if I marry you. That choosing me will cost you your family.” It was hard for her to say this last bit; Julia had to look down at the cake to avoid meeting Harry’s eyes.
Harry reached for her arm, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You won’t cost me my family. They all know how important you are to me, and they love you, too.”
“No, Harry. Be honest. Percy is my friend, and I like your brother and sister, though Alina lives halfway around the world. As for the others…they tolerate me, at best.”
His frown returned. “Did my parents say something?”
“No, it was—”
She broke off before finishing the sentence, but it didn’t matter; Harry could finish it for her.
“It was Valentine.”
Julia’s silence was confirmation enough. Harry cursed under his breath, his grip on the stem of the wineglass tightening so visibly that Julia worried he might snap it. She set down the cake and reached for him.
“Please don’t say anything, okay?”
Harry clasped her hands in his. “Whatever she told you, Julia, forget it. I choose you over my family.”
“But I don’t want you to have to choose!” Julia exclaimed, then lowered her voice. “Harry, watching you over the past few months, the way you’ve reconnected with your family—I know how much it’s meant to you. I hate that I’m putting you in a position where you need to decide between me and them.”
“You aren’t,” Harry said fiercely, but Julia wasn’t sure she believed him.
The things Valentine had said today—they might have been barbed and hurtful, but Julia sensed that they were also true.
If the Ellenes thought Valentine, impossibly beautiful and eager to please, wasn’t good enough, then what hope did Julia have?
Tears pricked at her eyes; she wiped them away with a brusque motion. “I can’t let you lose your family again, not when you’ve worked so hard to get them back.”
“Let’s elope,” he said, ignoring her last comment.
“This big wedding weekend was never our style anyway. Why don’t we do what we should have done from the beginning?
As soon as it’s safe to leave this island, we’ll get on the first plane out: to New Zealand, to Bali, I don’t care.
We’ll do our vows on the beach, just the two of us.
Or we’ll bring your aunt and uncle and Abby, if you want. We won’t invite any of my family.”
“I don’t want to run away like we have something to hide.” Julia’s voice shook. “Not to mention that your mother would never forgive you for getting married without her.”
“I think my mother may have forfeited her right to be included,” Harry said darkly.
“Don’t punish your mother because Valentine told me some ugly truths this morning. Tara had nothing to do with this.”
Julia couldn’t drive any more wedges between Harry and his family. And as tempting as it sounded, she couldn’t do what Harry had suggested and elope. It would draw a line in the sand.
Julia was done making enemies. All she wanted, now, was to lay down her weapons and stop fighting.
“You’re right about one thing,” she said slowly, “this big wedding weekend was never very us. And now it’s not happening, given the weather. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still get married.”
“Here?”
“This weekend. Tomorrow!” Julia exclaimed, her voice gaining momentum. “We can do it in the hotel ballroom by candlelight, I don’t care! I just want to start my life with you. Your family will be there, and Abby. I wish my aunt and uncle had made it, but they’ll understand. What else do we need?”
As he realized what she meant, Harry smiled. “My cousin Paul is a licensed minister. He could perform the marriage ceremony?”
“Perfect.” Julia wrapped her arms around Harry, pressing her face into his chest. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” Harry murmured. “Should we go tell my mother?”
Tara was nowhere to be found, but they did run into Nicole in the hotel’s grand dining room. Julia couldn’t help but notice that Hector and Valentine were there, too, seated at a table with their toddler as he ate cut-up squares of toast.
Julia felt Valentine staring in their direction but refused to meet her gaze. Oddly, she no longer hated Harry’s sister-in-law. She just pitied her.
And she refused to repeat Valentine’s mistakes.
“We want to move forward with the wedding,” Harry was saying to Nicole. “Do you think we could set up in the ballroom tomorrow?”
The hotel manager stared at him. “You still want to get married?” she repeated. “In the middle of an unprecedented storm? Without all your guests?”
“We can’t wait another day to start our lives together,” Harry explained.
Julia smiled. Her yearning, her love for him, must have lit up her face, because Nicole took one look at her and threw up her hands, laughing. “A wedding without power! I don’t know how we’ll manage! Your mother isn’t going to be happy,” she warned Harry, eyes dancing, “But let’s do it.”
Julia heard a clatter from one of the nearby tables and looked over to see that Valentine had dropped her knife. Had she been eavesdropping on them?
And wait—when Julia last looked that way, hadn’t the toddler’s bib been navy and white? Now it was red.