I give her a sight nod. I want to believe her but I’m afraid that she’s just saying this now and will go ahead and marry James anyway.
“I heard what you and Nicholas were saying last night,” she adds, her voice cracking.
My throat closes up.
Oh, no, she was supposed to be asleep.
“I wasn’t,” she says, reading my mind. “He was in New York, huh? He was in Boston and when Nicholas told him what happened to me, he went to a strip club instead.”
A part of me wishes that we had talked about this out in the waiting room, but now I know that it’s right for her to know the truth, however she found out about it.
“My baby and I deserve better,” Sydney says. “I’m going to take care of her on my own.”
“Her?” My eyes light up. She laughs and nods.
“Yep, they told me the sex. It’s a girl.”
I wrap my arms around her. “I’m so happy for you, Sydney. Now I get to be an auntie!”
“You’re going to be the best auntie in the world!”
“I’ll always be here for you,” I whisper into her ear and hold her for a long time.
31
Nicholas
When I invite her to dinner…
Sometimes, you have to go through a whole lot of shit to realize how lucky you really are.
These last few weeks with Olive have changed my life. I thought that I loved her before but now my love has magnified.
Being with her in a real place and being a normal couple, without the drama of what our lives were like before, has made me realize exactly why I want to spend the rest of my life with her.
Real life is all about the everyday moments. You can have an explosive love that takes you from one day to another, but it’s the moments in between that matter the most.
The person to marry is the one who you want to sit on the couch with forever.
It’s the person who can make you laugh and fill your heart with excitement and happiness.
It’s the person you want to go on an adventure with, life being the biggest adventure ever.
I invite her to dinner to our favorite restaurant. It’s modern and elegant but not particularly upscale.
It’s comfortable and it’s the place we have gone to a number of times since I got released. Originally, I planned on waiting until dessert but I’m too nervous to prolong this much longer.
As soon as the server brings us our drinks, I get down on one knee and look into her beautiful wide eyes.
“Olive Kernes, I have loved you since the moment I met you. And that’s a difficult thing for me to admit since I don’t believe in love at first sight.”
She lets out a small laugh but her body continues to tremble.
“Olive Kernes, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
I open the ring box and look up at her. She doesn’t even look at the ring, and instead just stares into my eyes. Big fat tears roll down her cheeks. She covers her mouth with her hand and nods.
“Is that a yes?” I ask, also tearing up.
“Yes,” she manages through the sobs. “Yes, a million times yes.”
Our food arrives when we are still wiping away the last of our tears. People around us clap and celebrate with us and the server brings us a complimentary bottle of champagne.
“What kind of wedding do you think you want?” I ask, taking a bite of my salad. She doesn’t answer right away, instead locking her eyes on the diamond ring on her left hand.
“This isn’t real, right?” she asks after a moment.
I shrug.
“C’mon, this must be three carats or something ridiculous.” She laughs.
“Something ridiculous,” I say coyly.
“Did you seriously spend all of your money on this ring? ‘Cause if you did then you’re in serious trouble.”
I laugh again, but she kicks me under the table until I stop.
“Let me level with you,” I say, taking a sip of the champagne. “It is three and a half carats, with the highest quality diamond and a platinum band.”
Olive shakes her head in disbelief.
“But I did not spend all of my money on it. Actually, if you want to be technical, it’s our money, remember? The Monet was actually worth a lot more than we thought and I was able to fetch a cool ten for it.”
“Ten? Ten what?”
I tilt my head without saying a word.
“Ten million?” she asks, whispering the word million while looking around the room hoping that no one is eavesdropping on our conversation. I give her a slight nod.
“Are you serious?”
I give her another nod.
“But…how?” she asks. “Owen didn’t tell me where he hid it and he wasn’t going to tell you.”
“Of course not.” I laugh. “But he’s also a creature of habit. He didn’t know many people on the outside he could trust and he certainly couldn’t put it in a safe deposit box so he hid it in the only place he knew of.”
“Where?” Olive asks.
“Your mom’s house.”
“Really?” she asks, spitting out her crouton. “Are you serious?”
I shrug and flash her a smile.
“Oh my God, I was such an idiot for not checking there.”
“Eh, it was just a fluke that it was there,” I say generously. “I figured it was worth a look and it turned out that it was more than worth it.”
“How did you do it?” Olive asks, grabbing a piece of French bread and breaking it in half.
“Same way I’ve always done it,” I say with a shrug. “I snuck in once to see if it was there, took pictures, made a replica, and then snuck in again and switched it.”
Olive starts to laugh. “Owen is going to be so mad,” she says. “Honestly, I’m a little surprised that my mom hasn’t sold it.”
“I don’t think she knew that it was real. I think she’s keeping it for sentimental reasons.”
“Well, in that case, she should be perfectly happy with the fake one,” she says, pulling my hand to her lips and kissing it.
“You never answered my question,” I point out when our dessert arrives.
“What’s that?”
“What kind of wedding do you want?”
32
Olive
When we exchange vows…
We drive to the courthouse together two days later. I’m dressed in jeans and a white knit top. Instead of satin heels, I wear mid-calf vegan leather boots.
The day is dreary and cold but I feel anything but that in my heart and mind. I am about to marry my best friend and the love of my life and I know that no matter what happens in the future my love for him and his love for me is never going to change.
I didn’t want to wear a gown or even a dress and even though it’s eating Sydney up on the inside, she bites her tongue and lets me do what I want to.
I know that this day is supposed to be special and we make it special by dressing up but in my case, I’d rather just wear what I feel comfortable in, knowing that it’s going to be special no matter what.
As I walk into the judge’s chambers, I don’t feel any regrets about anything. When my eyes meet Nicholas’ and he gives me that wink of his, I know that we are going to be happy for a very long time.
“I, Nicholas, take you, Olive, to be my friend, my lover, and my wife. I will be yours in times of plenty and in times of want, in times of sickness and in times of health, in times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of failure and in times of triumph.”
Tears start to stream down my face as my body trembles. His voice cracks a little as he continues, “I promise to cherish and respect you, to care for and protect you, to comfort and encourage you, and to stay with you for all eternity.”
I take a deep breath. Now, it’s my turn.
“I, Olive, take you, Nicholas, to be my husband, my partner, and my one true love. I will cherish and love you for the rest of my days. I will trust and respect
you, laugh with you and cry with you and love you through good times and bad.”
“Nicholas, do you take this woman to be your wife?” the judge asks.
“I do,” he whispers, squeezing my hand.
“Olive, do you take this man to be your husband?”
“Of course,” I mumble through the tears. I hear their laughter behind me.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘I do,’ honey,” Josephine says. She flew in on the red-eye last night just to be here for this moment.
“Let’s try this again,” the judge suggests and asks me again.
I look into his eyes and smile.
“I do,” I say and we put on our wedding rings.
“By the power vested in me by the State of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss.”
Nicholas takes me into his arms and presses his lips onto mine.
A YEAR AND A HALF LATER…
Lying on my back in the cool refreshing water, I watch him from a distance. The waves aren’t very big today but Nicholas is still out there on his surfboard giving it his all. He looks just as muscular and sexy as ever and with that sun-kissed tan, he looks even more gorgeous.
I watch the turquoise water run over my fingers as I dip them below the horizon and taste its saltiness with my tongue.
Going swimming has become something of a mid-morning ritual for us over the past year and we even schedule our plans to make sure that we don’t miss it. This morning, however, I have to cut the swimming short.
“You’re going in already?” Nicholas yells, getting up after riding another wave.
“Yeah, I have some work to do,” I say, waddling out onto the shore. The weightlessness that I felt disappears and I’m suddenly reminded of exactly how heavy I really am. One more month to go, I say to myself, rubbing my giant belly.
I walk down the sandy pathway leading up to our cottage. A nearby palm tree sways in the light breeze. I open the gate to the white-picket fence and glance at the freshly painted blue shutters.
Inside, I place the laptop on the dining room table right next to the window overlooking the ocean and watch Nicholas go after another wave.
I open the computer and scroll through the five chapters that I have already written. Mom, who I used to call Josephine, gave me the idea and it is to her that this book, the story of how we fell in love, is dedicated.
I look over my notes of what I want to cover in the next chapter and begin to write.
***
Thank you for reading TELL ME TO LIE!
I hope you enjoyed the epic conclusion of Nicholas and Olive’s story. Want to dig into another AMAZING novel?
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Not long ago, there was nothing I couldn’t have. Now, I don’t even have the choice of whom to marry.
To save my father’s life and our family’s legacy, I have to marry a cruel man who wants me only as a trophy.
Henry Asher was just supposed to be a summer fling, but we fell in love. We thought we would be together forever, but life got in the way. After we broke up, I vowed to never tell Henry the truth about my engagement.
What happens when the lies that were supposed to save me start to drown me?
HENRY ASHER
I didn’t always have wealth or power. There was even a time when I didn’t want any of that.
Then I met her: Aurora Tate is an heiress to a billion-dollar fortune. She grew up on Park Avenue, had a house in the Hamptons and skied in Aspen. Our first summer together was magical. We were naive enough to think that love was going to be enough.
Now, she’s forced to marry a man she hates to save her father's life.
To get her back and to make her my wife, I need to become the man she needs me to be.
Can I do it in time?
One-click DANGEROUS ENGAGEMENT now!
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Excerpt of Dangerous Engagement (Wedlock Trilogy Book 1)
Chapter 1 - Aurora
I watch him from afar. I know him even though I don’t even know his name. He probably wants everything that’s mine. He imagines that my life is wonderful and fun and full of possibilities that he could only dream of. What he doesn’t know is how boring it can be or how isolating.
I have my parents, my friends, my parents extended social circle, and even my grandparents. But none of them really know me. I wish they did.
Not even my therapist knows me.
Everywhere I go, I wear a false face and it makes my life a farce.
My makeup and dress are my armor.
Thousand dollar shoes. Two thousand dollar bags. Three thousand dollar dresses.
My closet is as big as most one-bedroom apartments in New York City. I can buy anything and therefore, I want nothing.
My therapist thinks that I’m depressed. She diagnosed me with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and prescribed meds that I don’t want to take. Maybe I am depressed. But who wouldn’t be? I’m in my mid-twenties and I can be anything I want. The only problem is that I don’t want to do anything.
During the year I stay busy by going to school. The classes give me some structure to the day.
I take four each semester and between that, studying, the gym, and the weekly spa session, I manage to stay busy enough to forget how bored I am.
On the weekends, my girlfriends, the ones working sixty hours a week at non-paying internships for famous designers, artists, and gallery owners insist that I pull myself away from my books and my boring grad-school “friends” and hang with them instead. Their parties are usually two-day affairs that require helicopter rides and mansions in far-flung places. It’s the stuff of dreams, or in my case, nightmares.
They say friends using quotation marks because they know that those people are not really my friends at all. They're just people I know. What my other friends don’t know, however, is that they aren’t really my friends either. They are just people I have known longer.
This guy with his hazel eyes, casual smile, and cheap clothes probably thinks the same thing of me as everyone else. That I’m just a spoiled little girl who has had everything handed to her, that I have never worked hard for anything, and I will never deserve anything I have.
I don’t blame him. A part of me thinks the same way. What else can you think? My father owns a media empire and has dominated New York society ever since he came onto the scene in the 1980s. He owns hundreds of buildings and homes in New York and around the world. He’s someone every businessman wants to be but can’t because he will never step down.
I’m his oldest child and he wants to groom me to take over, but I know that that will never happen. He is not the type to retire. He’s not the type to fade away. Besides, I have no interest in running an empire. I want to carve out my own place in this world, what that is exactly I do not know yet.
Neither of my parents understand this, even though they should. They both came from nothing and they both grew Tate Media into what it is today. My mother was not the type to stay at home. She is Tate's Chief Financial Officer and that’s just scratching the surface of what she does there.
My parents are Tate Media. They have built it from scratch, buying up one distressed radio station at a time. They know the ins and outs of the whole business and, despite all of that, they have never made me feel welcome there.
I have spent one long and miserable summer there during my sophomore year with both of them looking over my shoulder and micro-managing my every move. After that, I said no more and promised myself that I would never work there again.
The guy glances at me. I sit back in the lounger and point my toes. I take a sip of my margarita, pursing my lips just so. I adjust my Chanel sunglasses and oversized floppy hat to both hide my gaze and to g
et a better look at him.
He’s cute enough and probably witty, to a degree, but I wish that people weren’t so predictable. I know exactly what he’s going to say before he says it. I know exactly what he’s going to compliment me on and what he’s going to pay attention to. There is no surprise and without that, he will be just like a hundred others I’ve met who did not hold my interest.
He walks up to me slowly. I brace myself for a boring pick-up line. He looks deep into my eyes, so deeply in fact that I can't look away. I pull my sunglasses to the bridge of my nose and wait for him to open his mouth. His lips curl at the corners, but only slightly.
“Have you ever read Flannery O’Connor?"
I sit back in my seat, taken aback. Hmm…this is interesting.
“Of course,” I say, raising one eyebrow.
"She's one of my favorite writers,” he says, spreading his shoulders out widely. He holds a mop in one hand and with the other runs his fingers through his hair.
The confidence he exudes is overwhelming, and a little off-putting. “Why are you asking about her?”
“Well, I was just reading one of her stories this morning before work, Good Country People. You know it?”
I nod.
“Really?” he asks as if he doesn’t believe me.
He is challenging me, which is not something that usually happens. No, let me amend that. That’s not something that has ever happened.
"It's about Joy, a thirty-two-year-old atheist and a PhD student of philosophy who lives with her small-minded mother,” I say, focusing my eyes directly on his. “Joy doesn't have a leg because she lost it in a childhood shooting accident. A Bible salesman comes to see them and her mother believes that he is good country people, as they say. Then he invites Joy out for a date and that's when things get, let's just say interesting.”
Tell me to Lie Page 13
