by Aubrey Dark
Sierra glanced toward the door, then shoved a hand into her bra, coming up with a palmful of bills. Quickly, she replaced the money in three different suit pockets. I wasn’t sure what surprised me more—that the men would have left so much money in a coat room, or that she remembered exactly where each sum of money had come from.
“You’re going to go home now with Shawna,” I said, thumbing out the cash she had asked for.
“You don’t want me at the luncheon? I’m sorry. William, I am. I didn’t mean anything by it, honestly. I wouldn’t have gotten caught.” Her voice sounded hurt, and for a moment I wanted to put my arms around her. Instead, I handed her the money.
“It’s not a good idea for you to stay,” I said. Now that I had caught her stealing again, I was having second thoughts. Shawna was right. I needed to do the background check before letting anything get out of hand. “Let’s go.”
I pulled her out of the coat room. Shawna was hovering by the outside entrance, and she looked surprised to see us come out of the coat room.
“Let’s go,” I said, tugging Sierra toward her.
“We can’t—” she started to say, but then the door behind her opened.
“Oh, William! You arrived just at the right time!” My mother threw her arms out and wrapped me in a big hug.
Shit. Maybe I could tell Sierra to take off the ring. But before I could even catch her eye, my mother had already seen it.
“What is that?”
“What is what?” Sanders asked, coming up behind my mother. “Hey, Will.”
“Is that what I think it is?” My mother grabbed Sierra’s hand. Sierra looked at me for guidance. “Congratulations! I’m right, aren’t I, William?”
“Yes,” I said, deciding on the spot that it wasn’t worth trying to hide. “We wanted to tell you—”
“Aiiiiii!” She shrieked and nearly tore Sierra’s head off as she swung her around in a hug. “I knew it! I knew it from the moment I met you at that dinner. I told Sanders, didn’t I, Sanders?”
“She told me,” Sanders said, turning to me with his voice lower. “Of course, she’s told me that about every girl you’ve ever dated. But congrats, Will!”
“Told you what?” Dexter said, arriving late through the door. He handed his coat to the attendant and came over.
“William is engaged!”
“No way! Congrats, bro!”
Shawna was staring daggers at me. My mother was still attached to Sierra’s side. And while Sierra looked a bit flushed from all the attention, she didn’t seem nervous. I let out a breath. She’d told me that she had no criminal record. That she’d never been caught before. I would have to trust her. At least, until I could look up her record after the luncheon.
I really, really hoped that I could trust her.
The luncheon went smoothly. One by one, my father’s former business partners got up on stage to talk about his legacy. Without exception, they talked about his successes—the efficient mergers, the acquisitions of the company. The value of our stock.
Looking around, I realized that nobody here was simply a friend. They were all connected to his business in some way. And I felt ashamed, listening to the roll call of all of the important things that my father had done…for the company. Was this going to be my legacy, too, once I was gone? Would people ever remember me as a person, or only as a businessman?
Sanders and Dexter were looking at me, and I realized that it was my turn to speak. Walking up to the podium, I clutched the tribute that Shawna had written in my hand. The paper seemed flimsy, unimportant, and as I stood in front of the room full of businessmen, the words swam on the page before my eyes.
“Thank you all for coming today,” I said, trying to compose myself. “It’s been wonderful to hear so many people speak so kindly about my father. And since I’m the oldest of all of his sons, if only by a minute or two, they decided that I should be the one to come up here to speak.”
A chuckle spread through the room. All of the men there knew that I had been the one to run the business when my father had passed. Sanders had run off to party at college, and Dexter had run even farther away, to find himself in the military. I was the oldest, yes, but I was the only one there who had cared about keeping the business in the family.
I pinched the piece of paper in my fingers, folding it. There was no way I could speak Shawna’s words. They weren’t what I wanted to say. As I waited, sorting through my thoughts, I saw some people shift awkwardly in their seats.
“I took over this business a decade ago when my father died. Many of you knew him as a peer, but I only knew him as a role model.”
He did this to you.
“He wasn’t a perfect role model. He wasn’t a perfect father or a perfect husband.”
My mother put down her napkin, leaning back in her chair. I could see the worry in her eyes.
“There’s no man who is perfect, no perfect husband or father. I know that now. When I was young, I wanted him to be perfect. And that’s why, when he died, I decided that I would follow in his footsteps. Why did I care so much about the company? I wanted to take care of my mother and my brothers, but it was more than that. I’d wanted in some way to get the same kind of recognition that my father had managed to accomplish. I’d wanted to do what he had done. And I wanted to do it better.”
I looked around the room at the men and women dressed in their finery, expensive plates of food half-eaten in front of them. Silence hung over the room. I looked at my family’s table and saw Sierra, her dark eyes evaluating my words.
“It’s been ten years since my father’s passing. And not a day goes by when I don’t ask myself how I can do better. I realize now that I’m not perfect. I’ll make mistakes. We all do. But I will try not to make the same mistakes that my father made. And I hope that we all strive to make this company a better company. Not only for our stockholders, but for ourselves and for our clients. For the people whose lives we affect with our business.”
Sierra pursed her lips, looking down.
“Today, I’d like to announce that I’m engaged to be married,” I said. A murmur of surprise ran through the room, and for a few seconds, the previous silence was broken. “And while I am sure I won’t be a perfect husband or a perfect father, I’ll do my best. Just as I do my best every day for the company my father created. Just as I ask you to do your personal best. If there’s one way to honor my father’s legacy, it is to do the best that we can. Thank you all.”
I stepped down, the scattering of applause a blur of sound in my ears. My mother stood up and hugged me, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then I bent and kissed Sierra lightly on the lips before sitting down. Eyes bored into the back of my head. I could almost hear the question that was running through the minds of the men who I’d worked with for the past ten years: Who was this woman?
The problem was, I couldn’t even answer that question myself.
Chapter 18
“What’s your vision?”
“My vision?”
I was sitting across from the wedding planner, whose perky attitude and commercial-perfect white teeth were having a real irritating effect on me. William’s personal assistant, Shawna, sat next to me on the cream leather couch in the pristine office decorated like a bridal suite. She was supposed to be taking notes, but so far she had spent most of the meeting texting furiously with William’s business partners.
“You know,” the wedding planner said, nodding at me with a smile that would have blinded Stevie Wonder. “Your grand vision for how the wedding should go.”
“I… don’t really have one.”
“Don’t be shy. William Fawkes has told me that I should do whatever I need to to make things perfect for you.”
The wedding planner leaned forward and put her hand on my knee, as though we were conspiring about napkin color and flower arrangements.
“You are a very lucky woman, believe me,” she said. “He must love you very much.”
“He
’s a wonderful man,” I agreed, biting my lip. “So, about this vision thing. What do people normally, uh, envision?”
“Well, it all depends on your personality. Some women want a pink and white romantic luxury wedding. Some people want to go modern and high-class. There are plenty of venues in Denver and the surrounding areas that are special. You could do a wedding at a ski lodge—it’s not quite the prime season for a lodge wedding, but spring is lovely in the woods—”
“The woods,” I said, thinking of William’s house nestled amid the pines. My first wedding, to Justin, had been a hasty trip to Vegas. He hadn’t even shelled out for one of the fancier quicky wedding elopement spots. No, the place he’d chosen had been grimy and claustrophobic. When I envisioned the perfect wedding, I wanted exactly the opposite. “How about a wedding in the woods?”
“An outdoor wedding?” The wedding planner perked up even further. “Absolutely. We can do that. I know the perfect venue—”
“What did I miss?!”
William’s mom burst in through the door, waving her hands in the air.
She plopped herself down on the other side of me on the couch, kissing me on both cheeks and giving a wave to Shawna. Shawna smiled curtly and waved back.
“Sierra, I’m so glad to see you again!” Bobbi cried, as though we hadn’t seen each other at the luncheon only the day before.
I’d spent the rest of yesterday avoiding William, which, as it turns out, wasn’t that hard to do. After the luncheon, I’d escaped in my own car to take Kit to the park. He was so preoccupied with business that he hadn’t come home until after midnight. I’d still been up, but I’d pretended to be asleep, and he hadn’t even knocked at my door. Some part of me was disappointed that he hadn’t made any kind of move towards me after that one night. But I could understand.
I was a thief, after all. And this wasn’t a real wedding. I wasn’t a real wife. I had to remember that.
“Tell me what you’ve all been talking about,” Bobbi said excitedly.
“We’re thinking of an outdoor ceremony,” the wedding planner gushed.
“Oh, how wonderful! William always did love the outdoors,” Bobbi said.
Both Shawna and I looked at her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him outside,” Shawna said.
“When he was a boy, I couldn’t keep him out of the woods. He and Dexter both, like little monkeys climbing through the trees. They would come home with ticks in their hair that I had to comb out every night.”
The wedding planner grimaced at the mention of ticks. I suppose that was one less romantic aspect of the outdoors.
“What about flowers?” she asked.
“What’s your favorite kind of flower, Sierra?” Bobbi asked.
“Orchids,” I said.
“Mmm, orchids,” the planner said, scribbling down notes.
I don’t know what made me say that. I hadn’t ever really cared much about flowers. In my first wedding, Justin had shoved a wilted bouquet of cheap carnations in my hand before we said our vows.
But Teresa had once told me that there were two kinds of woman in the world—dandelions and orchids. Dandelion women would survive in any environment and any weather. They were tough, hardy, and they’d cling to life with a vengeance. Orchids, on the other hand, were delicate and fragile. They needed specific conditions around them in order to thrive.
I’m a dandelion, I’d proclaimed proudly. Try to rip me out, and I’ll invade your damn lawn.
Teresa had laughed and we’d cheered the notion of dandelion women. We were both single, independent babes. We didn’t need anything but ourselves, and we would take to the wind if anything happened to blow us about.
But I wasn’t going to be that woman anymore. I was William Fawkes’ bride-to-be. And William Fawkes would never go for a dandelion woman. No, certainly not. He would have an orchid woman, someone who would cling to him and depend on him in order to survive.
“Orchids,” I said again, more definitively. “Lots of them.”
“And ferns for the greenery,” Bobbi chimed in. “That will look wonderful in the woods.”
The rest of the meeting was a blur of conversation. Somehow I chose the colors we would use—pale green and ivory—and all of the kinds of decorations. I was pretending to be an orchid woman, someone who needed every detail to be just right. By the end of the hour, I was engrossed in deciding the type of lace that would fringe the tables, and having deep, ponderous discussions about what shape of candle would best suit the mood of the day.
I’d never considered myself to be particularly romantic, but it was actually kind of fun. Exhausting, but fun.
“Now,” Bobbi said, once we had stood up and left the wedding planner’s office, “I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?”
“I’m taking you dress shopping.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Now, don’t say anything just yet. William told me that you don’t have any women around in your family, and so I’m going to do my best. But if you decide I’m not good at helping you pick out a dress, feel free to fire me and choose it on your own.”
Bobbi looked up at me from under her pure-white pixie cut, and I swore that she looked a little timid. I beamed at her. It was good to have a mom to help me pick out a wedding dress. Even if it was a mother in law. A fake mother in law, at that. Bobbi had taken me under her wing almost immediately, and I only felt sorry that I wouldn’t be joining her family permanently. She seemed so excited to finally have a son who was getting married.
“Of course!” I said. “That would be wonderful!”
Bobbi hugged me tight around the waist and led me away to her car, an orange Datsun 740Z that looked like she’d driven it right off of a 1970’s racetrack. Shawna paused behind us, her phone still clutched in her hand.
“It looks like I have to go into the office,” she said. “Is there anything else you need from me today, Sierra?”
“No,” I said. “But thank you.”
“You’re going to have a great wedding,” she said, smiling. “Have fun doing girly things without me!”
I’d been intimidated by Shawna the first couple of times we’d met. She knew everything about William, it seemed—from how he took his coffee to his favorite color of necktie. And she was as businesslike as he was when it came to planning out daily itineraries. But she was unfailingly kind to me, and as I grew to know her, I realized that she loved the whirlwind of activity that surrounded William’s daily life.
I wanted to confide in her. Keeping the secret of a fake marriage was getting to be hard to bear. The divorce lawyer hadn’t told me much, but he’d taken my money and said that he would need more to file the paperwork and get someone to serve Justin with the papers. Shawna would have been able to settle everything in seconds, and I’d thought about asking her for help.
But she would tell William. And I didn’t want him to think there was anything wrong with me. If he called off the wedding, Kit would get nothing. And I couldn’t risk that.
At the dress shop, Bobbi immediately pulled out a dozen or so choices, ignoring the saleswoman. I was surprised that she was so interested—with her lime-green pantsuit and her pink scarf, I didn’t think that wedding dresses were really up her alley. But she tut-tutted the empire waist dress that was suggested, and flatly turned down the mermaid dress that was prominently on display at the front of the store.
“That won’t suit your figure or the location,” she said, eyeing me from top to toe. I squirmed, unsure about being evaluated on my hips and waist. “We want something lighter. Ethereal. You’re going to be like a fairy in the forest, my dear. I want you floating through the air when you walk down the aisle.”
I tried on a few different dresses. The first one was a classic A-line with folds that looked like icing on a cake. It looked gorgeous, I had to admit.
“Wow,” I said, twirling on the small stage in front of the mirror. “I feel like a princess.”
/>
“That’s exactly what you look like,” Bobbi said, rubbing her chin pensively. “But you’re not getting married in a castle. How in love with it are you?”
“Half in love,” I said. I could say the same about William, I thought.
“We’ll see if we can find something similar for you to fall completely in love with. You have a lovely shape, and those collarbones—my goodness, we need to show those off.”
I blushed at the lavish compliments.
“William is a lucky man,” Bobbi continued. “You know, I have been worried that he wouldn’t find a suitable girl to settle down with.”
I nearly choked, pulling off the first dress.
“Really?” I asked.
“He’s so isolated with his work. My other two boys have their own problems, to be sure, but they’ve never had trouble attracting female attention. They’ve always been able to find a date for dinner.”
“But William hasn’t?” I asked. I felt strange about pushing questions about William’s personal life. Still, I was curious.
“He was so involved in the business, he never cared about girls. And, well, you know how William can be so headstrong. He basically threw out the few girls who showed any interest. Not that they were right for him, mind you. It’s got to be a special woman who can match William’s intellect and good sense. You must be a diamond in the rough, dear.”
I was pink with embarrassment. What would she think if she found out why William had chosen me to marry?
“I’ve got to ask about your daughter,” Bobbi said. “I haven’t gotten a chance to meet her. And she will be my granddaughter, after all.”
“That’s probably why William doesn’t want you to meet her,” I said, deadpan. “If I haven’t scared you into conniptions by now, Kit will terrorize you into calling off the whole wedding.”
Bobbi’s laugh was like a jangle of gold chains.
“That must be why he chose you,” she said. “You have a wonderful sense of humor.”
“You think I’m joking,” I warned, “but she really is a menace to society.”
