by Aubrey Dark
The thought made me more depressed than I would care to admit. My nerves strung out, and I was tense putting Kit to bed that night. I waited in my room, listening to the baby monitor and hoping that William would appear in my doorway again.
He didn’t.
Another day passed. Then another. William came home late from work and avoided me in the mornings. I took care of Kit and met with the wedding planner. Day by day the wedding crept closer. Five days left. Then four. Then three. He would have to get the divorce taken care of before then. Right? I tried to bring it up a couple of times, but he waved away my concerns, saying that he was “working on it.”
Then, in the morning, I found him in his home office, talking with Shawna. She was leaning over his desk, looking at some paperwork. Her cream turtleneck sweater and dark navy pencil skirt fit her slim frame perfectly.
This was the kind of woman he should be marrying.
The thought came to my mind unbidden, and I struggled to drive it away. Shawna wasn’t interested in William, of course. But the image—everything she represented— was the opposite of me. She was graceful, delicate, sophisticated, well-dressed and put together. I had half of Kit’s breakfast smeared over the shoulder of a frumpy sweater and hair that hadn’t seen a brush since I pulled myself off of the pillow.
Before I’d met William, my work nights had been my time to dress up. Ever since he’d caught me, though, I hadn’t been taking any time to make myself look good. I hadn’t needed to.
I was about to turn away from the doorway. Then I heard her say it.
“She’s not worth all this trouble.”
My feet froze, glued to the floor. I didn’t want to hear it, but I had to.
“You don’t have a better option,” William said. “Do you?”
“Not this soon. We’ll have to make do.”
“Then don’t bring it up again.”
His voice was gruff, irritated, and I turned away from the door, leaning back against the wall. He was obviously upset about having to deal with my divorce before the wedding. And if he had any other choice, he would have taken it instead of me. But he didn’t have another choice.
“You outdid yourself,” Shawna was saying. “A thief and a married woman.”
She knew.
My heart dropped down into my gut and rolled over twice. Shawna knew about me. Who else knew? Who else had William told? My body burned with a deep shame like nothing I’d felt before.
“Enough. Can you push the paperwork through? That’s all I need to know.”
“We have the judge waiting for one more signature.”
“I thought he was served papers.”
“There are structural limitations on being served. The deadlines are measured in weeks, not days. It doesn’t work with our timeline. Unless you want a sham wedding, and cross your fingers that there aren’t any further delays before the board meeting—”
“No.” William’s voice went softer, so that I could barely hear it. “I’ll do it.”
“William, you can’t—”
“No more arguing. It needs to get done, yes? Then I’ll do it. That’s how things get done.”
I heard his footsteps moving toward the hallway. Quickly, I backed up a few steps and pretending to be walking towards his room when he came out of the doorway. He looked surprised to see me.
“Good morning!” I said brightly, although my heart ached to see him. As Shawna stepped out beside him, holding a folder under her arm, I bit my lip. I didn’t know how to react to her anymore. She knew I was a phony, a fake. “Hi, Shawna.”
“Good morning,” Shawna said, her voice not revealing any emotion. If she hated me, I wouldn’t know, I realized. She had done a good job covering up the fact that she knew about my thieving.
Was William the same way? Did he hate me, deep down? Was he covering up all of his real feelings, too? I felt lost. Normally I would say that I was an expert at faking, but I felt out of my depth completely. The two of them were acting like nothing had changed.
“Isn’t my mother here yet?” William asked frowning. “She was supposed to be here by now.”
“Your mother?”
“William! Sierra!”
Bobbi’s voice floated up to us from the front entrance.
“Coming, Mom!” he shouted back.
“What’s your mom doing here?” I asked, confused, as we started making our way down the hallway.
“I forgot to tell her,” Shawna said, pulling out her phone. “It was supposed to be a surprise, anyway.”
“What was supposed to be a surprise?”
“Surprise!” Bobbi popped her head into the hall. “Are you ready for spa day?!”
“Spa day?” I stared at her, agog. She was dressed in a black kimono embroidered in gold, and chic gold flats.
“Oh, sweetie, you look like you need it, don’t you?”
Bobbi swept me into her arms, giving me a tight hug before going over to greet William and Shawna.
“Spa day?” I repeated. “But…but… it’s Teresa’s day off.”
“Exactly!” Bobbi said. “Oh, Will, I’m so glad you didn’t ruin the surprise!”
“Of course not,” William said, not meeting my gaze. He hadn’t ruined the surprise because he hadn’t been talking to me. At all.
Bobbi bubbled on.
“Teresa is waiting for us in the car. I thought you would like a girls’ day out. Kind of a mini bachelorette party with your maid of honor and your new mother-in-law.”
“What about Kit?”
“She’s invited, of course! I want to spend some time with my new little baby girl.” Bobbi beamed.
“It’s kind of a hippie spa,” Shawna explained coolly, tapping away at her phone as she talked. “They let kids and dogs in. Don’t ask me how that’s a day of relaxation.”
“You’ll love it,” Bobbi said, ignoring Shawna. “Come on! We have our seaweed wraps scheduled for ten o’clock.”
“Seaweed?”
“Exactly,” Shawna said, her manicured eyebrow sweeping upward. “Watch out if she tries to make you drink something green.”
“It’s pressed wheatgrass juice, and it’s perfectly healthy,” Bobbi countered.
“If you need coffee, there’s a Verve next door,” Shawna said, eyeing me pityingly. “Just in case, you know, the wheatgrass doesn’t do it for you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Have fun,” William said. He bent forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. I stiffened at the brush of his lips, even as the heat raced through my veins.
It’s not real.
Bobbi was the only one there who didn’t know about the fake marriage. This was all a show for her. I smiled weakly as William pulled away, his hand caressing my shoulder.
He did such a good job pretending, he almost made me feel like he cared.
We arrived at Zen Fury Day Spa ten minutes late. The staff greeted us enthusiastically, though, pushing champagne glasses into our hands. Kit got a clear plastic sippy cup instead.
“Organic mimosas,” Bobbi explained, as I stared down at the glass. “The best way to start a day.”
“To your wedding!” Teresa said, holding her glass up in the air. “To William and Sierra!”
A hollow feeling sunk in my chest, but I did my best to toast cheerfully. We all clinked glasses, including Kit.
“Don’t worry,” the attendant whispered to me. “Hers is orange juice and sparkling water.”
“Darn,” I said, taking a small sip. “I was hoping she’d be knocked out early for naptime.”
Bobbi and Teresa laughed as Kit hiccuped and lifted her cup in the air.
“More, please!” she chirped.
“Like mother, like daughter,” Teresa quipped, elbowing me in the waist.
I didn’t feel like drinking, though. My stomach was churning, and I was happy to exchange my mimosa when the attendants offered us lemon ginger tea. I didn’t know what it was—nerves? Pre-wedding jitters? The way my gut
s roiled made me think that maybe I had overindulged in dinner the night before.
“Now both of you get robed up,” Bobbi said, shooing us toward the dressing room. “We have a full day of relaxing ahead of us!”
“I’m a little nervous about all this,” I whispered to Teresa, as I tugged on the bandeau bra and underwear that the attendants had given us.
“How hard could it be?” Teresa asked, shrugging. “It’s a Zen spa.”
“Zen Fury,” I corrected.
“I plan on being furiously Zen by the end of the day.” Teresa struck a pose in her bamboo-fiber robe. “How do I look?”
“Like you need a heavy dose of zenning out,” I said. “Let’s see what my mother-in-law to be has in mind for us.”
“Two more days, and you’ll be married,” Teresa said wondrously. “That’s so incredible.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything more. Teresa, despite her misgivings over the quick nuptials, had fallen for William’s charm. And Bobbi seemed to like me more than I had imagined was possible. Everything was working out. Everything, that is, except the relationship between the bride and the groom.
As it turned out, Zen Fury was the right name for the spa. I felt like I had been sucked into a whirlwind of wraps and massages. We started out with a warm seaweed wrap—to draw out the toxins, Bobbi explained—while our eyes and cheeks were coated in a cucumber pulp facial. Then came an exfoliation after the cucumber pulp, followed by a hot oil deep tissue massage that made me want to curl up and sleep for a week.
Kit’s favorite was by far the honey treatment. After opening our pores with a hot stone sauna, the spa attendants smeared raw honey all over our faces, rubbing in the thick goop directly into our pores while a Gregorian chant played in the background. Kit loved honey more than anything, and the attendant soon gave up on trying to get her from licking it all off.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was simultaneously starving and exhausted. While we soaked our feet in hot lemon water, the attendants brought us tea and sushi.
“I could live like this forever,” Teresa said, lying back in her chair and popping a piece of California roll into her mouth.
“We’ll have to make it a standing date,” Bobbi said, smiling with closed eyes. “Say, every other Tuesday?”
“Heck yeah!” Teresa said enthusiastically.
“What do you think?” Bobbi asked, putting her hand lightly on mine. “Is the wheatgrass juice too much?”
“It’s delicious,” I said, taking another sip of the bright green juice. “I don’t know what Shawna was talking about.”
Kit had finished her spring roll and was chasing a poodle around the koi pond in the middle of the spa courtyard.
“Oh, she likes her spas more high-class than this,” Bobbi said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as high-class as this,” I said honestly.
“What about at the Red Baron?” Teresa interjected.
“What’s that?”
“It’s where she works,” Teresa said, before I could stop her. “She’s a waitress at this high-end night club.”
“I thought William said you worked at an art nonprofit,” Bobbi said, crunching on a carrot spear.
My tongue went numb as I tried to decide which lie to double down on. My best friend and my mother in law, and neither of them knew what I really did for a living.
I steal, I wanted to scream. I’ve been lying to both of you since the beginning. I’m a thief, nothing else.
“The art thing doesn’t pay much,” I mumbled. “And the nightclub gives me benefits.”
Benefits like a wallet from a suit pocket, or a cufflink from a sleeve.
Teresa eyed me sideways, but said nothing. Thankfully, Bobbi changed the subject to the afternoon manicure we’d be getting, and I gratefully went along with it, chatting about nail polish colors. We decided that I should have an ivory-toned pearl polish to match my dress, but Teresa insisted that at least one of my toenails should be tipped blue.
“Something borrowed, something blue,” she intoned. “And your wedding color is green. Nothing else blue will look good.”
“That reminds me,” Bobbi said, “I have some pearl earrings that I think would be lovely with the dress. If you like them, that can be your something borrowed.”
“I like both of those ideas,” I said.
“But first,” Bobbi said, finishing off her wheatgrass juice, “we have a mudbath to attend to.”
“Mud, mud, mud!” Kit shrieked happily, splashing away. The attendants had given her a full tub of her own to play with, and she was having a blast.
I sighed and let myself soak back. There was mud everywhere—between my toes, in my armpits, in certain other nameless places—but I didn’t feel dirty. It felt like every part of stressed-out me was getting sucked out through my pores. The mud was soft and almost silky smooth on my skin. I wiggled happily as I sipped a green tea, my third that day. Even with so much hanging over my head, spending this kind of time with Bobbi, Teresa, and Kit was good for my nerves.
Afterward, we showered off. Teresa hung back with Kit, who’d wanted an extra five minutes to play in the mud. I was about to head to the manicure chairs, but Bobbi caught my arm.
“Sierra,” she said, her face serious. “I want to talk with you.”
My throat closed up a bit. I’d never seen Bobbi looking so solemn.
“It’s about your work,” she said.
Oh, God. I swallowed hard.
“Yeah?” I asked timidly.
“I want you to know that whatever you do, it doesn’t matter to me,” she said, pressing my hands between hers. “Whether you do administrative work or waitressing, the most important thing is whether or not you make William happy. Understood?”
I nodded, biting back my tears.
“Please don’t think that you have to show off for me,” Bobbi said. “I love you the same, whatever your job is.”
“Alright,” I whispered.
“Wonderful,” Bobbi said, her skin wrinkling into a bright smile. “Now let’s go get done up properly for this wedding!”
I followed her into the manicure room, my heart heavy. She would care what I did for a living if she knew the real me. And now I felt even worse about deceiving her.
Would I ever be able to stop living a lie?
Chapter 23
Two days. Two days before the wedding. I’d been forcing myself to stay away from Sierra, for fear that I would give into the urge to sweep her back into my bed and make things even more complicated than they already were. The strain of suppressing my desire had taken its toll on me, and I was more stressed than I’d been before any financial acquisition I’d ever overseen. Both Sanders and Dexter were pressing me on their Dubai deal. And I hadn’t made any headway on the divorce proceedings.
No, that wasn’t true. Shawna had lined up all of the paperwork. We’d gotten everything figured out. Everything, that is, except for one tiny detail: we needed Justin’s signature on the divorce papers.
A contested divorce was possible, but it would take much longer and would require a court hearing. I was hoping not to have to do that. We had his address. And I had a plan.
I waited until Sierra was gone with my mother. Then I snuck into her bedroom. The floor was littered with Kit’s toys. I kicked them out of the way and made my way to her dresser. It felt strange to rifle through the contents of her clothing, pushing aside underwear and bras. My mind drifted into the image of Sierra dressed in only those underwear. How her breasts had swung, tantalizing, when she dropped her bra coyly to the floor.
God damn. It wasn’t here.
I cast my eyes around the room. Where would she have put it?
In the closet, I swept my hands along all of her coats and dresses, searching through her pockets. It embarrassed me to be like this. What if she came back and found me? I would be no better than her, stealing through the coat closet at the luncheon.
This was different, I
told myself. I was doing this for her.
On tiptoe, I looked above the closet hangers on the top shelf. Boxes and boxes of shoes. I turned away, dismayed, but then—
Of course. She would have hidden it well.
I pulled over a chair and started going through the shoe boxes one by one. I was almost to the last box before I found it.
“Eureka,” I said, oddly self-satisfied. I hefted the gun in my hand, feeling the cool metal against my skin. Making sure the safety was on, I slipped the gun into my waistband and pulled my suit jacket over it. You couldn’t even see that I was carrying a gun.
Step one of the plan: complete.
“Are you almost ready to go?”
I stumbled, falling off of the chair. Shawna crossed her arms in the doorway as I pulled my suit jacket shut and buttoned it quickly.
“Just about ready,” I said.
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing in your fiancee’s shoe closet,” Shawna said. “I don’t want to know any more dark Fawkes secrets.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” I said, breezing past. “Did you call the attorney?”
“He’s waiting for the signature,” Shawna said. “How are you planning to get her ex to sign?”
“It’s a secret,” I said, walking out the door without looking back at her. “A dark Fawkes secret. Don’t ask.”
We pulled up to the address at noon.
“Is this the right place?” Shawna asked, checking her phone again for the address.
“Sure is,” I said, putting the car in park.
“He lives in an actual junkyard?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a trailer in the junkyard,” I said. “But yes. We’re at the right place.”
“You picked a great woman to get involved with,” Shawna said, thumbing toward the giant misspelled No Tresspassing sign with a picture of a Rottweiler underneath. “Sure you don’t want to let the lawyers figure this one out?”
“They couldn’t get the signature before,” I said, gritting my teeth and pushing open the rusty gate. “When you want something done right—”
