by Aubrey Dark
“Do it yourself. Right, right,” Shawna said, stepping carefully around a rusted car fender.
“This isn’t Sierra’s fault, anyway,” I said. The junkyard was piled high with parted-out cars and broken appliances. “I don’t know why you blame her.”
“I don’t blame her,” Shawna said. “I blame you for getting involved with her.”
A gust of wind sent a cardboard box cartwheeling across our path. It blew straight into an open fridge door and a cat came tearing out with a yowl.
“She’s not a bad person,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t think she’s a bad person. She’s a better person than you, anyway.”
“What?”
I stopped, and Shawna stumbled into me.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Nothing. I only mean, you know, she has her kid. She’s a good mom. She takes care of her family.”
“And I don’t take care of my family?” I asked.
“You pay for your family,” Shawna said. “You work hard for your family.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“You feel obligated to make money to support them,” Shawna said. “And, if I may point out, you have enough invested to support them for quite a while. You work for fun. And that’s pretty much all you do.”
“Pot calling the kettle black,” I argued.
“Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy the challenge of working with you,” Shawna said. “Even if you make me crawl around dirty junkyards sometimes.”
“Thank you.”
“But if I had a trust fund like you do, I wouldn’t be off to work every morning. Sanders and Dexter spend lots of time hanging out with each other. Both of your brothers take your mom out to lunch.”
“I’m swamped with meetings—”
“—that you schedule,” Shawna interrupted. “I’m surprised you managed to take a week off for your supposed ‘honeymoon.’ If your calendar is any evidence, you can’t stand to be around your family.”
“That’s not true,” I said, but now I wasn’t certain. “I love them.”
“And you show it by spending all your time at work, and no time at all with them.”
I clamped my mouth shut. It was true, wasn’t it? I had thrown myself into the company business as headlong as my father had. And while he had supported us, I had never felt like he was a particularly loving or caring father. Was that what I was turning into?
“Then I want to do better,” I said. “Starting now.”
“Starting with your fake wife?”
“She—”
I stopped mid-sentence as I heard a door slam open ahead of us.
“Who’s there?”
I stepped ahead of Shawna and around a pile of dishwashers to see a weathered RV sitting in the middle of the junk. And Sierra’s asshole ex Justin standing on the steps. In front of him, a dog sat, growling. Which might have been menacing, had it been a Rottweiler. It wasn’t a Rottweiler, though. It was a miniature Doberman pincher, about a foot tall, and it started yapping its head off.
“Start taping,” I said.
Shawna pulled out her phone and began recording as I strode forward to the doorway. Justin recognized me too late. He tried to run back into the RV, but I caught the door with my foot and shoved it open, breaking the lock.
“Fuck off, asshole!” Justin yelled, backing into the RV. His face still wore a scab on his lip from where I’d punched him the first time.
“Hey Justin, we need to talk.”
He grabbed a baseball bat from the side of his bed and wielded it over his head. “You’re trespassing! I’ll smash your goddamn face in unless you leave right now!”
“Even trespassing doesn’t justify assault or murder,” I said calmly. “Shawna, did you get that death threat?”
“Loud and clear,” Shawna said, holding the cell phone high.
The little min-pin darted forward, then back, barking loudly but otherwise doing nothing at all.
“Turn that shit off!” Justin yelled, still holding the baseball bat. “I’ll fucking kill both of you!”
“Unfortunately for you, Shawna’s video is streaming to our backup server as we speak,” I said, folding my arms. “So if you kill us, the video will already be saved as evidence. Still want to bash our heads in?”
Justin looked uncertain. He let the baseball bat drop from over his shoulder.
“And will you shut that dog up?” Shawna said, glaring daggers at the small lapdog.
“Minnie, shut the fuck up,” Justin snapped, kicking his foot out. The minpin scurried under the raised mattress behind him, whimpering, and he threw the baseball bat down next to the dog. “Fine. What the fuck do you want?”
“You know what we want,” I said, holding my hand out. Shawna handed me the folder, and I placed it, open, onto the countertop next to a half-empty cereal bowl. “We want a signature.”
“I ain’t gonna give you a signature for nothing. I know my rights.”
He lifted his chin aggressively.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Justin’s gaze flickered over to Shawna, who was still holding her phone up to record.
“Turn it off,” I said. After a brief pause, she complied.
“You know what I want,” he said. “I want money.”
“Money?”
“You know what Sierra is, and so do I. Her and her dad, and the only reason she never got thrown in jail was that sweet pussy of hers. You want me to keep quiet, you pay.”
I gritted my teeth at his description.
“You think she’s all peaches and pie?” he continued. “You have no idea the kind of girl she is. She’s a goddamn thief!”
Right now, the only thing I couldn’t believe was that Sierra had ever married a man like this. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.
“I have no illusions about her former profession.”
“Former? You think she’s going to give it up that easy, huh?”
“That’s my problem.” I thought of Sierra in the coat room. But she had been trying to get money for a lawyer. To get away from this jerk. The thought only spurred me on.
“Not unless you pay,” he spat. “I already told Sierra. Or I’ll go to court and get Kirsten back. She’s my baby girl.”
“Funny about that,” I said. “I haven’t seen you visiting your baby girl that much.”
“Fuck you.”
“Listen to me right now,” I said, letting my anger seep into my words. I couldn’t believe that this guy was trying to hold Kit hostage for money. “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to give you.”
A greedy glint sparked in the man’s eyes. He glanced down at the divorce papers, then back up at me.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I’m going to give you exactly five seconds to sign those papers.”
I tossed a pen down on the folder. Justin scoffed.
“Fuck you, man—”
“No,” I said, pulling out Sierra’s gun and aiming it at his head. “Fuck you.”
Behind me, Shawna gasped.
“William—” she said.
“Sign the papers.”
Justin stared balefully at the muzzle of the gun pointed at his head.
“Or what? You’re gonna shoot me?”
I whipped the gun across the side of his head. It made a loud crack against his skull and he gripped his head in his hands.
“OW!”
“Shawna, remind me, are you still taping?”
“No sir.”
“You know something?” I asked, leaning toward Justin. “I don’t think I am going to shoot you today. But let me remind you of something. I have a hundred people who would be happy to pull the trigger for me at any time if I asked them nicely. And it’s a lot easier to get married to a widow than it is to get married to someone with an asshole ex who won’t sign the divorce papers.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“I don’t t
hink you want to do that, Justin,” I said softly. “I think you want to get rid of me, because right now you’re irritating me. And bad things happen to people who irritate me.”
Justin sniffed, wiping the back of his hand on his temple. He stared down angrily at the papers.
“You’re not gonna give me anything?” he asked, his voice bitter.
I stood up straight, the gun hanging loosely by my side.
“You want to know what I’m giving you? I’m raising your child. I’m giving her a college education. Unless you fuck it up. Then she gets nothing, and you get to be on my bad side.”
Justin sat for a moment, his breaths coming fast. Then he grabbed the pen.
“Don’t bother me again,” he said, scrawling his signature across the pages. “Alright?”
“You won’t have to worry about that,” I said. I waited until he had finished signing, and picked up the folder.
“Sorry about breaking your door.” I tossed a couple of hundred dollar bills on the table before turning away from his hateful glare.
As Shawna and I walked out of the junkyard, I realized that my heart was pounding fast. Before, I’d always gotten my way simply by asking. This was the first time I’d ever had to threaten violence to get my way. I should have felt guilty. But with Sierra and Kirsten’s faces in my thoughts, I didn’t mind it.
I didn’t mind it one bit.
Chapter 24
“Are you almost ready to leave for dinner?”
I turned to see William standing in the door to my bedroom with a handful of papers under his arm. Despite his standoffishness, he still managed to make my throat close up whenever I saw him. His dark suit set off his clear blue-gray eyes, and as he leaned there, shifting his weight, I could see the muscles in his arms bending and flexing under the fabric.
I would be married to him tomorrow. The thought made a shiver go down my spine.
“Almost,” I said, trembling as I put in the delicate silver earrings that Bobbi had insisted on lending me for the rehearsal dinner. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
William’s eyes flashed down my body as I turned toward him. Some emotion that I couldn’t read blazed through his eyes and then disappeared. He set down the papers on the dresser.
“You look lovely.”
“I mean, the dinner,” I said nervously. “Have you heard back from Justin?”
The last time I’d mentioned his name, William had waved me away. Now, though, he looked at me with a dark expression.
“Why did you ever marry him?” he asked.
I frowned.
“He was nice to me. I was young, and I thought he loved me.” I blinked, considering the relationship that seemed like forever ago, although it had only been a couple of years. “I thought I loved him.”
Why were we talking about this?
“I hope you have better judgment now.”
“Oh, definitely,” I said, half-chuckling. “After all, I’m engaged to a handsome billionaire. Things have come a long way.”
“I hope so,” William said, not laughing at my joke. He turned to the dresser and tapped the papers.
“I have a present for you.”
“Is that—”
I couldn’t say it.
“He took some convincing,” William said. “But it’s done. Court order, everything.”
I picked up the pages. On the top of the first piece of paper, the embossed lettering read Denver Circuit Court. I tried to read through the words on the page, but they swam in my vision as my eyes filled with tears. Relief burst through my body, and I turned, hugging William tightly around the neck.
“Thank you,” I whispered, tears flowing hot down my cheeks. I was ruining my mascara, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop crying.
William’s arms wrapped around me securely, and I pressed my cheek against his chest. I felt like a storm was tearing through me, ripping all of the worry and anxiety away, and I was hanging on for dear life to the one person who I knew would stay put.
I hadn’t realized how much I was worrying about Justin until I wasn’t anymore. He had been following me around for the past two years, like a ghost of a relationship that haunted me. But now he was gone. I was free.
“I’m not married,” I said, loosening my grip on William. My own voice was full of wonder. “I’m not married anymore.”
“Single for a whole day,” William said, a hint of a grin starting to appear on his mouth. “And you’re going to spend that day getting ready for a wedding.”
I laughed, happiness bubbling up through me.
“There’s nothing left to get done,” I said. “The wedding planner has been putting me through the paces.”
“There’s one thing,” William said, digging into his suit pocket. “Shawna wrote these up for us.”
He handed me a small slip of paper.
“What’s this?”
“Prewritten wedding vows. She thought it would be nice to have the ceremony be a bit more personalized.”
“Personalized by Shawna,” I said, my joy suddenly tempered.
“What’s the matter? Sierra?”
I looked up into concerned gray eyes.
“She knows,” I said, my voice dimmed. It wasn’t a question. “She knows about me. About how we met.”
William’s hand stiffened over my skin.
“Yes.”
My throat caught the words, but I forced them out.
“Why did you tell her?”
“She’s my assistant. She knows everything. She had to, in order to help me deal with your divorce paperwork.”
I turned my face down. I didn’t know why it hurt me so much to have someone else in William’s life know about me, but it did.
“Sierra—”
“Did you tell anyone else? Does anyone else know?”
“Nobody.”
I breathed out a sigh.
“It’s hard, keeping a secret like this,” I said. “That’s all.”
“Can you handle it?” William said. “It’ll only be until the end of the year, but—”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I just wanted to know...”
“I should have told you,” he said. “I apologize.”
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it. He smiled down at me, and my heart filled with warmth.
“Is there anything else you need from me before we head into the fiery forge of the rehearsal dinner?”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Your family is wonderful.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“I don’t know why you have such a hard time with them.”
“They’re very demanding.”
“And you’re not?”
“Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time with them,” William said. His hand was still resting on my back, and I leaned into his touch as I read through the prewritten vow. Everything felt so right now, so comfortable.
“How’s the vow?” he asked.
I couldn’t help but giggle.
“I will be as close to you as the moon is to the stars,” I read. “I don’t suppose Shawna knows much science.”
“Consider it an escape clause. You can be light years apart from me if you want to.”
The strange thing was that I didn’t want it. And as he moved away from me, his hand dropping away from my skin, I was struck by the two conflicting parts of me. One side of me was rejoicing at being free from my husband—at finally being independent. And the other side of me was longing to connect with William.
It was stupid, I knew that. Our arrangement was strictly business. And even if it wasn’t, I should have been ashamed for feeling so needy. My whole life, I’d prided myself on my independence. Now that I finally had it, though, I wanted to run right into the arms of a new husband.
He didn’t feel wrong. But then again, neither had Justin at first. And I couldn’t trust my instincts anymore.
“Mama, hat, hat!”
“Yes, Kit, that is a terrific hat.”
Kit usually hated to be dressed up, but Bobbi had somehow managed to get her into a rainbow glitter dress and a matching tiara. I had to admit, she looked adorable in the outfit.
“Your girl is so cute.”
“Without a doubt the cutest member of the family.”
Sanders and Dexter were on either side of Kit, keeping her busy with coloring crayons while William and I went around the table, welcoming everyone to the rehearsal dinner. Bobbi had chosen the dinner spot, a cozy Italian place with wine bottles and giant oak barrels lining the walls. The lights were dim, the candles on the tablecloth.
It felt so strange to be thought of as the bride and groom, but as the evening wore on, I found myself getting used to it. William was warm, even affectionate.
“A toast!” Sanders said, standing up and holding his glass of wine aloft. “To the dumbest older brother I know, and the beautiful woman he wrangled into marrying him!”
“Here, here!” Dexter said.
Their friends all laughed and cheered. Despite having Bobbi at the head of the table, the rest of the dinner party was made up almost entirely of men. As I looked around, I was grateful to have Teresa at my side. Without her, I would be lost in a sea of testosterone.
“This is kind of a sausage party,” I whispered to her.
“No kidding. I love it.”
“Teresa!”
“What? Better a sausage party than a clam bake. All of these guys are smoking hot. And you didn’t tell me Piers Letocci was going to be here!”
“I had no idea. I didn’t even know his brothers were bringing their friends to the dinner.”
All of the men were willing pawns as Kit handed out bread and pretended to have a tea party. I couldn’t tell if they were all utterly charmed by her cuteness, or just drunk enough to play along. Either way, it seemed like they were having a great time.
“How are you doing over here?” William bent down next to me, brushing his lips against my cheek. The briefest touch, it made me shiver with desire. I closed my eyes.
“Doing perfect,” I said. “But you might have to introduce Teresa to your buddy Piers. I think she’s starstruck.”
“Oh shut up, Sierra,” Teresa said, blushing. “As long as I get to dance with him once. I am the maid of honor, after all.”
