by Lauren Layne
“Ah, here we go,” he said with a slight smile, surprised again when she smiled back.
“I would like to state that at the time, I really did believe Elizabeth was good for you. I knew that she hurt you when she left. I knew that you cared about her. You never got together, seriously, with anyone else after she moved. So when Elizabeth told me she was moving back, I wanted to be sure. I wanted to make sure you had a chance to decide what you wanted.”
He shook his head, bemused. “Couldn’t you have just asked if I wanted to get back together with Elizabeth?”
Linda gave him a droll look. “Clarke, I’ve known you for your entire life. When have you ever given me a straight answer?”
“True,” he admitted with a boyish grin. “But then, when have I ever not done the exact opposite of what I thought you wanted me to do?”
“Very true,” she said primly. “I made an error in judgment when I finagled you into lunch with Elizabeth, though I certainly didn’t expect you countering quite so robustly.”
“What, you didn’t expect me to get engaged to my best friend?”
“I should have. It was what, the third time?”
He grinned, unabashed.
“I figured it would pass, the way it always does with you two. And then I realized I was wrong.”
He smiled again, though this time it was genuine, one that came from deep inside, rather than the usual knee-jerk desire to provoke or charm. “Yeah. You were wrong.”
“I’m glad.”
Again with the surprises.
Clarke opened his mouth to ask for clarification but paused as the server came to take their orders. Clarke got the burger and a cab franc, his mom roasted salmon to go with her chardonnay.
“You’re glad to be wrong?” he asked once the waitress had moved away. “Did I hear that right?”
“Well, I don’t care to dwell on the sentiment,” she said. “But as I said before, I want you to be happy. It was my initial goal in setting you up with Elizabeth, but I realized almost immediately that if you’d ever had feelings for her, they’d long since faded.”
“When?” he asked curiously. “When did you know?”
“That night when we had you and Audrey over for your ‘engagement dinner.’ ”
He snorted in disbelief. “Sure. If you knew that early, why’d you try to call our bluff with the engagement party?”
His mom merely smiled and sipped her wine.
Clarke’s eyes narrowed. Then he sat up straighter. “You weren’t trying to call our bluff?”
She met his eyes steadily, and Clarke’s heart pounded.
“And with the wedding planner? When you set up that appointment, it wasn’t to try to force our hand and get us to back out?”
“No,” she said. “And when Gail Marea’s daughter’s engagement fell through, I offered to pay half of the Plaza’s cancellation fee if she called and gave Alexis Morgan first dibs on the vacancy.”
“Why?”
“You know that I’ve never really understood Audrey. She’s always been a lovely girl, and I’ve appreciated her being such a good friend to you. But I guess, if I’m being honest, I never let myself acknowledge that she’s no longer a flighty fifteen-year-old whose main preoccupation was how shiny her hair was. Just like I never let myself acknowledge that you’d grown well beyond your wild years.”
“So you had an epiphany?”
Linda nodded. “That night at dinner. You were pretending to be engaged, I knew that. But then I saw you look at each other, just for a second. A casual thing, the way that couples do, and I realized. You were pretending to be engaged. But you weren’t pretending to be in love. That part was real.”
“No,” Clarke said automatically. “It was for show. She was just trying to preserve her reputation, and I was trying to…” He trailed off, realizing how pathetic the reasons sounded, even to his own ears, how pathetic they’d always sounded. And all of a sudden, he realized just why he’d been in such a good mood the past few weeks. It wasn’t just Audrey’s enthusiasm for the wedding rubbing off on him or the fact that work had been going well. It wasn’t even that he was getting regular epic sex. It was Audrey. It had always been Audrey.
“How did you know?” he asked, stunned. “How did you know before I knew?”
“That you’re in love with her?”
He nodded. He was in love with Audrey. It was both the most momentous and yet somehow the most blindly obvious realization of his life.
She leaned forward and patted his hand. “Oh, Clarke. A mother always knows.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
FRIDAY, MARCH 27
You are the most amazing sister in the whole world,” Audrey said as she undid the ankle strap of her busted sandal.
“Not even close,” Adele said cheerfully, pulling off her own stilettos. “I’ve been feeling so bad that I’ve missed all your wedding festivities. I hope this will at least restore your faith in me as matron of honor.”
“You flew in to be here, and you’ll be standing by my side tomorrow,” Audrey said. “That’s all I need. Well, that and your shoes.”
“I still can’t believe your strap just snapped like that,” Adele said, picking up the discarded stiletto sandal. “You’re going to get a refund, right? They look brand-new.”
“They are brand-new,” Audrey said, glaring at the pretty but faulty shoe. “I’m just glad I chose them for the rehearsal dinner instead of the wedding. Can you imagine if I’d worn them tomorrow?”
“They’d have made a pretty crappy something new,” her sister agreed, pulling a pair of flats out of her bag.
“Thank God you brought backup shoes,” Audrey said as she slipped on her sister’s stilettos.
“A habit I picked up during my swollen-feet-during-pregnancy phase, and I can’t bring myself to break it. Blisters just aren’t worth it.”
“Oh, they so are,” Audrey said, extending her feet and wiggling her toes, delighting in her sister’s light pink satin pumps. They weren’t quite as perfect of a match with the white Stella McCartney cocktail dress Audrey had chosen for the rehearsal dinner, but they had the distinct edge of not being broken.
“I owe you big,” Audrey said as Adele picked up the broken shoes and stuffed them into her huge, but stylish, diaper bag.
“I’m just glad we have the same size foot,” Adele said.
“Really? I remember you being not so thrilled about that in high school.”
“Because my pesky younger sister stole my shoes without asking.”
“Borrowed. I borrowed them,” Audrey clarified, opening the bathroom door so they could head back to the party.
As was tradition, the groom’s parents had hosted the rehearsal dinner, and Clarke’s parents had gone above and beyond, renting out the entire rooftop bar of a brand-new hotel not even open to the public yet. Audrey had been pleasantly surprised that instead of a formal sit-down dinner, the Wests had opted for a buffet, allowing groups to mingle among all the elaborately decorated indoor and outdoor spaces of the rooftop. A different cuisine and band played in each room, creating a lavish around-the-world experience.
“You seem happy,” Adele said with a knowing look as she and Audrey moved back toward the music and laughter.
“I am happy.”
“You should be. Clarke keeps getting hotter each year. How is that even possible?”
“Hard to say,” Audrey said. “We could ask Joel. He’s a doctor.”
“Hmm.” Adele pursed her lips. “Let’s leave my hubby out of this particular debate. If he asks, I don’t even remember what Clarke looks like.”
Audrey heard a familiar laugh and paused outside a partially open door to one of the private rooms. Seeing Clarke chatting with someone, she waved her sister on. “I’ll find you later. I need Clarke to remind me of his old boss’s name so Alton doesn’t chew me out for not memorizing the company org chart he sent over.”
Adele waved in acknowledgment, heading back to the par
ty, and a smiling Audrey headed toward her fiancé.
Her future husband.
The love of her life.
She smiled. She may not be able to tell him yet, but she would someday. And someday, she felt in her heart, he would tell her, too.
Patience Love is patient. Love is Clarke, however I can have him.
She stepped up to the door, listening for the other voice, wanting to make sure it wouldn’t be an unwelcome interruption.
There was a quick barking laugh that she recognized as Alton’s. Clarke’s father didn’t laugh often, but when he did, it was distinctive. She knew Alton wouldn’t mind the interruption, since Clarke’s old boss was one of Alton’s employees.
“I still can’t believe she one-upped me,” Clarke was saying, and she heard the smile in his voice. “I was so sure I’d beat her at her own game.”
Audrey reached out a hand to push open the door.
“You get used to it,” Alton said. “And let’s not forget, she beat me, too. I thought I was damned clever, coaxing you to choose Audrey over Elizabeth by offering you the company. That was supposed to be my checkmate move, damn it.”
Audrey’s hand froze, thinking—hoping—she was mishearing, even as she knew there was no way to misunderstand what she’d just heard. Alton had offered Clarke the company—something Clarke had been fighting for, for years—if he married her.
“In your defense, the company was a good bargaining card,” Clarke said, taking a sip of his cocktail, and Audrey stepped to the side, not wanting to be seen through the open doorway. “Damn impossible to resist…”
Audrey pressed a hand to her mouth just in time to stifle the sob. She leaned against the door, trying to catch her hiccuping breath.
That’s why Clarke was marrying her. Not because he was in love with her, though she’d known that. But she’d believed him when he’d said that he cared about her. That he wanted to spend his life with her. That they were good together.
It was a marriage of convenience. His convenience.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
But Audrey was a crier. She’d always been a crier. While plenty of women had stoically watched The Notebook and Titanic with proud proclamations that they “weren’t criers,” Audrey started blubbering in the opening credits, just knowing what was to come.
Tonight, however, she somehow managed to hold it together. For once, her body listened to her command not to cry. Her wobbling chin stabilized, the ache in her throat eased. The blur of the tears disappeared.
It was as though she shut down, from the inside out.
She calmly returned to the party, playing the part of happy bride even as she studiously avoided the groom.
It didn’t hit her until much later as she lay alone in her bed, staring at the ceiling, her phone stubbornly turned to off, why the tears hadn’t come. There was no point in crying over something that wasn’t real.
Her Prince Charming was never coming. He had never even existed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
SATURDAY, MARCH 28
And that, my little man, is how you properly tie a bow tie,” Clarke said to the ring bearer, sitting back fully on his haunches and admiring his handiwork.
The adult-size bow tie was far too large for Audrey’s four-year-old nephew, but it had stopped the tantrum in its tracks, so Clarke was counting it as a win.
“You know that tinier members of the wedding party usually get the clip-on variety,” Alexis Morgan said as she watched Stevie dash off to show his parents his new accessory.
“I do,” Clarke said, standing and grinning at the wedding planner. “But his had an unfortunate run-in with the men’s urinal.”
“Ah.” She gestured at his neck. “And so now the ring bearer has a bow tie, and the groom does not.”
Clarke shrugged. “Stevie wanted it more than I did.”
Alexis lifted her eyebrow. “That, and you knew I’d have a spare?”
He grinned. “I knew you would.”
He expected her to smile back, or at least to talk into her fancy headset thing and have the assistant he’d seen running all over the place bring in the replacement bow tie.
Alexis didn’t smile. And she didn’t speak into her headset. In fact, looking at her more closely, Clarke realized for the first time since he’d known her that Alexis Morgan was uncertain and seemed to be trying to figure out the best way to deliver bad news.
Clarke’s stomach dropped, his world tilting sideways. Audrey. He knew with complete certainty that whatever was wrong had to do with her.
An accident. There’d been an accident. An illness. Some freak sickness.
His words came out in a frantic rush. “What is it? Is she okay? She hasn’t been answering my texts, but I figured she was just taking the don’t-see-the-bride-before-the-ceremony thing to a whole new level…”
Before Alexis could answer, the door to the small room on the side of the church deemed “the groom’s room” opened, and Scott and Oliver stepped in, looking even more grim than Alexis. The three of them exchanged a look that Clarke didn’t understand, and Alexis quietly left the room without a word.
He didn’t waste any time, his heart clawing at his throat. “What’s happened? Is she okay?”
“Audrey’s fine,” Oliver said, holding up a hand.
“Well, not fine,” Scott muttered.
“She’s not hurt,” Oliver amended. “Physically.”
Clarke’s breath came out in a whoosh of relief as he felt his world turn right side up once again, even as Oliver’s clarification set off a slight warning bell. “Thank God.”
“She’s not injured,” Oliver said again, “but she’s also not here.”
Clarke frowned. “What do you mean? Was there traffic? Do we need to delay? Is there some sort of wardrobe malfunction? Someone tell her she can get married in a garbage bag, for all I care.”
“I bet you don’t care,” Scott muttered.
Clarke narrowed his eyes at Scott. Scott was rough around the edges, but he seemed downright antagonistic at the moment, and for that matter, Oliver didn’t seem particularly happy with Clarke, either. Clarke frowned in confusion.
“She was here,” Oliver explained, a distinct edge in his voice. “She did the whole bride-prep thing. Got her hair done, makeup done. She put on the dress, arrived at the church in a limo with the bridesmaids.”
“And then?”
“She made it as far as the steps,” Scott cut in. “And then she bolted.”
The world tilted again, and Clarke stumbled back to a chair. “What do you mean she bolted?”
Audrey had left him? Didn’t want to marry him? Forget Clarke’s world tilting. That didn’t even matter when it felt like his heart had been ripped out.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. She wouldn’t have just bailed without telling me. We had a deal. Either of us could back out at any time, no hard feelings.”
Hurt feelings, he realized. Very hurt. But not hard feelings. They’d have gotten through it, and eventually, he’d have been able to bury his feelings and pretend everything was the same as it had always been.
“You had a deal?” Scott repeated angrily, stepping forward. “Is that anything like the deal with your father?”
“Scott,” Oliver murmured in warning.
“What?” Clarke looked between the two men, bewildered. “What deal with my father?”
“The one where you get a billion-dollar company if you marry Audrey,” Oliver said, his eyes as hard as Scott’s voice had been.
“What the hell—” He groaned. “Oh, Jesus. Audrey found out about that?”
His brain tried to sort out how, but then he realized it didn’t matter. It only mattered that he find her, that he explain.
“Where is she?”
“We told you, she bolted.”
“Where?”
Scott shrugged, and Clarke lurched across the room, catching his groomsman by the front of the shirt. “Where?”
Clarke didn’t wait to hear his friend’s lecture. He had no time for anyone or anything but finding his bride. He tore out of the suffocating room, ignoring the startled looks of the guests being escorted in by the ushers, and raced to the back of the church, scanning the crowds for Audrey, before charging outside.
There. Naomi and Claire looked unsurprised and decidedly displeased to see him. Naomi’s blue eyes were spewing venom. Claire’s gaze was ice-cold.
“Where is she?”
Neither woman said anything. Clarke took a step forward, but someone caught him by the arm. “Don’t touch my wife,” Scott snarled.
Clarke shrugged him free. “I wasn’t going to touch your wife. I was going to beg.” He turned back toward the women. “Please. If anyone knows where she’s gone, it’s you two.”
“You used her,” Naomi said, stepping forward and giving Clarke an ungentle shove in the center of his chest. “She is the best person any of us know, and you used her. You let her think she was getting a happy ending, and all you wanted was a damn job?”
“Screw the job,” Clarke shouted, not caring who heard him. “It was never about the job.”
“Really?” Claire asked sarcastically. “Your dad didn’t offer you the company if you married Audrey?”
Clarke ran a hand through his hair. “No, he did, but I didn’t even… that’s not what this is,” he said, gesturing down at his tux, their formal wear, then back at the church. “That’s never what this was. I honest to God didn’t even think about it after he offered it. I should have told Audrey, obviously, but it was just so stupid, just some stupid game my messed-up parents played. You know what, I don’t have to explain to you. I’ll explain to her. Now, where is she?”
No one said a word, and Clarke fought the urge to roar at the entire lot of them, to tell him that the longer they stayed silent, the smaller his window to win her back became.
“What do you want?” he asked. “You want to punch me? Punch me. You want to kick my balls? Do it. But for the love of God, please just give me a chance to talk to her. Please.” His voice broke. “I love her.”
