by Dori Lavelle
Contents
Naughty Champagne Recipe
1. Eva
2. Neal
3. Eva
4. Eva
5. Neal
6. Eva
7. Neal
8. Eva
9. Neal
10. Eva
11. Neal
12. Eva
13. Eva
14. Neal
15. Eva
16. Eva
17. Neal
18. Eva
19. Neal
Meet the rest of the Cocktail Girls
Join the Lounge
About the LaClaire Brothers…
Connect with Dori Lavelle
Also by Dori Lavelle
Naughty Champagne Recipe
1 bottle of Dom Pérignon
2 crystal champagne flutes
1 hunky dude
Instructions
Pop the champagne cork
Accidentally spill some on hunky dude
Get naked and offer to lick the spilled champagne from his bare skin
1
Eva
“Is he here?” I throw a glance over my shoulder at my childhood friend, Phoebe Hollister, hopeful for some good news.
Phoebe unties and reties the blush pink sash around the waist of her bridesmaid dress. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
I grab my phone and dial Adrian’s number for the tenth time since I arrived at the church. Where the heck is he? This time my call goes straight to mailbox.
I push the small phone into my pearly bridal bag. Swallowing hard, I tip my head back and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Nothing?” Phoebe’s already low voice is almost inaudible. On the edge of her words I detect a touch of worry.
With a deep sigh, I lift my lids and turn to face her. Twirling a lock of golden hair around her finger, Phoebe looks like she’d rather be anywhere else but in a tiny musty room at the back of the church that’s usually used for storage.
“I don’t understand what’s taking him so long. How could someone be close to forty minutes late to their own wedding?”
“Maybe something came up.” Phoebe comes to put one of her small hands on my shoulder.
I pull my gaze from her to look at myself in the round mirror I’d propped up on the table. My thick, honey-colored hair is piled up on top of my head, the small crystal tiara resting in its bed, a perfect match to the necklace around my neck. Like the wedding gown wrapped around my body, it had belonged to my mother. Unlike many brides, aside from a touch of lip gloss, my face is free of makeup.
Today is supposed to be the happiest day of my life. But I woke up this morning with a hard knot in the pit of my stomach. Now, as I sit here waiting for my fiancé to arrive at our wedding, I feel as though my breath is being cut off with each second.
From a distance I can hear the guests talking in the church, soft music playing as they await the bride’s arrival. What are they thinking? What are they saying?
“What can I do for you, sweetie?” Phoebe’s hand moves from my shoulder to touch my tiara. “Should I get your dad?”
My father, Doug Marone, is the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, the largest church in City Lake, Florida. He was in the back room only ten minutes ago to ask me what’s keeping Adrian.
My father must be burning with frustration. He’s always been a military kind of man, trying to control everything and everyone around him.
He’s been controlling my life since I was a kid. I have grown up with a hard, angry man who raised me with an iron fist. Sometimes I don’t blame him. My mother left when I was two, leaving him to care for a baby alone.
“Don’t call him.” I’m sure my father will show up again soon enough.
We wait for another fifteen minutes. I’m on the verge of losing it, when the door is flung open. I expect to see my father but standing in the doorway is Billy Pynes, Adrian’s best man. I don’t like the tight expression on his face, the pinch of his already thin lips. My stomach turns. Something is wrong.
I rise from my chair, my gown spilling down my legs in folds of silk and tulle. My heart feels like a brick inside my chest. “What’s going on, Billy?” I cross the room to meet him. “Where’s Adrian?”
“Eva, I’m so sorry.” He pushes a silver and white envelope in my hand, one of the envelopes we’d bought for the wedding invitations.
“What . . . Sorry about what?” I turn the envelope over and over in my hand, terrified to look inside.
Billy takes a step back. “I think it’s best you read the letter.”
“Billy, no.” I stumble back and sink down into the chair as bitter bile touches the back of my throat. “He—he wrote me a letter?” For a hopeful moment I wonder if it’s a love letter. He has always loved to surprise me with letters. The pressure inside my chest warns me it’s something else. The envelope feels too heavy in my hands.
Before I can ask Billy to explain, he disappears from the room.
“I’ll give you a moment.” Phoebe shifts from one foot to the other. “I need to use the ladies’ room.” She’s always been a bad liar.
“Yeah.” I don’t even look at her.
It takes me five minutes to gather up the courage I need to open the envelope. It’s a full-page, written in Adrian’s almost illegible doctor’s handwriting. But I’ve read enough of his words to make them out.
Dear Eva,
There’s no easy way to say this. I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you today. I thought I was ready to be a husband, but I woke up this morning and realized that I want to do more with my life before starting a family.
I’m sorry to hurt you this way, but I feel this is the right thing for me to do at this point in my life. I love you, Eva, that hasn’t changed. My feelings for you all these years were real. Never doubt that for a second. But I can’t become your husband. I can’t be anyone’s husband right now.
As you read this, I’m on my way out of City Lake. I’ll be joining a non-profit organization in Uganda for the next couple of months. Leaving you hanging like this is hard for me, but I’m too much of a coward to face you. I’m so sorry, baby, but I feel lost at the moment. I feel suffocated in City Lake. I need to get away to find myself.
Since no words will be able to erase the pain you probably feel, I’ll say goodbye for now. And I’m sorry for doing this to you. I hate myself for it.
Love,
Adrian
By the time I finish reading the letter, it’s drenched with my tears. As rage boils inside my belly, I tighten my fingers around the piece of paper, unable to believe what Adrian has just done to me.
I’ve known him since kindergarten and we dated all through high school. I waited for him while he studied at Stanford University to become a pediatrician. He was the kind of man I thought I could trust, a man I felt safe with. He has never let me down. Until now.
My father always told me that hate is a strong word, and not an emotion I should feel for anyone. But right now, all rules are off. All I feel for Adrian is full-blown hatred.
“What’s going on back here?” My father’s voice booms from the doorway. I turn to face him, tears sliding down my cheeks. “I saw Billy. Where’s Adrian?” His expression grows serious when he sees my tears. He places a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay, sweetheart? Did something happen?”
I pull in a sharp breath and shake my head. “No, no, I’m not okay.” My lips twist in a bittersweet smile. “Adrian is not coming. He doesn’t want to marry me.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t want to marry you?” My father shoves a hand through his thick, gray hair. He spots the letter in my hands and takes it without my permission. I’m glad because
I’m still too shaken to explain what happened.
He reads the letter in a few painful heartbeats. By the time he’s done, his face is puce.
He clears his throat. “I’ll inform the guests.” I’m not surprised that he doesn’t try to comfort me. He has never been the kind of father who hugs or kisses away my tears. He’s always put his congregation before his own daughter.
I choke down my humiliation. “No need, dad. I’ll handle it.”
He tries to stop me, but I’m already out the door, my hands grabbing the large dress at the sides so I don’t trip.
When I enter the room filled with guests, everyone stops to stare. Whispers break out immediately, following me down the carpeted aisle. I make my way toward Adrian’s parents in the front row, trying not to look at the personalized aisle runner, the flowers wrapped in silver ribbons, and the tulle adorning the church pews. The smell of the roses makes my stomach turn.
“Congratulations.” I clap my hands. “You did a fantastic job at raising a coward.” I sniff and blink away the tears. “Your son is not man enough to come here and tell me himself that he doesn’t want to marry me.” As soon as the words spill from my lips, my body trembles with laughter I can’t contain.
The wave of shock that sweeps through the room is so strong I feel it with my entire body. As Adrian’s parents look at me, mouths open, I turn to address the guests.
“Thank you everyone for coming. But there will be no wedding today. I just read a letter from Adrian telling me he doesn’t want to marry me. He ran off to work for a non-profit organization in Uganda. Please have a party at the reception hall. It’s a farewell party for both me and Adrian.” Not bothering to explain further, I gather my dress and run back down the aisle. I don’t stop until I burst through the heavy wooden church doors.
When I get behind the wheel of my car, I stop to take a breath. To my surprise, beneath the stifling sadness, I detect something else. A sense of relief.
2
Neal
“Fuck your apology.” I slam the laptop shut, the screen hitting the keyboard hard. I’m pretty sure something broke on impact. I don’t give a damn. Nothing can ever be as broken as I am.
As the words I read on-screen spin around in my head, my body locks with rage. My mind searches for relief, but it’s out of reach. So, I grab the laptop and charge across the room and through the balcony doors.
One moment I’m holding the laptop in my hands. The next, my fingers let go and it goes flying over the metal railing. The next sound I hear is a splash as it hits the surface of the swimming pool of our Cabo San Lucas family villa.
My hands grab both sides of my head, my eyes snap shut, my teeth clench tight as the sword of familiar pain drives through me. The pain of loss. The pain of regret. The pain of emptiness. They’re gone, my wife and kid, and all I’m left with is this damn pain that revisits me with a full force on this day once a year.
“I’m relieved it’s not you who jumped into the pool from up here. What’s going on, bro?” Bryant’s voice reaches me before I turn to see my brother’s face. He’s not alone. I can feel their presence. My four brothers, always there when I need them. They all join me on the balcony.
I turn around to face them. They’re standing side by side, faces clouded by worry. In their late thirties, the twins Bryant and Lance, are older than all of us. The same dark hair and green eyes make each a carbon copy of the other.
Next in line is me, the broken one. Since I’m only two years younger, we look the same age. And though I don’t have their dimples, I resemble them quite a bit, unlike our other biological brother, Caleb, whose hair chose to be sandy blond instead of chestnut brown.
Derrick, our adopted youngest brother, looks nothing like us, but it doesn’t make him less of our brother. We are a team, the five of us, banding together when times are tough. Our bond became even more unbreakable when our parents died in a plane crash, over a decade ago.
“Talk to us.” Lance leans against the frame of the balcony window. It still amazes me that he’s walking again, that he finally found his happiness. He used to be just as broken as I am.
“He emailed me.” I drag a large gulp of sea air and aftershave into my lungs and push past them into the room. They trickle in after me.
Derrick lowers himself next to me on the couch in the living room area. “Who emailed you?”
An involuntary laugh pushes through my throat and bursts from me. “Sam Peterson.”
“The Sam Peterson?” they all ask in unison.
“Yeah.” I push a fist into the space between my eyebrows. I feel the blood drain away from the assaulted area. “He had the nerve to apologize to me. What the fuck can an apology do for me? He killed my wife and unborn kid.”
As much as I hate to face the facts, Peterson wasn’t the only person who pulled the trigger the morning my heart died. I’d had a big fight with Sonia that morning about something so petty I can’t even remember it. She’d walked out on me, like she always did after an argument, desperate to get away from conflict. Before she stepped out the door she murmured something about going to the mall. None of us were prepared for what happened next. Who would have thought she would meet a cold-blooded killer?
“He’s not released, is he?” Caleb’s voice is sharp with rage.
I shake my head. I’m obsessed with checking Sam Peterson’s status at least once a month. As far as I’m aware, he’s still behind bars. “I have no idea how he got internet access.”
It doesn’t matter to me that the monster is serving life in prison. No punishment would be enough for what he did to me and so many other families.
Bryant’s palm meets his forehead. “I cannot believe the privileges criminals sometimes have behind bars.” He pauses. “I’m sorry, bro. What can we do? Anything.”
I clasp my hands. “Leave. Go to your wives and kids. Enjoy every moment with them.”
The only two unmarried brothers among us are Caleb and I. Caleb is still enjoying playing the field, and romance is the last thing on my tortured mind.
“The wives and kids are on the beach,” Lance cuts in. “We are all yours.”
I push myself to my feet and stride into my closet. “I love you guys but piss off, if you know what’s good for you. I’m crap company at the moment.” I grab a duffel bag. “Just because my day is rotten doesn’t mean yours should be too.”
Cabo is supposed to be a happy place for the LaClaire family.
We’re all based in Boston, our hometown, but we come here once a year to be together, to celebrate a special event, or just to catch up on each other’s lives. The last thing they need is for me to toxify the mood with my pain.
I walk back into the room and drop the duffel bag on the bed, unzip it. “I’m returning to the US. I’ll take the jet.”
“You just got in yesterday.” Bryant comes to lay a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you dare feel like you are a burden to us.”
“Thanks for that. It’s just that it sucks being me right now. I need to get away to—”
“To search for her?” Bryant’s voice is cautious.
He knows me too well. They all do. They know that on the anniversary of Sonia’s death, that’s my favorite game to play. I look for her at places she used to be.
“Do we need to ask where you’re going?” Derrick asks as I disappear back into the closet.
“You already know.” I grab a shirt and a pair of jeans. “I’ll leave for Vegas after lunch.”
3
Eva
My bedroom blinds are suddenly yanked open. Harsh morning sunlight pours into the room. I pull the covers over my head and force myself to return to sleep, breathing in my warm, morning breath.
“Get out of bed, Eva. It’s time for church.”
“I’m not going.” In all my twenty-five years, those are the bravest words I’ve ever said to my dad.
“What do you mean you’re not going?” His voice has a sharp edge to it. “You live in my house. You�
��ll follow my rules.”
“Not for long.” I stick my head out of the covers. My tired, sore eyes meet those of the man who has controlled my entire life. He’s already dressed in one of the black suits he only wears on Sundays. “We need to talk,” I say. Nervous butterflies turn over in the pit of my stomach, but this conversation must happen.
“Get dressed. We’ll talk later.” Dad moves to the door, his shoulders and back straight as they get when he’s determined and stubborn. “You will apologize to John and Maurice Saylor for the disrespect you showed them yesterday. You humiliated them in front of everyone.”
A shadow of a smile crosses my lips as I pull myself up in bed. “I don’t think so, dad. I only told them the truth. The only person who should be apologizing to anyone is Adrian.”
What he did to me kept me up all night. Why did he have to back out of our relationship on our wedding day? He had every chance to do it during the year we were engaged. He visited wedding venues with me. He joined me at cake tastings. I helped him pick out his tux and the flowers.
Not once did he give me the impression that he wanted out. Was he thinking of a way out during every step of our wedding plans? The thought makes me sick to my stomach.
Maybe he was right. Maybe we thought we loved each other all along when the truth was that our parents, who have been friends since before we were born, pushed us toward each other from a young age. Choosing to spend the rest of our lives together felt like the right step to take in our relationship. Whatever the case, I’m finding it hard to forgive him for doing the right thing at the wrong time.
