The Wedding

by Sian Ceinwen

  Heather frowned, “What? You said they did it for the money. Well, they’re pretty fucking lucky that Harrison couldn’t keep it in his pants, aren’t they?” She raised an eyebrow, while instantly feeling a rush of shame at the fact that she had stooped so low with her phrasing.

  The air in the room got tense as people started to see Heather’s point, though, and Aaron Hamilton had begun to look decidedly uncomfortable. She was sure that there was some information that he was withholding from them.

  “So, Mr. Hamilton, how did they know?”

  Everyone turned to look at him as they all waited for his explanation.

  He sighed, then answered her, “As I said, they didn’t. From what we know, they took key cards and searched all the rooms as soon as it was confirmed that you were all in attendance at the function. They were looking for anything that might be scandalous and worth money. The drug they chose to use wasn’t a coincidence. Once they saw Mr. Fletcher leaving with Miss Turner, they waited until they could capture a series of photos to sell. The ones from earlier in the night were all sold by the same source.”

  Heather was horrified and spoke up again, “This sounds…intentional. Very well planned out. Basically, what you’re saying is that it could’ve been any one of the band members for any number of reasons, but it just happened to be Harrison?”

  “From what we know, they began planning this from very early on once Cruise Control was confirmed to be attending the event.”

  Harrison stood quickly from his seat and only just made it to the trash can in time before he vomited into it. Heather wondered if it was just the information he was being given or if he’d been day drinking again. She longed to go over and comfort him but knew she couldn’t; she wasn’t strong enough. She gave a panic-stricken look to Ariana, who grabbed a bottle of water off the table in front of them, rose from her seat, and went over to Harrison to comfort him for her.

  Heather was reminded, terribly, of the conversation she’d had with Ariana about the lengths that people would go to in order to get to celebrities. They had thought that they’d experienced the worst of it when Ariana had been targeted the way she had been, but this was so much worse. Their health had been put at risk, and Cooper had ended up in the Intensive Care Unit, he could have died. All because a group of people had dollar signs in their eyes when they’d realized that they would have access to Cruise Control.

  “Who took the photo?” a quiet voice asked Aaron Hamilton.

  Heather dared to look over at Maddy; the other woman was looking at the police chief as he continued answering questions. It was strange being here with her. Heather had expected to feel more badly toward her, but she didn’t. This was the woman that she still dreamed about every night, but she looked as broken and devastated as everyone else around this table, did.

  Aaron Hamilton sighed. “From what we know, they had plenty of photos from during the event the night before, no doubt you've seen some of those. They would have sold them for quite a sum, anyway. However, in the early hours of the morning, they sent one of the maids into the room to see if she could get a picture of you in bed together. If she’d been caught, she was going to say that she was just there to clean the room.”

  It was more awful than Heather could have imagined. The way they had taken advantage of Harrison and Maddy made her feel sick. Knowing that someone had come into their room as they slept was terrible. She looked at Harrison and longed to be with him more than ever.

  When the meeting wrapped up, Cooper’s team were the first ones out of the room, along with Cooper, Helen, and the man in the suit, who it turned out was his lawyer. The police chief left with them, and Gabriel asked Cooper as he was leaving if the band could use the conference room for a few minutes, which he agreed to.

  Heather couldn’t recall off the top of her head, the last time that they had all been in a room together. Quite possibly, it hadn’t been since their engagement party last August. She would give anything to go back to that night, to a time when her biggest concern was preparing for Fashion Week and being a bitch to Ariana.

  “Are you okay, Harrison?” Sebastian’s voice was full of concern.

  “Yeah,” his voice sounded hoarse as he replied, before taking a sip from the bottle of water that Ariana had given him.

  “This is insane,” Hayden sighed, “I can’t help wondering if it would’ve been me if I hadn’t just gone upstairs and passed out.”

  “I wish it had been me,” Sebastian said.

  “A Sebastian Fox four-way is nowhere near as marketable as ‘Harrison Fletcher cheats on Heather York while she hosts Saturday Night Live,’” Heather said in a monotone voice. She saw Harrison flinch and felt bad, “Sorry, I didn’t actually say that to try and hurt you, Harrison. I mean that of all the available options, they must have felt like they’d hit the fucking jackpot when they saw you leaving with her.”

  “What do we do?” Hayden asked.

  “Nothing. We do nothing. The police are handling it, and Cooper is doing the press conference,” it was Ariana who replied.

  Heather remembered that, of course, Ariana knew a lot more about this kind of thing than the other guys realized. She had seen her family go through this, maybe it hadn’t been a crime like they’d experienced, but the Thompsons had certainly weathered their fair share of media storms over the years.

  Ariana continued what she was saying, “We all have security now, and we make sure that none of us are exposed like that again. We definitely don’t go around calling the press ‘miserable failures of human beings’, even though some of them definitely are,” she gave Sebastian a wry smile.

  “You didn’t, Seb!” Hayden actually laughed.

  “Check your phone, dude. There’s probably a video online by now.”

  After a few more minutes, they all stood up from the table and started to say their goodbyes. As they were leaving the room, Harrison grabbed Heather’s wrist to stop her from walking away. She knew before she’d even turned to look that it was him, the feeling of his hand on her skin was so familiar to her.

  The others seemed to notice but continued walking, anyway, and it was only a few moments before she was alone with Harrison for the first time in what felt like forever. Now that he had her alone, she got the distinct feeling that he didn’t know what to say to her and hadn’t thought this through.

  “What, Harrison?” Heather asked him softly.

  “I don’t know. I just needed to be near you, angel.”

  Every time she thought that her heart had taken as much of a beating as it possibly could before it gave up working altogether, it would be forced to take yet another one, like the one it was suffering as she looked at Harrison right now.

  He looked so in love with her and in so much pain from her absence in his life that she could barely stand it. She dared to reach her palm up and rest it on his cheek as she said the same words that she had told him the day after it had happened, so many months ago now, “I do still love you, Harrison.”

  He turned his face and pressed his lips to the palm of her hand. His kiss burned her skin, and she felt all of her nerve endings come alive, as though the entire world was suddenly aglow. She couldn’t resist—she stepped forward, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He kissed her back with all the passion and love that she knew he held for her.

  For a moment, everything was right with the world again, but then she remembered. What the hell was she doing right now? This was supremely unfair to Harrison. She needed to know that finding out who had done this to them had been enough to stop her nightmares before she ever attempted some kind of reconciliation with him.

  Heather broke their kiss, even though her entire body was telling her that she was doing the wrong thing. It was the first even slightly sexual thing they’d done since that day, and she was surprised by how she’d reacted to it. Heather had expected to be deluged with visions of him and Maddy like she had in the beginning, but she wasn
’t. Maybe the sessions with Zoe were actually working.

  They stood there for a few more moments. Harrison’s gaze burning into hers as they both tried to catch their breath, then Heather turned and walked out of the room. God, she really hoped that tonight would be nightmare free.

  ~MARCH~

  CRUISE CONTROL’S DRUG DRAMA!

  The drama never ends for our favorite rock band, Cruise Control! The last year has seen them embroiled in multiple affair scandals, a broken engagement, and heated run-ins with the paparazzi.

  Now, more information has come to light about the night that Harrison Fletcher cheated on his ex-fiancée, Heather York. According to a joint press conference given last Friday by the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Aaron Hamilton, and Cruise Control’s manager, Cooper Powell, the band was the target of ‘Willful Poisoning’ at the event.

  While they were sketchy on the details of what exactly that entails, a source close to the band tells us that they were all slipped a party drug that night. Is that really why Harrison cheated, or was it just because Heather had been having an affair with his best friend?

  We don’t know for sure, but we do know that Gabriel Knight’s 30th birthday party this month sure will be interesting!

  Chapter 22

  DIRTY THIRTY

  HEATHER WAS SITTING IN a chair in Gabriel and Ariana’s apartment. Jessica was doing her makeup, and Tristan was working on Ariana’s hair. It was Gabriel’s thirtieth birthday today, and they were going to his birthday party tonight. It promised to be as big an affair as Harrison’s had been.

  She had thought she had been nervous before that night, knowing that Ariana would be in attendance, but it paled in comparison to how she felt right now. So many things had changed in Heather’s life since that day—here she sat next to Ariana, who was once again one of her closest friends. Not only that but her other close friend, Ally, would be accompanying Hayden to the party tonight.

  Would she swap these two friendships in exchange for having Harrison back? If she were being honest with herself, she would. As much as she loved these two women, the hole that Harrison had left in her life was brutally painful to try and brick up, and as much as she enjoyed her new friendship with Ally and the rekindling of her friendship with Ariana, her entire world was askew without the balance that Harrison lent to it.

  The nightmares had continued after they’d had the debriefing a month ago at Cooper’s office. Heather had woken that very night from a dream about Harrison and Maddy. It was maybe worse because in her dreams now, Maddy wore that terrible guilty look that she’d had during the meeting. Not even the Harrison and Maddy in her dreams were enjoying themselves now. Everybody was miserable.

  That night, Heather had cried harder than she had since the day she’d found out what had happened. It felt like she would never get past this. Every step she tried to take had failed for her, and she was feeling completely out of options. Now, she had to go to Gabriel’s birthday party tonight and see Harrison, knowing that she had failed them both.

  While her nights were filled with nightmares of him cheating on her, her days were filled with memories of their last kiss. She replayed it over and over again in her head. Her reaction to his touch was the hope she clung to that they might get through this and come out the other side of it the way that Gabriel and Ariana had.

  “Thank you so much for your help; it was lovely to see you again!” Ariana said to Tristan and Jessica as she escorted them out of the apartment. She came back to Heather and smiled at her, “Man, they’re so nice, and they do such a good job!”

  “They really do,” Heather said, “you look amazing, darling.”

  Ariana looked stunning, as usual. Her brown hair was pulled back on one side with a loose braid that led down to the nape of her neck, and the rest of her hair was down in flowing waves. Jessica had done a great job on her makeup as well, really highlighting Ariana’s beautiful emerald green eyes.

  Heather had made them both dresses to wear tonight, the same way she had for the Grammys years ago. She was excited to get Ariana’s reaction as she pulled down the zipper on the garment bag that she’d brought her dress in, and was rewarded with a stunned gasp from her friend.

  “Heather, it’s gorgeous!”

  The dress that she’d made for Ariana was blush pink. The dress itself was a sheath, strapless dress. It was knee-length and had a cutout back that dropped low to the waist. Over that, there was a sheer layer of slightly stiff tulle fabric, almost seeming like a separate dress as it provided sleeves, then came around and gave some modesty across the exposed back. From the waist at the front, it came down a good foot lower than the dress and dropped to being floor-length at the back.

  Heather’s dress was a lot less intricate than the one she’d made for Ariana. It was a simple, red cocktail dress with an off-the-shoulder sweetheart neckline. Her blonde hair was in a half-updo with the part that was up having intricate braids running around the crown of her head while the rest flowed down her back, and Jessica had accentuated her lips with a fierce, red lipstick that matched her dress.

  She went into their spare bedroom to get into her dress and came out to find both Gabriel and Ariana ready to leave.

  “Looking good, Gabriel,” Heather said approvingly.

  “You don’t look too bad yourself,” he smiled at her.

  “Are we ready to party until the break of dawn, old man?” She couldn’t resist teasing him.

  “Excuse me, if I recall correctly, you’re turning thirty-one next month, aren’t you?” He laughed.

  “You’re both old,” Ariana announced with a wicked grin and then dashed over toward Heather, laughing, as Gabriel tried to chase after her, “Stop, Gabe! I’ll fall in these heels and break an ankle. If we end up in the A&E instead of going to your party, it’ll be all your fault!”

  She stopped running, and he caught her to him, put his arms around her and held her close. Heather tried not to overhear, but Gabriel wasn’t quiet enough when he said, “I’m not too old to fuck you stupid later.”

  “God damn, you two,” Heather figured there was no point pretending she hadn’t heard and fanned herself for effect, “I haven’t had sex in far too long. It’s not fair to show off like that!”

  Gabriel dropped his arms from around Ariana’s waist at once, and she stepped away from him.

  “Shit, guys, it was just a joke,” Heather laughed at their reaction, “it’s not like I’m unaware that you two fuck like bunnies. That being said, shouldn’t the car be here soon?”

  When their limousine arrived at the venue for Gabriel’s birthday, there was a huge number of paparazzi there. It was being held in the ballroom of a five-star hotel in downtown Chicago. There were barriers at the sides of the steps leading into the hotel lobby, and there were policemen ensuring that none of the people who weren’t guests of the party or the hotel were allowed past the barriers.

  They posed for a few photos together on the way in, then Heather posed for some on her own and answered a few questions from the media. She tried her hardest to ignore the ones about Harrison or Sebastian and even managed to refrain from rolling her eyes.

  “Heather, Sebastian brought another girl with him tonight, are you jealous?”

  She couldn’t stop herself from laughing, though, and she smirked at the woman who had asked the question, “Pigs will fly before I get jealous of Sebastian’s many, many girlfriends. We’re just friends.”

  “What about the girl that Harrison brought with him?” Someone else asked her.

  Heather’s head whipped around at once, “I’m sorry, what?”

  The reporter had gotten both Gabriel and Ariana’s attention as well, and he seemed very pleased with himself as he repeated, “Yeah, Harrison brought a girl tonight. What do you think about that?”

  Heather felt sick. Harrison had brought a girl with him? Who? Surely not Maddy. He wouldn’t. No, they would’ve known who she was, and they defin
itely would have told her. They wanted a reaction; she’d already given them one, but she wouldn’t indulge this further. She needed to get inside and find out what the fuck was going on.

  “Obviously,” she said, giving him her most condescending smile, “I’ve only just arrived, so I have no idea what happened before I got here. I hope you have a wonderful night.”

  With that, she turned and strode as casually as she could through the doors and into the hotel lobby. She didn’t stop once she was inside, she didn’t even wait to see if Gabriel and Ariana were behind her, just followed the signs toward the birthday party. She made her way across the lobby and to a hallway that apparently led to the ballroom.

  “Heather, stop!” Ariana called out and jogged a little bit to catch up with her and Gabriel trailed behind.

  Ariana grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop, and Heather spun to look at her. “He brought someone with him tonight, Ariana.”

  She thought that she might split into a thousand pieces just from saying it. The betrayal was worse than the one she’d experienced when he’d cheated on her. Her brain told her that, in fairness, they were broken up. How long could he reasonably be expected to wait for her to get over her shit enough for them to be together again? At the same time, how could he possibly be moving on so soon?

  “Heather,” Gabriel said quietly, “they could just have been trying to get a reaction from you. It might not even be true. Harrison wouldn’t do that.”

  Heather looked at him; what he was saying made sense. It was far more likely that she’d been lied to than that Harrison had brought someone else with him tonight. She was shaken, though. The possibility of Harrison moving on and being with someone else was absolutely terrifying, but she was still having those fucking nightmares.

  She took a deep breath and released it slowly, then nodded, “Okay, you’re right. Let’s go. Super Fun Happy Party Time?”

  “Something like that,” Gabriel smiled and put an arm around her shoulders, “but also if you want to have Shitty Depressed Sit And Drink Time, that’s okay, too.”