LaClaire Groom

by Dori Lavelle

  “Kirk? What—” My bouquet slips from my hands and falls to the ground with a thud before bouncing a few inches away from my feet. “What are you doing here?”

  He takes a step closer. “This is where I belong,” he whispers. “We belong together—forever.” Since I’m too paralyzed with shock to move, I don’t bother trying.

  He lifts the veil off my face and leans in for a kiss. Before our lips touch, a rush of adrenaline causes me to push him away. As I watch him stagger back, I taste bile at the back of my throat only moments before I throw up. My horrified gaze drops to my wedding gown. I watch as my puke taints the beautiful fabric.

  When I look up again, Kirk is howling with laughter. He’s not the only one. All the guests present are cracking up right behind me, including the minister.

  I bite down on my lip to keep from crying, but it doesn’t help. Hot, fat tears roll down my cheeks as I gather up the skirt of my dress on both sides and turn to run down the aisle, taking with me the sour smell of my vomit. Seconds later, I burst through the double doors of the chapel and walk straight into the arms of darkness.

  As I stand on the front steps, feeling lost, afraid, and hurt, I hear someone call my name. I turn to search the darkness and find no one there. Then suddenly, someone’s hands are on me, shaking me.

  That’s when I wake up and realize it was just a dream, and the person calling me is Lance.

  Even awake, my body still holds the remnants of shock, anger, and disappointment it had felt in the dream.

  “Are you okay?” Lance flicks on the light.

  I glance at the clock hanging on the wall. Only 4 a.m.

  My gaze moves to the LaClaire cruise ship bed linen. To my eyes, it’s crisp and white, but inside my mind, the sheets are stained yellow by my vomit.

  I look back at Lance but immediately turn away again. “I had a nightmare; that’s all.”

  “I figured as much.” He leans back against the pillows. “What was it about?”

  I pull the sheets up to my neck. “Oh, it was nothing … just …” I shrug. “I can’t really remember.”

  “Maybe I can help.” Lance shifts ever so slightly. Even though I’m not looking at him, I can feel his gaze hot on my skin. “Who is Kirk? You mentioned his name in your sleep.”

  My world tips over and starts to spin out of control. How in the world will I answer his question? I could tell him I don’t know who Kirk is, but something tells me Lance won’t believe me.

  Since we arrived on the LaClaire two days ago, he’s been watching me in a weird way. I’d be doing something and feel his gaze on me. Every time our eyes met, I felt like he was trying to read me.

  “You won’t give me an answer, will you?”

  I mop the sweat from my forehead and sit up, my arms around my body. “I don’t know, Lance. I—”

  “Don’t tell me you have nothing to say.” His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. “This might sound crazy, but I get this strange feeling that you’re keeping something from me. Tell me what you’re hiding, Jia. Don’t even think about lying to me.”

  14

  Lance

  Jia doesn’t say a word for a while. I don’t try to fill in the silence. Any kind of pretense is thrown out the window now that I know my suspicions are correct. She’s hiding something, and I’m about to find out what it is.

  Mitch is pissing me off. I’ve called him several times but couldn’t reach him. It would have helped to have some kind of information from him to help me determine whether Jia is about to lie to me or not.

  I watch her tremble beneath my gaze. My eye is highly trained to her movements—inside and outside the bedroom. Right now, her movements tell me she’d rather be anywhere else but here.

  “Baby, talk to me,” I say, breaking the silence. “Since we started this cruise, you haven’t been yourself. I’ve asked you several times if you’re okay, and you lied to me every time. I can tell that something is going on with you. You haven’t been here with me for a while now. Tell me where you are.”

  Jia slides out of bed and picks up her silk robe from the cushioned bench at the foot of the bed. I watch as she slips into it, covering the matching black negligée I had surprised her with when we set foot on the LaClaire.

  She moves toward the floor-to-ceiling glass doors opening onto the balcony. Then she stands there, gazing out at the inky water. “You’re imagining things, Lance,” she says without turning around to face me. She doesn’t want me to read the lies from her eyes. “I’m fine, and I’m here. There’s nothing going on that you don’t know about.”

  “Bullshit,” I say, my voice thundering in my throat. “Don’t make a fool of me.” I want to believe her. I want to believe that she’s the woman I fell in love with, the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, but something inside me won’t let me trust her—not until I know the truth.

  Finally, she turns, lips moving even though no words come out. She’s stunning even when she’s scared. Watching her, I feel myself harden. I hate myself for wanting to fuck the truth out of her.

  “I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.” Her voice is so low I have to strain my ears to hear it.

  “Tell me what the fuck is going on.” My rage is as hot as my desire to be inside her.

  She presses her lips together, shifting from one foot to the other.

  “Fine.” I let out a breath. “In that case, I have a question for you. Tell me about the money. Forty thousand dollars was withdrawn from the wedding fund. What happened to it?”

  “The wedding fund?” She fiddles with her earring.

  “What did you do with the money, Jia?”

  She covers her face with her hands. When she lowers them again, tears are glistening in her eyes. I feel like a jerk for making her cry. I only ever wanted to make her happy, but how can I do that when there are secrets between us?

  “Give me an answer, baby. We’re about to get married. Honesty is everything to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Lance. I … I should go.” With that, she rushes out of the room, without even bothering to change. What she’s hiding must be worse than I thought.

  As I sit in bed, my eyes on the door she closed seconds ago, I’m terrified of finding out the truth.

  Frustrated, I drive a fist into the palm of my hand. What I really want to do is scream out the frustration, but Rose is sleeping in the other room, and it’s too early to wake her.

  I’m a complete wreck as I pick up the phone to call Mitch again. The call goes straight to voicemail. I leave another message.

  “Hey, this is Lance. What happened to giving me updates? Did you find something or not? Let me know as soon as you get this.”

  After I hang up, I call Bryant. I need to speak to someone.

  “How’s the cruise? Having fun?”

  “Far from it.” I press a fist to my forehead. “I was right. Jia is hiding something. She walked out when I asked about the money.”

  A headache crawls into my brain and explodes between my eyes.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yep, my lovely fiancée is lying to me. She said to my face there’s nothing going on, but I know her too well. She can’t bullshit me.”

  “Lance, what if she’s telling the truth? What if you’re driving yourself nuts for no reason?”

  “Then why did she walk out? Why couldn’t she look me in the eye?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because she’s upset you’re accusing her of being a liar.” Bryant pauses. “What do you think is really going on? What thoughts are running through your mind right now?”

  “She’s cheating on me.” I could tell Bryant that she’d called out another man’s name in her sleep, but as much as I want him to support my suspicions, I also want him to keep reassuring me that I’m wrong. I want him to be right.

  “Lance, quit jumping to conclusions. That woman loves you. Stop pushing her into a corner. Wait to hear from Mitch.”

  “No way. I’m done wa
iting. Jia is around my child and me. I need to know the truth now!”

  “Fine. I understand. But you have to be careful about how you ask her. You don’t want to mess up a good thing. If you do decide to call it quits, don’t do it on my ship.” He laughs. “Seriously though, I hope it’s nothing. Keep me posted, all right?”

  The next person I call is Derrick.

  “It better be good,” he teases. “You disturbed a hot moment with my wife.”

  “This will be quick. What’s up with your friend, Mitch? I haven’t heard from him in two days. He won’t return my calls.”

  “Last time I talked to him, he was on his way out of town.”

  “Headed for somewhere with no phone reception?”

  “Mitch is not a phone call kind of guy. He prefers face-to-face conversations. Even if you do get him on the phone, he won’t say much until you meet in person.”

  Derrick’s words fade into the distance as I watch the door open slowly. Jia walks through it, face crumpled, eyes red-rimmed.

  “I have to go, bro. Talk to you another time.”

  “Hey, wait,” Derrick calls. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m about to find out.” I hang up. “Ready to talk?” I ask Jia, doing my best to keep my voice calm.

  She closes the door and approaches the bed. “Baby, I shouldn’t have walked out on you.” She climbs back under the sheets and leans her back against the headboard. For the first time in a while, she looks at me. “You’re right, I haven’t been honest with you.”

  Shit.

  Just like that, my heart hits my chest so hard I swear I hear it crack.

  15

  Jia

  I walked back into the room ten minutes ago, prepared to tell Lance everything. But here I am, on the bed next to him, unable to find the words. I’m frightened of losing him. I’m terrified of the way he would look at me after he knows the truth.

  The time I’m giving myself before coming clean is a chance for me to mentally prepare myself for his goodbye when he discovers who I really am.

  “Tell me the truth.” Lance’s hands form fists. “I need to know where the damn money is.”

  “It’s gone, Lance.” The whisper rolls off my tongue and dies between us.

  “I know it’s gone. Tell me what you used it for.” He takes a sharp breath. “This is not about the money. There’s more where it came from.” Every word is making his body shake. “This is about you, about us. I’m not about to enter into a marriage with someone who lies to me.”

  “Lance.” Tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What is it exactly you’re sorry for?” he asks.

  I get out of bed and move to the window, gazing out, but seeing nothing. “There’s something you need to know ... about me.”

  When I don’t get a response, I turn to glance at him, my breath stuck in my throat. I turn back to the window and continue.

  “I’m not who you think I am. My name is not Jia Summers.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that I lied to you, Lance—from the start. I’m not Jia. My real name is Alana Johnston.” My biological name tastes foreign on my tongue. It’s been years since I’ve said it. The sound of it makes my skin crawl.

  When Lance speaks, after a long pause, his voice is dry and distant. “Who is Jia Summers?”

  I turn back to him, twisting my engagement ring around my finger. “She doesn’t exist. She’s someone I wanted to be.”

  “What exactly are you saying to me, Jia?”

  “I’ve been living under a false identity for years now. I didn’t like the person I was back then, so I chose to be someone else. That person was Jia Summers.” I purse my lips to wait for another response from him. This is a lot of information for him to take in. He needs time to digest it, and it’s not even the worst of it all.

  Lance gets to his feet and stands there, unmoving, his face pale. “Tell me you’re kidding. This has to be some kind of joke.”

  I shake my head. “I’m so sorry.” I near him, reach out to touch his shoulder, but he shakes me off. I back off immediately. “I lied to you, but not about how I feel … about you. I love you, Lance. That’s the truth.”

  He sinks onto the bed, eyes spitting fire. “Tell me everything.”

  I turn back to the window and let it all spill out before I lose my courage. “I grew up in New York with a prostitute mother. My father left us when I was one, and my mother died of a drug overdose when I was eighteen.”

  “You told me your mother died while giving birth to you.”

  “I lied.” I feel my knees weakening, threatening to give up on me, so I move to the couch on the opposite end of the room. I sit with my back to him.

  “You lied to me about everything?” His tortured voice makes my heart hurt.

  “Not about everything.” I lift my chin. “Not when I told you I love you. I do love you. That will never change.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me how much you love me when everything about you is a bloody lie.” His words are like a knife driving into my gut. “Go on, tell me what else I don’t know.”

  I draw in a deep breath and bring my hands together as if about to pray. “After my mother died, I had nowhere to go. I ended up on the streets with nothing to my name. I was alone and afraid.”

  I wait for him to say something that breaks off another piece of my heart, but he doesn’t speak. I might as well continue to get it all out into the open so he can decide whether he still wants to go ahead and marry me or if it all ends here.

  I thought coming onto this ship I’d be running away from Kirk and the past he brought with him. I never thought I’d have to come clean by force. Now I know it’s better to tell Lance the truth than let someone else do it.

  “Mama always told me that beauty is everything. She said I could use it to get anything I wanted. I never wanted to be like her. I wanted a different life, one I could be proud of. But out of desperation, I found myself doing things I never thought I was capable of.”

  “You became a prostitute, as well?” I’m unable to breathe from the emotions brought on by his frozen words.

  “No. Not really.”

  “Not really is not an answer. Were you, or weren’t you?”

  “I met a man who promised to take care of me. He took me off the streets. He gave me a home, a life. He asked me to be his wife.”

  “You were married before?” Lance lets out a harsh breath. “You were married and didn’t say a thing?”

  “If I told you, I would have had to tell you everything else.” I close my eyes and travel back to the past. “My husband used me. He forced me to use my beauty to get money from wealthy men.” I chew my lower lip. “Lance, I was a con artist ... Kirk and me—my ex.”

  “You were what?”

  “I can explain.” I need to get it out before I lose my nerve. “I’m not proud of what I did. I pretended to be in love with the men we targeted—wealthy, lonely men. I made them fall in love with me. I married them within a couple of months … or weeks after the first date. Then—”

  “Then you divorced them and took their money?” Lance is breathing hard now.

  I nod. “Kirk … he masterminded everything. I was young and naïve. When I wanted out, he reminded me of how I owed him for taking me off the streets.”

  “Wow, that’s some story.” Lance breathes sharply. “Now tell me it’s not true. Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I’m ... no. No, I’m not.” Right now, I wish I could go back to the past and fix things, make better choices.

  “Exactly how many times were you married?”

  “Three times.” I blow out a breath and finally find the courage to look at him. “But I’m not married now, I swear.”

  “Wow.” Lance’s hands grip his knees. “I was just another target to you, wasn’t I?”

  “No.” I rush to the bed, but the fire in his eyes stops me in my tracks. I return to the
couch. “Lance, you were not a target. I left that life behind me a long time ago. I wanted to be a different person.”

  “What made you leave the past? Why did you walk away from what sounds like a rather lucrative career?”

  I drop my head into my hands. “Something terrible happened. Someone died.”

  The silence in the room is so thick I can feel it brush against my skin.

  “You killed someone?” When I hear Lance get back to his feet, I raise my head to face him. “You’re a murderer, too?”

  “It was an accident.” Tears well up in my eyes when I go back to that night. “My ... my last target … he found out the truth about me.”

  “And you killed him, so he wouldn’t go to the cops?”

  “I didn’t kill him.” My voice is sharp. I may be many things, but I’m not a murderer. “We were arguing. He grabbed me. When I pushed him away, he fell down the stairs and hit his head.”

  “You left him for dead and ran?”

  “He wasn’t dead, just unconscious.” I bring my hands together and push through the final hurdle. “I couldn’t call the cops because I was scared, so I called Kirk.”

  “Your other husband.” Lance’s voice is a shattered whisper.

  “Kirk, he ... he shot the man. He didn’t want him to survive then go to the cops.”

  “Damn.” Lance swipes a hand across his mouth. “Who the hell did I fall in love with? I need to go. I have to get out of here.” He limps to the door, leaving his cane behind. “This is too much.”

  “Baby, please stay.”

  He turns around with a hand on the door handle. “You want me to stay so you and your husband can kill me, too?”

  “Kirk is not ... we’re divorced. He found me again a few weeks ago. I gave him our wedding money because I wanted him to stay away from us.”

  “You called out his name in your sleep.” Lance inhales, closes his eyes, then opens them again. “The point is, you wormed your way into my life under false pretenses. I need to get out of here before I lose myself.” He yanks the door open. “And the wedding is off.” The door slams behind him.