by Jamie Pope
“Get past it? There is nothing to get past. There’s not going to be a marriage.”
“Oh no!” Ingrid looked truly dismayed. “That wasn’t my intention. You have to marry Max. He adores you. He’s waited so long to get married. You’re perfect for him.”
“Do you think I’m the type of woman who would lower myself that far for a man?” Maybe it wasn’t such a stretch, Ava had already given up a lot to be with him—what was the rest of her self-respect?
“Maxime isn’t just any man. He’s special and powerful, and millions of women would give up their souls to be where we are. He’s so kind to me, and I know he’s kind to you. There’s no one else in the world who’s going to give you what he can.”
“I don’t want what he can give me. And I’m sure as hell not willing to give up my soul to be with him.” She stood up and walked to the door. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a wedding to cancel.”
Chapter 2
There was something big going on next door, Derek Patrick thought as he walked over to his window. He was a busy guy and usually nothing could tear him away from his work of making custom furniture and being the mayor of Hideaway Island, but the words “I’m going to kill the slimy bastard” had punctured his career-related fog.
Ava Bradley was staying next door to him. He hadn’t realized it at first, because for the last week all he had seen were delivery trucks going in and out of her tiny driveway, but it certainly was her. Sister to his island’s richest resident. Future wife of the man who’d tried to destroy Hideaway Island with a disgustingly large resort. As mayor Derek had done everything in his power to rally the citizens and prevent that. This place wasn’t a resort town. It was an island full of hardworking people who wanted to live in peace. A resort of that size would have brought thousands of tourists in the summer. And he might’ve been okay with that if the billionaire was going to hire local people to build the monstrosity and to be lifeguards or housekeepers or whatever positions they had available, but that had never been an option. Vermeulen had planned to bring in foreign workers from overseas and pay them a rate that no one could live on. It was damn near evil. Derek had gone toe to toe with the man. And almost came to blows with him.
He had won, which infuriated the Belgium businessman. That’s why Derek was surprised to find out that Ava had rented the house next door. She clearly hadn’t known that he would be living beside her. She probably would have strapped on her four-inch designer stilettos and hightailed it back to Miami. But she decided that she was going to throw the world’s largest wedding right here on the island. He wasn’t exactly sure why she chose this place.
She was one of those women who was too beautiful. Almost painfully so. She had perfectly smooth brown skin, and midnight-black hair that was always perfectly styled. Her clothes were ultraexpensive, and fit to her thin body like a glove. He never saw her without diamonds in her ears, he never saw her in flip-flops or flat shoes like most people in a beach community wore. He never saw her smile warmly or look happy, for that matter. He mostly saw her as eye candy, hanging on that rich man’s arm. Nothing more than another expensive accessory.
She didn’t fit in here, and yet he couldn’t be mad at her for wanting to get married on the island. Even she had to see that Hideaway Island was one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
Some of her many, many guests had arrived early, filling up all the little inns, bed-and-breakfasts and boutique hotels on the island. They ate in the restaurants and shopped in the stores. A few of them had even stopped into his showroom in town and purchased some pieces. It was a nice little boost for their economy. The island wasn’t antitourist. No, They welcomed all people. They just didn’t want some big corporate enterprise sucking the life out of this place.
Derek saw Ava’s twin, Dr. Elias Bradley, get out of his car. He knew when he saw Elias’s face that something bad had gone down.
“Where the hell is he?” he shouted. The doctor appeared more like a football player than a surgeon as he stalked toward the cottage.
Carlos, her older brother, came out of the house, the former baseball player looking even more furious, if that were possible. “I don’t know, but when I find him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to smash his head in.”
Carlos’s wife, Virginia, came out after him, holding their daughter. “Would you two hush?” She scolded. “This isn’t what Ava needs right now, and you’re scaring Bria.”
“Give me my baby girl.” Carlos’s voice softened as he took his daughter in his arms and cuddled her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Your daddy and uncle aren’t going to kill that slimy bastard today. We don’t know where he is. You don’t have to worry, but he should.”
Derek knew he should step away from the window. Being in his neighbor’s business was not his style, but he couldn’t make himself move. The whole town was buzzing about this wedding. And it all seemed to be falling apart before his eyes.
Ava stepped out of the house then. She hadn’t said a word, but Derek’s eyes went to her as soon as she stepped over the threshold. She was wearing one of those tight pencil skirts and a white blouse that gently flowed over her figure. She was an absolute knockout by any man’s standards, but it was her face that caught Derek’s attention. There were no tears, no blurry eyes from what he could see. Her expression was blank, nearly emotionless, one might see her and think she was cold, but she took her niece from her brother and brought the little girl close to her, squeezing her as she closed her eyes. And just before she did, Derek saw misery there, pure, uncovered misery. It was one of those haunting looks, made even worse by the fact that it had come from one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen.
He felt sorry for her then. He didn’t want to because he didn’t like her. He didn’t like the way she walked or spoke or dressed. He didn’t like how she let herself be used as some rich man’s accessory. She reminded him of his mother. An incredibly beautiful failed dancer turned social climber, whose self-worth came from being the woman of a rich man.
He learned from a lifetime of living with her that women like that didn’t change. Derek stepped away from the window and back to his work space. It wasn’t his business what caused that hurt look to take over Ava’s face. She would find another man. She would be all right. Women like her always managed to make it somehow.
* * *
Ava sat alone in her rented cottage that night. Carlos, Virginia and Elias had left a few minutes ago after staying with her all day. It was nice to have her family rally around her. Having two large, protective brothers threatening to tear Max limb from limb made her feel surprisingly better.
And her sister-in-law was a godsend. “You want this wedding canceled. We’ll get this wedding canceled.” As an interior designer, Virginia was used to managing large projects and calling dozens and dozens of vendors was no small feat. But she had done it all with a baby on her hip. If Ava hadn’t been so numb, she would have been amazed by her.
She could barely focus on anything; she just leaned against her twin brother, his strong body keeping her upright when she would have slumped. She and Elias usually fought like it was going out of style, but he was her twin. They had gone to college together and lived next door to each other and didn’t let more than a day pass without speaking to each other. Carlos was like a father figure to her, but Elias was like a piece of her soul. She would have fallen apart if he hadn’t ended his shift at the hospital early to get to her.
But she had sent them all away. Elias’s job as a trauma surgeon was too important for him to be away, and Carlos and Virginia needed to put their little girl to bed. And so she was truly left alone with her thoughts again.
What the hell was she going to do with her life now? She had no job. She was sure she could get her old one back, and if not, she could find one someplace else. Maybe in New York or LA, but that thought didn’t
appeal to her. She didn’t want to be that far away from her family. The thought of returning to Miami also made her sick. She had so many memories of Max there. So many places where he had wined and dined her all while keeping the fact that he had three children and another woman a secret from her.
He had businesses there. She was bound to run into him over and over again, which was dangerous, because in her current mood she wasn’t sure if she could prevent herself from running over him.
Her cell phone rang, and for a moment she was tempted to ignore it, but it was probably her mother who spent most of her year in Costa Rica now that she was a widow. She hadn’t been home when she had called the first time, and she didn’t want to leave the news in a message. It just wasn’t the kind of thing you said into a machine. She reached over to the side table to retrieve her phone, but the caller ID revealed that it wasn’t her mother. It was Max. She had told half the world she wasn’t getting married, but she had yet to tell him.
“Hello?” she answered, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. She refused to cry, because she knew if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Darling,” he purred in his accent. “Why am I hearing that you have canceled the cake and told the string quartet not to board their plane tomorrow?”
“Oh, that’s simple, Max. I’m not going to marry you.”
“Excuse me?” he sputtered, sounding genuinely surprised. “Why not? You’re being foolish.”
“Foolish?” She immediately felt her anger go up a tick. “I didn’t think it was foolish to not marry a man who is a cheating, lying bastard.”
“Cheating? I’m not cheating on you. I never have.”
“You’re not sleeping with Ingrid anymore? Judging by your family photo album, you looked very happy with her and your children in the South of France.”
He went silent, quiet for so long that she thought he had hung up. “She told you.”
“Yes. She came to see me today. Your oldest—Hugo—he looks quite like you. He’s got your nose and eyes, but he has Ingrid’s coloring. How the hell could you do this to me? And why the hell did you think you could get away with keeping this a secret from me?”
“I was going to tell you after we were married.”
“You were going to let me walk down that aisle, thinking that I was the only woman in your life, thinking that we were going to start a family, when you knew that everything we had was a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie. Yes, I have three children. Yes, their mother is my best friend, but, darling, you are the only woman I can see myself being married to, and we are going to start a family. I’ve always wanted as many children as possible.”
“It’s hard to keep that big of a secret from the world. Others have to know. You were going to let me make a fool of myself. People have probably been laughing behind my back for years.”
“Nobody would dare laugh at you. Not my chosen bride. I’m from one of the richest and most powerful families in the world. They respect you, and if they do not, I will make them. So don’t worry about what other people think. I will take care of that. Now, stop this little tantrum and call everyone back. I love you. I will take care of you. You are perfect. My princess. You are meant for a grand life with me.”
“You don’t respect me at all—do you?” She didn’t know why she hadn’t known that sooner, but the realization was crushing. She’d spent so long with a man who she was just an object to. “You think that this is something that I’m just supposed to get over. You don’t care about my feelings at all.”
“My father has had the same mistress for over fifty years. I have nearly a dozen half siblings. If my mother can bear it, so can you. You’re giving up so much for your foolish American pride. This is how things work where I come from.”
“I’m not your mother,” she said calmly. “And my foolish American pride won’t allow me to marry you. It’s over.”
“This isn’t over. You’ll see how sad your life is without me, and I will be waiting here for when you get over yourself.”
Ava hung up without saying any more. She had no idea what she was going to do with the rest of her life, but she knew that he would not be in it.
Chapter 3
Derek walked up to his aunt’s house as he did nearly every day after he finished his work. He had always thought of this place as his childhood home because he’d spent much more time sleeping there than at his own house. His aunt and late uncle had been like his parents. His cousin was more like his sister, and his grandmother, his most favorite person in the world, had lived there. Some of his best memories happened around the kitchen table in this house. He would say he was from a tight-knit family and mostly he was, but out of the dozens of holidays he had spent here, there were very few he could recall with his mother. She always seemed to be jetting off somewhere with a new boyfriend.
But maybe it had been better for him to be without her. His uncle was a world-famous architect who taught him how to build things and in the process be creative. He would have never thought about designing and building furniture. He would have never thought about running for mayor when he was only twenty-five years old. It still pained him a bit when he walked through the door and he realized that his uncle wouldn’t be there to greet him. But this house was still a happy place. It wasn’t just that it looked like a large gingerbread house; it was the fact that there was even more love in it now.
He opened the door to see his cousin’s husband, Asa, sitting next to his grandmother on the couch. They were playing video games, which wasn’t something he had expected to see when he walked through the door that evening.
“Are you ready to give up yet?” his grandmother, Nanny, asked Asa as she furiously pressed the buttons on her controller.
“No! How are you this good at this game? We just got it today. I think you’ve been practicing.”
“I think you’re a sore loser, or you will be in a moment when I do this finishing move on you. There, done.”
Asa tossed his controller on the couch beside him and slumped in his seat. “You beat me at cards and now at this. I’m not sure I can hold my head up anymore.”
Derek laughed as he walked farther into the room. Asa had just recently become a member of their family. His cousin Hallie had fallen in love with him hard after only knowing him for a month. There were a few people who thought they wouldn’t make it, especially since Hallie had been engaged to another man just six months before, but Derek knew as soon as he met Asa that he was right for Hallie. He loved her unconditionally. He gave up his career as a rescue paramedic to move down to this tiny island to be with her. Derek could only respect the man for that. “What are you two up to?” he asked them.
“Playing Street Warrior,” Nanny answered.
Nanny was active and looked much younger than her eighty years. She wasn’t one of those elderly people who was going to let her age stop her.
“You all look too serious to interrupt. So I’ll just find Hallie.”
“She’s in the kitchen with Clara.” Nanny answered. “They are making dinner. Afterward, if you’re prepared to battle me, I’d welcome another challenge.”
Derek laughed at his feisty grandmother before he made his way into the kitchen. Hallie was stirring something, while her mother sat at the table chopping vegetables for a salad. “Hello. It smells good in here.”
“Hey, Derek!” Hallie smiled at him. She was glowing. She was just a semester away from finishing her doctorate. She was enjoying being married. He had never seen her so happy. He was happy for her, but it gave him a little twinge. Not that he was jealous of her, but seeing her so in love made him realize that he never had been. He didn’t necessarily want to be in love or in a serious relationship but he was thirty-three and he had never felt a strong connection to any of the women he had been involved with.
He dated. Preferred discreet relationships with divorced women, not looking for a serious commitment. He took his job as mayor very seriously. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would be the mayor but as long as he was, his island would come first.
“Are my son-in-law and mother still playing that crazy fighting game?” his aunt Clara asked.
“They just finished. Nanny destroyed Asa. Apparently she an excellent street fighter.”
Hallie shook her head, grinning. “Don’t tell Asa, but she’s had practice. You know the Johnson kid that she gives piano lessons to? Well, he got the game for his birthday, and he taught her how to play.”
“She’s a sly old lady, isn’t she?”
“She’ll outlive us all,” his aunt said just before she got up from the table and left the room.
“I haven’t seen you in a few days.” Hallie turned down the burner and faced him. “What have you been up to?”
“We’re starting to plan for founder’s day down at city hall, and my own business is growing a little faster than I expected. My showroom is nearly empty.”
“That’s because you are an amazing craftsman. I hope you have time to make a crib for us.”
His eyes widened. “Are you pregnant?”
“No. Not yet. But as soon as I’m done with school we’re going to start trying. Asa isn’t rushing me, but I know he’s ready to be a father. I was just putting in my order now. Hopefully by the time a baby enters our lives, you’ll have it done.”
“Of course.” He took a seat at the table. “Is anything new going on with you?”
“Not really. But I did hear that Ava Bradley canceled her wedding.”
“I figured.”
“You figured? It has been all over town. No one has been able to stop talking about it.”
“I knew something was going on when I heard her brothers threaten to kill Vermeulen. Your husband works with her brother—he didn’t tell you anything?”
