by Naomi West
“I … Um, we need to talk about something. Before any of this happens.”
“What is it?” he asked, taking another sip of his drink.
“It’s kind of silly,” said Carey. “You might laugh.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said, his eyes narrowed just a bit in mild annoyance.
“Well, when I was away at college, all of my friends were, you know, getting up to things with guys. They wanted me to come out and have fun with them, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that kind of party lifestyle wasn’t for me. I wasn’t into casual sex, and I wasn’t into endless flings with guys. So, I decided that I was going to wait before sleeping with another guy again, to wait until marriage.”
Brady’s eyes rose.
“Does that mean that you haven’t slept with anyone else besides me?”
“Um, that’s exactly what it means,” she said. “After all, who could compare?”
The naked flattery made Carey a little sick to her stomach to speak, but she could see that it was having the effect that she wanted. A pleased smile formed on Brady’s lips and after finishing the last of his whiskey and setting down his glass, he held up a finger.
“In that case,” he said, “why don’t you head out onto the balcony. I have something for you.”
With that, he hurried off as fast as his booze-heavy limbs could carry him. Carey listened to his steps quiet as he hurried down the hallway, her body tensing as she prepared for whatever he had in store.
Stepping out onto the balcony, Carey looked over the lovely sweep of the lake and surrounding properties, the moon heavy in the ink-black sky above. Turning around and resting her body on the balcony railing, she looked into the house, noting that it was about as close to a palace as she could imagine.
This is a nightmare, she thought to herself, but if I can be a big girl and go through with it, this is what my baby will have. He’ll never want for anything, and all I’ll have to do is put up with some bi-monthly duty sex. It could be much, much worse.
Despite everything, however, all she wanted was Owen. After all, he was the true father of the baby, and she knew that by going along with whatever Brady had in mind she was denying the child a chance to know his real father. But she knew she couldn’t risk him turning into a criminal like his father.
“Here we are!” said Brady, hurrying back into the living room and out onto the balcony.
He arrived in front of her breathlessly, his right hand stuffed into his pocket. Carey’s eyes went wide in shock and fear—she knew right away what he had in mind.
“Now, Carey, I know that this has all been very sudden for you. It’s been a shock to have you back in my life too. But it’s been more than wonderful. I know you’re the exact type of woman that I want to have by my side; it would almost be stupid for us not to do this …”
He pulled his hand out of his pocket. Carey saw that it held a small box.
“Um, let me just.”
He fumbled to get it open, his hands sloppy with booze.
“Whoops!”
The box fell to the floor with a clatter and he dropped to his knees to pick it up. After a moment of scrambling, he had it back in his hands.
“Saved me the trouble of getting on my knees,” he said with an awkward laugh. “Anyway …”
He popped open the box, revealing a diamond ring that was the largest and gaudiest that Carey had ever seen in person.
“Carey Oakley, will you marry me?”
The next few moments passed in a blur. Carey remembered mumbling out a yes, slipping on the ring, and putting up with a sloppy, overexcited kiss.
“You’ll, um, have to excuse me,” she said.
“Ah yes,” said Brady. “Get on inside and text your friends—post the ring on Instagram, too! That baby was made to be shown off!”
Carey nodded, rushing inside. As she hurried through the living room, she almost could swear that the ring was so heavy that it threw off her balance as she moved. Moments later, she was in one of the guest bedrooms, the door shut behind her.
She didn’t want to text anyone, however. All she wanted to do was what she did next, which was collapse onto the bed and have a proper, miserable cry.
Chapter Twelve
Carey
“Okay, let’s see it.”
Carey sighed and took her hand out of her pocket.
“Holy shit.”
Lily was speechless.
“That’s, uh, quite the goddamn ring,” said Lily, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“It’s hideous,” said Carey, sitting back on the sink in the bathroom where she and Lily were getting ready for the engagement party her parents were throwing for her. “I feel like my arm’s going to get pulled out of the socket walking around with this thing.”
“It’s like a damn boulder,” said Lily.
“Whenever I pictured my engagement ring, I always imagined something, you know, a little more tasteful. I don’t even really care about how expensive it is.”
“You might not care about how expensive it is, but someone clearly does,” she said, grabbing Carey’s hand and taking another look at the enormous rock. “Shit, you could sell this thing and go get another six-year degree at college. I don’t want to even think about how much it cost.”
She dropped Carey’s hand and looked away.
“But you are thinking about it,” said Carey.
“How can I not? Brady’s not even thirty and he’s dropping more on a ring than I’m probably gonna make in this decade. One thing’s for sure, though—he’s not screwing around about wifing you up.”
“He’s like an overeager little kid who can’t understand why he can’t get what he wants.”
“Looks to me like he is getting what he wants,” said Lily, cocking her eye at Carey.
Carey sighed, knowing that Lily was right. By agreeing to the wedding, she was justifying all of Brady’s boorish, entitled behavior. Once they were wed, she knew that he’d become even more of a nightmare to deal with. After all, he’d won the most important victory of his life.
“Are you really that upset about all of this?” asked Lily. “I mean, you’re about to get hitched to a guy who’s able to give you whatever you want.”
Not everything, thought Carey.
“It’s fine,” said Carey. “I mean, I was stupid to think I could do anything other than what my family expected of me. And they’ve been paying for everything over the last few years—wouldn’t it be, I don’t know, ungrateful to not get married to the man they want for me?”
“Very logical,” said Lily, “but you’re probably right. Maybe you should just try to focus on the positive, you know? I mean, think about the wedding. And I bet you can get a honeymoon in Paris out of this guy, easy.”
Carey forced a small smile.
“And I hate to bring it up, but have you heard anything from Owen?”
“I, um, kind of blocked him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I mean, I know it’s lame, but I didn’t know what else to do. I just … I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
Lily shook her head in commiseration. But before either of them could say another word, a heavy knock sounded on the bathroom door.
“Are you two about done getting ready?” asked Joanne, her voice muffled. “Everyone’s waiting for you, Carey!”
“Guess there’s no putting this off any longer,” said Carey, taking one last look at herself in the mirror.
“At least you look hot as shit in that dress,” said Lily.
Carey smiled as she opened the bathroom door.
“About time,” said Joanne, leading the two girls through the halls of Brady’s house. “The guests are all wondering when they can finally lay eyes on the beautiful fiancée!”
Carey felt her stomach tighten as they drew closer to the balcony. Dozens of well-dressed men and women were there, sipping champagne and talking amongst themselves. Once Joanne opened the door, how
ever, all eyes locked onto Carey.
“Here she is, everyone! The girl of honor!”
Light, pleased applause broke out among the crowd, followed by the nearest girls swooping in to catch a glimpse of the massive ring on Carey’s finger.
“Oh my God! Look at that thing!”
“It’s … gorgeous.”
“That’s like my ring times five!”
Carey turned to Lily, who watched the commotion with an amused expression on her face.
“Now, now, girls,” said Brady, cutting through the crowd and taking Carey’s hand. “Try not to eat her alive before the wedding even happens.”
Brady led her through the party, taking her aside and placing a glass of champagne in her hand.
“Wow,” he said, looking her up and down with eager eyes. “You look like a damn dream.”
“Thanks,” said Carey, turning towards the sweep of the lake.
Brady furrowed his brow. “You look … not all that happy,” he said.
“It’s just … all of this,” she said, waving her hand towards the party happening around her. “It’s not really my thing. I’m not really much of a party type.”
“Well,” said Brady. “You’ll have to get over that sooner than later. When you and I are married, we’re going to be having little soirees like this all the time. After all, the higher I move up with the bank, the more I’ll be expected to keep up appearances. After all, what good is having a beautiful wife like you at my side if I can’t show her off?”
He smirked.
“Just joking,” he said, not getting the reaction he seemed to be hoping for. “But you’re going to be making many, many friends among the wives of my business associates. You’ll have plenty of time to build up your social muscle.”
Carey looked down at the glass of champagne in her hand, wishing more than anything that she could drink it, then another, then another, until this party was something approaching tolerable.
“So get in there and make some friends!” he said, leading her towards the crowd with his hand on the small of her back. “And I’d better not see you spending the afternoon gossiping in the corner with Lily. Make some new friends!”
With that, Brady went off to fraternize with the other men from the bank. Carey was set upon immediately by the single women in attendance, all of them clamoring for another look at the ring in between telling Carey just how lucky she was for snagging a man like Brady.
“How did you do it?” asked one of the girls, a wide-eyed redhead. “I’ve been trying to get him for months, and you just walk in and within, like, two weeks, you get a ring.”
“We, um, have a history. We dated in high school.”
The girls all said “ahh” in unison.
“That’s so romantic,” said another. “You break up in high school, go off to live in the real world, then you realize that you’re perfect for one another. It’s like a movie or something.”
Yeah, a horror movie, though Carey.
She put up with the giggling girls for as long as she could manage before ducking out of the crowd to find Lily.
“How’re you holding up?” Lily asked, taking a long sip of her bubbly.
“About as well can be expected,” Carey said, leaning against the side of the house. “Looks like I’ve got nothing but this to look forward to for the next three decades.”
“It could be worse,” Lily said. “Plenty of girls our age would kill to be a ‘brunch-and-shopping’ trophy wife.”
“Then they’re more than welcome to switch places with me,” said Carey.
Just then, another group of girls approached the pair.
“Can you cover for me for ten minutes?” asked Carey, not at all in the mood for more chattering conversation. “I just need to clear my head.”
“Do it,” said Lilly. “I’ll try to find a shiny object to distract your new friends with.”
“Thanks,” said Carey, hurrying back into the house.
She made her way through the smattering of people gathered in the living room, saying her “hellos” where necessary. After a few moments, Carey was back in the guest bedroom that she’d claimed for her own over the last few weeks. Plopping down onto the bed, she let out a long sigh as she tried to fight back the urge to weep.
“… so she’s an art major, right?”
Carey’s ears perked up. She looked around, half-expecting to see someone else in the room with her, so clear and loud were the words.
She stood up from the bed and looked around, her eyes settling on the open window across from her. Walking carefully towards it, she saw that it was open just over a small group of suited men, Brady among them.
“Yes,” said Brady, “she’s just finishing up her master’s.”
Carey’s eyes went wide as she realized that she was in the perfect position to listen in on a conversation that she wasn’t meant to hear. Part of her wanted to shut the window and hurry back to the party, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Badass, man,” said one of the men. “Back when was I at Yale, the art chicks were always the ones who gave it up super easy. All of them were trying to piss off their dads or some shit.”
“No kidding,” said another one of the men. “Or they thought that being a skank was, like, some kind of empowerment shit or whatever. And I’m just like ‘whatever gets you sucking my cock’.”
The men laughed, but Carey didn’t hear Brady among them.
“You’re both wrong,” he said, his voice one of mild irritation. “She’s not like that. Carey told me very clearly that she hasn’t been with any other guys since her and I dated.”
“And you believed that?” asked one of the men.
“Why wouldn’t I?” asked Brady. “She’s from a good family; she knows better than to ruin her reputation.”
“Just sayin’, man, girls do shit like sleep around and then put on the innocent act when it’s time to get hitched.”
“You’re wrong!” repeated Brady, now much more irritated. “And I’m not going to just stand around while you call my fiancée a whore!”
Part of Carey felt a little flattered at Brady for sticking up for her like this. But she quickly realized that this was likely more about Brady protecting his own pride than it was about being chivalrous. She continued to listen in.
“Just fuckin’ with you, man,” the man continued. “She’s probably being legit with you.”
“Yeah,” said the other. “Carey’s a quiet chick. It’s those artsy girls with the purple hair that you’ve gotta look out for, you know?”
“Well, Carey’s not like that,” said Brady. “And I’m more than happy to be marrying an artist.”
Carey was surprised to hear that.
Does this mean he’s actually going to be supportive of my passions or something? she asked herself.
“No shit?” asked one of the men.
“Absolutely,” said Brady. “See, I’ve gotten to know some of the guys up above me at the bank, and they all made the mistake of marrying girls with actual ambition—the types that they met on the job. You know, career girls.”
“Uh huh,” said one of the men.
“And it always ends up making them miserable. The women give up their career ambitions to stay at home, and they’re very, very unhappy about it in time.”
“Then they end up turning into ball-busting nightmares,” said one of the men.
“Exactly,” said Brady. “A girl like Carey, on the other hand, doesn’t have that kind of ambition. I’ll let her have one of the bedrooms to turn into a studio or whatever it is that she wants, but I’ll make it very, very clear that there are particular things that I expect out of her a wife. And with someone like her, I’m sure it will be very, very easy to ‘train’ the proper behavior into her.”
“Damn, Brady,” said one of the men. “You’re like a mastermind with this shit.”
“Ice cold, but not a bad plan,” said the other. “Way better than fixing some girl who’s ten years
into some career or something.”
Carey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She dropped into a sitting position on the ground, it finally dawning on her just how trapped and helpless she was. It wasn’t enough for Brady to have her body, she realized, he also wouldn’t stop until he’d changed her into his idea of the perfect wife. However, she had no idea what else she could do.
“Let’s get back in there,” said one of the men. “Girls are getting good and drunk by now.”
