She glanced again at the door, eyes still upset, still worried.
I put both my hands on her shoulders. “Listen, I’ve been selfish and completely blind to what you’ve been going through. But Beck, I never wanted anything more than for you to be happy. So whatever happens, just know that I’ll be right behind you.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Alice.” We hugged one last time, and then I opened the door for Sam, slipping past him into the hall as he closed it behind him.
I went back out into the living room. Twain and Mason were back, both by the windows. Mason looked tired and drawn. Twain was smoking again, but he was blowing it out of the crack. Jules glared at him openly. Keegan’s jaw was noticeably clenched.
I sank down on the couch next to Kylie. She looked at me questioningly, but I shook my head. Later, maybe. If I ever got past the shame of letting my best friend down on the most important week of her life.
It was ironic. The best of intentions, right? I’d wanted so badly to get Beck down the aisle that I’d had blinders on to how she was really feeling. How many times over the planning had I made decisions for her? Had I pressured her into making choices she hadn’t otherwise wanted? Had Sam? Beck was happiest when everyone was happy, sometimes at a detriment to herself. She must have thought that she was getting what she wanted, Sam, and that everything else was just circumstantial.
When it came down to it though, it was different. Weddings were incredibly stressful in the best of circumstances. And so far things had been far from perfect.
My thoughts drifted to Mac again. I wondered where he was. Why couldn’t he just have been happy for our friends? But really, was he any more selfish than how I’d been acting? He hadn’t wanted the wedding to happen. I’d wanted it too much. Both of us were pretending it was for our friends’ best interests when, in reality, it was just a tool to ignore the gaping loneliness inside us.
I tried hard to be mad at Mac, to fault him for the situation with Margot, for everything that had happened. But really all I wanted was for him to be sitting by my side. I wanted to talk to him. To work things out.
Too bad you told him to get lost, huh? And he’d lied about Margot. Was that something I could ever get past?
I wanted to sit in silence and ponder the question longer, but at that moment, Jules snapped.
“Goddamn it!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and turning on Twain. “Put that fucking thing out.”
“Go to hell,” Twain spat back.
Keegan stood too. “Watch it, Twain,” he said, pointing a finger at him.
“Or what?”
“Stop!” Mason shouted. “Twain, smoke on the balcony if you have to. And apologize to Keegan.”
Twain threw the cigarette on the carpet and stubbed it out with his bare heel. “Sorry you have a bitch girlfriend, Keegan.”
Keegan strode forward until he was towering over Twain. Twain stared up at him, angry and unfazed.
“Could you both—” Mason started. Then he stopped and everyone turned to see what he was looking at.
Beck and Sam stood in the entrance to the hallway, holding hands. Keegan and Twain automatically stepped away from each other. Everyone waited to hear what they’d say.
“We’ve decided,” Sam said, “to go home and get married in New York.”
There was an audible gasp around the room. It didn’t surprise me. I’d known the moment I saw Beck. Her eyes were still shiny with tears, but the excitement had returned to them. She was happy and Sam looked satisfied too.
“What about your guests?” Mason asked, the first to recover.
Sam shrugged. “I’ll send out an announcement saying something’s come up. I’ll still cover the cost of their stay so hopefully nobody will be too upset.”
“Why?” That was Jules and it sounded like a demand.
“We’ve decided it’s for the best,” Sam said calmly.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Mac, does it?” Jules asked. “Because he screwed us all over. And he got you all hurt.”
“Mac is one of the reasons,” Sam said. “He’s made mistakes, but I still want him in the wedding.”
Jules scoffed. “So we have to leave Mexico and fly back because of Mac. I’ve wasted an entire week here and there isn’t even going to be a wedding? Well, forget it. Mac is an asshole and if he’s going to be in the wedding, then you can count us out.”
She paused for Keegan to back her up. He didn’t. She turned and looked at him. “Keegan? Don’t you have anything to say?”
Keegan’s mouth twisted. “Yeah, I do. Jules, I don’t think this is working out.”
Her mouth dropped and I had to stifle a laugh. “What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m breaking up with you.”
Her face flushed, eyes darting to everyone standing awkwardly around. Henry and Twain both looked entirely gleeful; Mason just looked relieved.
“Fine, see if I care!” she said. “I didn’t want to be in this stupid fucking wedding anyway.” She turned and stormed off to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
There was a long beat of silence in the room. Then Twain dissolved into laughter and everyone started talking at once. There were plans being made for packing. Slaps on the back for Keegan. Questions for Beck and Sam. I stood back and took it all in. They’d be getting married in New York, the city where they’d met on Beck’s first night out of Kentucky, where they worked and lived and fell in love. It felt right.
Everyone started going their separate ways, to pack and get ready for the flight. Sam stepped aside to call the airport and tell them to prepare his plane. But before he could dial, I stopped him. I had to know.
“Sam,” I started. “How… how are you able to forgive Mac? I know it ended up working out, but he almost destroyed your entire wedding.”
Sam looked at me for a long moment and then said, “Alice, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t really on board for this huge wedding either. I thought Beck wanted it though, the fairy tale thing, you know? It was a surprise to hear how she’s really been feeling. And she only told me after I told her I needed to go after Mac.”
“You were going to follow him to New York?” I asked, surprised.
“I was going to bring him back. Screw Lorne.” He rustled his hair as he chose his words. “I should have believed him about Margot.”
“Why?” I asked. “I don’t believe him.”
Sam laughed. “Because Mac is the most honest person I’ve ever met. He wears every emotion completely on his sleeve. And I’ve never heard him lie to my face in all the years I’ve known him. If he says he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it.”
I nodded slowly. “Thanks, Sam.”
“No problem. Now I’ve got to make a call.”
He left and I stood for a moment thinking about Mac, thinking about Daniel and the guys before him. Mac had always been honest with me, I realized, from the very beginning. He never once claimed to be something he wasn’t. And if that was the case, then when he said he hadn’t wanted me to leave?
Well, he must have been telling the truth.
23
Mac
I woke to an overcast, drizzly New York afternoon. Cold. Bleak. People walking the streets quickly, heads down, getting where they needed to go.
I watched them from the window of my apartment in Chelsea. It was a pre-war building, only five stories tall, made of brick and stitched together with a crooked line of fire escapes. The entire top floor was mine. Okay, technically the entire building was mine, but that was where I lived. When searching for an apartment, I hadn’t been able to find one that fit exactly what I had in mind. The only option was to make it myself. So I’d bought the building, hired someone to take care of the landlord bullshit, and set about crafting the upper floor to my desires. These included knocking down all the walls to form one giant apartment and installing everything I could ever want or need in a home. The ceilings were high, two-stories tall, and the windows looked
out over Seventh Avenue.
I loved my apartment. It was my kingdom, I its King. But today it just felt empty. My footsteps echoed on the dark hardwood flooring as I walked from room to room, opening doors and peering in on empty bedrooms. I sat in the living room, but immediately got up again. I poured myself a drink at the bar, but then left it, ice melting into the scotch.
I’d gotten into LaGuardia late last night, a little after three AM. All the way to the airport, on the flight, in my private car on the way back to the city, my movements had been goal-oriented. My brain told my body what to do and my mouth what to say and otherwise every thought was silent.
Just one objective repeated over and over again: Get back home.
And I did. My driver, Dan, pulled up in front of my building. I’d gotten out, walked the five flights to the top floor, and closed the door behind me. Then I’d drank two scotch and sodas and passed out on top of my bed, still in my bloody clothes from the rehearsal dinner, and slept until noon.
Upon waking, I found that I could no longer keep the thoughts at bay. They invaded my mind, twisted and accusing, and no matter how hard I tried to beat them off, I was unable to ignore this simple truth: It was all my fault.
There was no denying it, no running from the facts. I’d fucked up. I’d fucked up the wedding. I’d fucked up my friendship with Sam and probably the rest of the Knights. And I’d fucked up with Alice.
I might not have actually had sex with Margot, but she hardly even mattered. The accusation, the revenge for denying her, was just a symptom of the sickness that I’d infected this entire week with. Sam would have believed me if I hadn’t insisted on messing up again and again.
And why? Because I was afraid. I could admit that now. Not for Sam, but for myself. Afraid of being screwed over and left like Sammy Dedric. Afraid of losing all my friends again. Afraid of dying alone like my da.
But there was a world of difference between eighteen and thirty-one, and Sam was a smart man, way smarter than any of the boys back in Ireland. I should have trusted him. I should have seen how happy he was with Beck.
I just hadn’t understood. But I did now. Because now I knew what it felt like to fall in love. I knew the desire to see and touch and hear and smell that somebody, that ‘one’, every hour of every day for the rest of my life. And now that I had a taste for it, I wasn’t sure I could go back. But I also couldn’t move forward. Because Alice was, after this last selfish blow, done with me. If I saw her on the street, she’d walk the other way.
I pressed my forehead to the cool glass and stared down at the light rain starting to hit the pavement. I only had myself to blame, a feeling that was as unfamiliar as it was frustrating. I knew how to deal with others who brought chaos onto my doorstep. But how did I go after myself for screwing over my life, my friends, and my love?
I racked my brain, trying to come up with a way to get Sam’s forgiveness, but I had the unsettling feeling that it was all too late. My prophecy had been self-fulfilling. Now I had to accept the fallout and the blame. Now I—
My phone rang. I checked the caller ID, annoyed my misery was being interrupted. It was my doorman.
“What?” I barked into the phone.
“Your car is here, sir,” Anderson said.
“My car? I didn’t call for a car.”
“The driver said it’s for you.”
“Well tell him to go away.” I slammed the phone down and returned to pacing.
Maybe I should go away too. Get out of the city for a bit. Delegate my work and travel for a while. I had the money. I could go anywhere. Do anything. Though ideas for ‘anywhere’ and ‘anything’ were turning a blank. Try as I might, every time I looked into my mind’s eye, all I saw was Alice and that angry, disappointed look she had the last time I saw her.
I fought the image, but couldn’t conjure any other. So I leaned into it. I remembered Alice. That competitive aggression as she played tennis atrociously, seemingly unembarrassed by it in the slightest. How she’d met my challenge in the steam room, stripping after only a moment of hesitation. And so many moments from our night out in Tuzas — her nose scrunched as she tried scotch, dancing wildly in the rave, her long hair flowing behind her on the back of the motorbike. And then, later, as we took those damn horses down the beach. I could hear her laughter echoing in my ears, the way she looked over her shoulder with wide, brown eyes and her mouth curled at the sight of me. How she’d moaned under my tongue and clutched my chest as I’d pushed my cock inside her. The smell of her — springtime and happiness and laugher and—
The phone rang again. I strode across the room and answered so aggressively the device strained under my grip.
“What.”
“Sir, I’m sorry. The car won’t leave until you come down. The driver is very strange. Should I call the police?”
I stewed, all my pain and frustration boiling to anger. “No. I’ll handle him.”
Good. This was exactly what I needed. Somebody to yell at, maybe to fight if I was lucky. I took the elevator, pacing in the small box like a lion, muttering obscenities.
I strode out of the elevator, stormed past Anderson, and burst out of the door. There was a limo waiting at the corner, every window tinted. I walked around the front to the driver’s side and banged on the glass with my fist.
“Who the fuck sent you?” I demanded.
The window rolled down. Yeah, come on, punk. You won’t leave me alone? I’ll make you leave me alone. I—
“Damn, Mac, take a breath, bud. You look like you’re about to blow a valve.”
My jaw actually dropped. It was Twain. He was grinning and wearing a tux, his wedding tux, along with a chauffeur’s hat tilted at a jaunty angle.
“Twain?” I asked in disbelief for the second time that week. “What the hell are you doing here?”
But he was already rolling up the window. As he disappeared, he jerked his head to indicate behind me. “I’ll let her do the explaining.”
I turned. The limo door was opened and, like out of a dream, there she was. Alice was dressed in her bridesmaid’s dress, light blue, simple, bunched at the waist and falling to her ankles. Her auburn hair was down and loose. And her eyes were apprehensive.
“Mac…” she started.
But I was walking toward her, stopping only when I was directly in front of her. Close enough to smell her over the city. For her face to fill my vision. “I’m sorry, Alice,” I said. “I’m so sorry. And I don’t know if I have to buy you an entire stable full of horses. Or do a thousand stupid things to make you laugh. But whatever it is, whatever you need from me to make this right, I’ll do it for you.”
She looked up at me, those brown eyes mysterious and unreadable. But then a smile slipped onto her face. She put a hand on my chest and said softly, “Oh Mac. All you have to do is kiss me.”
I didn’t have to hear it twice. I bent down a caught her mouth in mine, twisting my tongue against hers, cupping her face with my hand as I pulled her to me. It was deep and long and I inhaled her scent, tasted her, felt those soft hands clutching my body. I wanted it to last forever. But it couldn’t. Because we were still standing on the side of Seventh Avenue and questions were beginning to spring to mind.
So finally, I had to break away. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
Alice’s smile widened. “A lot’s changed. I’ll tell you on the way.” She stepped back and opened the limo door for me.
“On the way to where?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said. “But I hope you can change in the limo. You’re not exactly dressed for a wedding.”
“So Beck and Sam…?”
“Are waiting at the marriage bureau.”
“And the guests…?”
“Are still in Mexico.”
“And Jules?”
“Also in Mexico.”
I sat across from Alice in the limo (trying to ignore the fear I felt at letting Twain drive me anywhere) and processed everything
she’d just told me.
Sam and Beck coming home for a quiet wedding with just their close friends. Alice coming to pick me up with my tux. Keegan breaking it off with his awful girlfriend. It all seemed too good to be true. I didn’t deserve this. Not after everything that had happened.
“It wasn’t just about you,” Alice said, reading my mind. “Okay, they probably would have just powered through the big resort wedding if you hadn’t gotten yourself thrown out, but neither of them really wanted such a large wedding.”
I adjusted one of my cuff links and grinned at the implication. “So you’re saying that, in a way, I really did save the wedding?”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Mac.” But she sounded happy to say my name again.
“But if you think about it…” I pushed, grinning.
“Okay, fine. Yes. Through idiotic bumbling and a week of terrible decisions, you did somehow make the wedding better than it would have been.”
I smirked. “Luck of the Irish, love. It’s a real thing.”
She rolled her eyes again and shook her head. But then her smile faded. “I’m sorry too, Mac.”
I furrowed my brow. “For what?”
“Leaving,” she said, looking up to meet my eye. “Making assumptions. Not trusting you. Not giving you a chance.”
I stood and moved to the other side of the limo, sitting beside her and putting an arm around her shoulders. She fit perfectly against me, like it was meant to be.
“You don’t have to be sorry for anything,” I breathed into her ear.
“But I am.”
I used a finger to tilt her chin up to look me in the eye. “Then maybe we can agree those mistakes can live in Mexico. Both of ours. And we can start over from scratch in New York?”
Her mouth twisted in a half-smile. “I like the sound of that.”
I raised the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her and offered my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, beautiful. I’m Mac Walsh.”
“Alice Rhodes,” she breathed, putting her small hand into my large one.
“I think you’re going to be an important person in my life, Alice Rhodes.”
The Groomsman: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Billionaires of Club Tempest) Page 22
