Page 132 of My Fiancé's Brother
These dark thoughts gripped my mind as I teetered back and forth like a spinning top. Things had at one time been good between Matt and me. Maybe we could have our happy ending after all? Lots of women had pretended that one man’s baby was another man’s. Was it that bad? Matt would love this child, and this child would have a father. Was that the preferable action than to condemn this child to a lifetime with only me to parent it through life? Was I qualified to parent another human being? Look at the mess my life was in. Would one small lie make that much of a difference in the big picture of things?
It didn’t help that Matt was the master of pretending. He knew that I was struggling, but he glossed over my vacant moods and numb state. If I was going to start this marriage with a lie, who better to start it with than a man who didn’t want my truth?
I knew that Matt wanted the finer things in life. I had a lot of money. I could offer him that life, the vacations and all the trappings that he desired. In exchange, I would give my child a father.
Sometimes, I came to grips with my insane thoughts and returned to the fact that I needed to just end this charade, but no matter how much I tried, I could not find the strength within me to speak the truth.
There was a small, traitorous part of me that hoped that while Matt was still in my life, there was a chance I would see Jackson. Maybe he would show up at the hospital? Perhaps I would run into him outside in the parking lot? How pathetic that I would delay the inevitable for just one more glimpse of him. One more conversation. One more moment.
I couldn’t accept that I would never see Jackson again. If I married Matt, at least I would be fed small tidbits about Jackson’s life. As crazy as it was, that was almost the best reason I had to marry Matt.
Then I ranout of time.
CHAPTER 49
I stoodin the room in the back of the church and stared in the mirror. My red hair was piled up on the top of my head. My sleeveless wedding dress’s tight embroidered bodice nipped at my waist, and the skirt billowed out in an expanse of tulle to the floor. It was too tight. I guess that’s what happens when you’re ten weeks pregnant. Your wedding dress becomes a straight jacket on your rib cage. I took a deep breath and hated how I was unable to expand my lungs to full capacity.
“You look like a princess,” Beth breathed from beside me.
We stared at our reflections in the mirror. I looked so serious. So young and uncertain. How had I ended up here? Had my indecisiveness and my inability to speak my mind brought me to this point? I felt wracked with uncertainty.
The problem was I felt numb. I could feel nothing. My entire being was whitewashed, and there was no color, no feeling, no sense of what was right and what was wrong.
“Do you think I should marry Matt?” I asked Beth.
The champagne flute hovered halfway to her lips. Our eyes met in the mirror.
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
“It’s a real question.”
I watched as she drained the entire glass. “Oh, God.”
I waited as she poured herself another glass. And then downed that one.
She squared her shoulders and looked at me. “You can’t hold what I say against me if you don’t do what I think you should do.”
I nodded.
“I think marrying Matt is the biggest mistake you could make in your life. And I think from the moment you say ‘I do’ to the moment you get your inevitable divorce, you are going to regret it every day of your life.”
“Oh.”
She poured herself a third glass. “You promised me that you wouldn’t hold that against me.”
“I won’t.”
“And I'll be there for you every single day if you decide to go through with this.”
“Thanks.”
“And if you do marry him and you end up deliriously happy you won’t hold this conversation against me.”
“I won’t.”
There was a knock at the door. Was that Jackson? My heart almost stopped.
The usher wanted to let us know that all the guests were seated. Matt was ready to take his place at the front.
