“—sitting down,” he finishes.
He pulls a cow-print upholstered chair out and arranges it behind me, and I sink into it as instructed.
But he doesn’t have to tell me what he’s going to say. I’ve already connected the dots. Paul’s disheveled state at our meeting, his failure to bring the marriage license that day.
Did he ever pick it up?
I think I know the answer.
It feels like someone has punched me in the stomach but also like a hot flush of the deepest shame. Somewhere in my body, I already know that I willneverbe able to face the people waiting out there in the audience again.
“Paul isn’t going to marry me,” I say. Not a question.
Rhys nods, not looking at me. Looking at some point off in the distance. It’s cold, his not looking, and I want the earlier moment back, before I got gut-punched, when Rhys’s gaze told me that no matter what anyone else could do or say, I was perfect.
Except I’d imagined that, and the truth is that I’m not perfect.
I’mjilted.
Oh, God, I’mjilted.
“He left a note,” Rhys says, “for his brother to give to you.”
“So why didn’t Charlie bring me the note?”
“Because he never showed up this morning. He’s a coward. Like his asswipe of a brother.”
His voice is low and dark and hard, his jaw tight. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was angry on my behalf.
“But you’re not.”
Rhys laughs—a short, dark, unhappy laugh. “No,” he says. “I’m not.” And he hands me the envelope he’s been clutching behind his back.
5
Rhys
She stands there, reading the note, and I try not to stare.
But it’s impossible.
She’s a shimmering goddess, and I don’t only mean the sparkle of the beads on her dress. I mean the glitter on her eyes and cheekbones, the shine of her smooth blond hair, the gloss of her bitable lower lip. She’s slim, almost willowy, but in this dress, she’s all dramatic dips and slopes, and tearing my eyes away from the creamy curves that threaten to spill over the neckline of the dress is the second hardest thing I’ve had to do today.
Her hand, the one holding the note, drops to her side, like it’s too limp to support the weight of the paper.
“I need to get out of here,” she says, her voice lifeless. “Get me out of here.”
My eyes find her face—I can’t help it—and I seeheragain. The woman I saw that first day in my firm’s conference room. Scared and alone and putting on a brave face like it was her job to hold the whole world together. She’s frightened and lost, and it isn’t my fucking job to save her—it willneverbe my job to save her—but for the first time, and just this once, I can do what she needs.
“Take off the dress,” I command. “There’s no way to sneak you out of here while you’re wearing that.”
The look on her face might be panic. “Someone has to unzip it. Get Mari.”
“There’s no time,” I say. “Turn around.”
There’s a long moment of hesitation. She has no reason to trust me and every reason to hate me, and the whole world teeters in the balance, waiting. Then she obeys, giving me the low-cut back of the dress and acres more creamy skin. This woman has never gone outside without half a bottle of sunscreen on. When I reach for the zipper, my fingers brush her back, and her skin is as soft as it looks, as soft as satin.
Shut your eyes,I tell myself.Shut your eyes.
