“They have the best cheddar-stuffed lobster here, you guys.”
Eva ran her hand up and down her stomach. “I’m just gonna stuff my face with biscuits until the food comes.”
“You and me both,” Margo said as we made our way into the restaurant…and stopped dead in our tracks by the sight of Ria coming out.
She took one look at me and smirked. “Ginger, what an interesting surprise. Seafood Divine isn’t an easy place to get a table, and you usually need to drop a name just to get a seat. And it looks like it’s just you girls. Well, maybe they’ll—”
Ria stopped talking as her eyes landed on the wedding dress. Her high heels clicked along the pavement as she made her way over to it, obnoxiously pressing her face against the window to see the price tag and designer name.
I was not in the mood for her games. “Can I help you with something, Ria? Or do you make it a habit to look into everyone’s car?”
She turned back to us, pulling her sunglasses off and glaring into my eyes. “You’re really marrying Jorge, aren’t you?”
“Of course, I am, Ria. I don’t know why you’d ever doubt that in the first place.”
She looked at Eva, who was standing next to me with her arms folded across her chest.
“I’m Eva, her maid of honor.”
Margo stood on the other side of me, also with her hands folded across her chest. “And I’m Margo, one of her bridesmaids.”
Ria’s face instantly went pale as she was overcome with shock. She started shaking her head while tears streamed down her face. Usually, I’d reach out to a crying woman, even ones I didn’t know, but this bitch had it coming.
“Why else would I spend money on a wedding dress if I weren’t getting married, Ria? You saw how expensive it was. Even Jorge wouldn’t blow that kind of money away for something that wasn’t real.” My heart was beating a mile a minute, but I somehow found a way to remain calm on the outside.
I’ve never been good at lying.
“I can’t believe that I’ve wasted the best years of my life on that jerk! Good luck with that rat bastard, Ginger! I hope he treats you better than he’s treated me!”
All three of us watched as she rushed over to her car and sped off.
“Did I just convince Ria that Jorge and I wereactuallygetting married?”
Margo and Eva gave each other high-fives, while I stood there motionless, shocked that I had inadvertently found a way to get Ria out of our life.
“I’d say so,” Margo replied. “Now, let’s go celebrate with some seafood. I’m wearing my stretchy pants today.”
18
Jorge
My employees were busy working from my downtown office, scurrying back and forth while holding documents. I watched them from behind the glass door to my office, my hands shoved deep into my pockets while waiting for Barry Livingston to answer me. Everyone seemed engrossed in their work, completely unaware that I was on a conference call with my lawyer, asking how hard it would be to create a fake marriage license.
I had Googled how to do it myself, but it was too much of a risk. Ria might have been a condescending, ruthless woman, but she was smart as hell. It was one of the reasons I’d gone into business with her in the first place.
After pounding away on his keyboard for several awkward minutes, Barry finally spoke up. “Look, Jorge, obviously I can show you how to make a passable document. Hell, I could create a believable one in less than an hour. But you’re asking me to do something that could cause me to lose my license.”
I knew this shit would happen.
“Obviously, I would never do that to you, Barry. All I’m asking is to show me how, and I’ll do everything on my end. Nobody will suspect a thing, not to mention the fact that nothing will come of it. Ginger and I aren’t trying to screw the government over by pretending to be married. As soon as Ria sees it and she’s out of my life, I’ll chuck it right into a burning fire.”
“Well, you’ve seen a marriage certificate before, right Jorge? Just copy something you find online. Ria won’t know the difference.”
I closed my eyes while shaking my head. “We’re talking about a woman who flew all the way to Miami because she wasn’t convinced that I was engaged. This is the same woman, mind you, who still doesn’t believe it after seeing the engagement ring for herself. If I show her a fake marriage license, she’ll laugh, and then I’ll never get rid of her!”
Barry typed some more, and I wondered what the hell he was even doing. He wasn’t a lawyer who specialized in divorces, but he had handled several of them over the years. He could spot any fake document within seconds, and that was one of the reasons I kept him on retainer.
“I get it, Jorge. You want it to be believable. The problem is that if this ever got traced back to me, the legal system would have a field day with my showing someone how to forge legal documents.”
