Chapter 14

Ryan was back in that damn car, sitting beside her husband, who wore a handsome summer-weight suit that fit him like a dream. The safety pin holding up her skirt bit into her back and she shifted to try to get away from it. Outside the world was hot and bright, the concrete city just coming to life. Commuters in bus shelters, pedestrians waiting on corners for the lights to change.

It could have been New York in some ways. The trees were different. The street signs. But it could have been a corner in Brooklyn, or Queens. Manhattan.

Cities were cities, she thought.

She looked down at this suit she wore, the shoes, the sleek black bag.

Women are women, she reminded herself. This is just a costume. You are still you.

Though suddenly on the edge of this press conference she wondered, bleakly, which woman she was beneath this dress. Which version of herself. The world-weary and judgmental bartender? The brash and angry model? The selfish girl? The terrible sister? The worse daughter?

The terrified mother, going to extreme measures for her child?

She pressed a hand to her nervous stomach.

“Are you all right?”

“You keep asking that,” she said, trying to find the right kind of distance between them. She was thrown off by him tossing his mother out of the house. No one had jumped to her defense in many long years. And she’d thought herself well past the point of wanting some man to step in.

And she hated that he’d done it.

And she kind of loved it, too.

He touched her hand, his fingertips warm over her knuckles. She bit back the gasp that rose in her throat. Of surprise. Of pleasure. Of a sort of dismay at her own weakness.

Nora would be laughing right now. Sitting back with a cigarette and that knowing look on her face. Boydesperate, her sister had always called her. As if crazy was never enough. Not for Ryan.

The minute Ryan got boobs, she’d fallen in love with the effect they had on men. She’d loved the way men looked at her, the way they fell so frantically in lust with her. Like getting up her shirt and into her pants was the most important thing they’d ever do in their sad lives. She’d let her boobs and the men they’d brought around her door become paramount in her life. Sacrificing her family. Her career. Her well-being.

Boy-stupid was really more like it.

And then she’d found Paul, or Nora had, actually; Ryan just plucked him out of her sister’s hands and then let him run right over her. Let him run all over her whole family. All because she’d been so crazy for him. So hot-headed and lusty.

Because the way they fought and the way they fucked—in her young mind, that had to be love. As if only the most dangerous emotions, those feelings bordering on out-of-control, could mean something.

And here she sat in a beautiful suit, living a lie, beside a man who hated her and she wanted him to touch her. Wanted a distraction from the nerves and doubt in her stomach. Wanted to feel, just for a moment, like she was important and capable.

All you’ve ever been good at is sex, her sister had said the night she found out about her and Paul. It’s all you’ll ever be good at.

She tucked her hands into her lap, making fists so hard the knuckles showed white under her skin.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

“Piece of cake.” She waved her hand, making a joke. Clinging to her bravado. She’d said no lies between them, but this—her fear, his misgivings, her mistakes—they were hers and hers alone.

The car pulled to a stop outside of a storefront property done up with red, white, and blue bunting. Posters that said “Montgomery, a New Hope” in the windows.

Wallace stood out front, checking his watch.

“Where does he get his ties?” she asked.

Harrison looked up and smiled. Actually smiled.

“No idea,” he said. “You ready?”

No. No, I’m not.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Wallace opened the door, and she took a deep breath of the hot air laced with the smell of asphalt and sugar and grease from the donut shop on the corner. As if to prove to herself that it was happening, that she was doing it, she watched herself slide her hand over Harrison’s. Putting together the heat and touch of him with the sight of her small, pale hand on his. She remembered them with a sort of breathy lightness in that mirror that night, the sight of his body behind hers, her breasts pulled out of her shirt. His hands at her waist.

She shook inside her skin.

Oh, his hands.

He glanced back, surprised at her touch. His eyes first on their hands and then her face, and she could tell he was pleased in some way and that there was a crack in his icy demeanor and she saw, deep down, that he was nervous, too. She saw deep down a glimpse of what she’d seen in him that night in the bar. The messy reality, the frail humanity.

Oh, she thought, her heart hammering into her throat. Oh, you are there.

She squeezed his hand like she had that moment at the bar when she’d reached through the barrier between them. Starting that night, this whole arrangement, in motion. Had she never done that, she wondered if they would have ended up in bed.

Not that it matters, she thought, and was surprised to realize that she wouldn’t take it back. If not touching him that night meant that they would not be here, she wouldn’t change what happened.

Because of the baby. Because for better or worse, her life had finally changed. She’d finally found the guts to stop floating.

“We can do this,” she whispered.

“You think?”

“Fake it till you make it, right?”

“Our family motto.”

“Harrison,” Wallace said, leaning into the car. “We need to get going.” And just like that the crack in him disappeared. He was once again smooth and perfect and without failing.

He nodded and stepped out of the car, pulling her with him. You’d think it would be harder, or perhaps require something superhuman on her part to take this last step, but in the end it was simple.

She just followed him.

Wallace introduced them and Harrison, more rattled by this morning’s events than he really wanted to admit, led Ryan by the hand through the front doors and to the small podium with the microphone the team had set up early this morning. There were ten journalists in the room, and as soon as he and Ryan came to a stop behind the podium still hand in hand, flashes started going off.

“Thank you, everyone, for coming today,” he said, once the original flurry of photos were taken. “I’m sorry for the short notice, but things have been moving pretty quickly and now that everything is official, I’d like to introduce you to Ryan Montgomery. My wife.”

A general gasp, and then an explosion of questions and flashes.

He expected Ryan to cower away from the sudden high-voltage attention, but all she did was laugh as if she were delighted by the surprise they’d given the journalists.

Harrison gave all the journalists the order in which he’d answer their questions and Ryan stepped in closer, until they were touching from shoulder to hip.

In his life he’d done plenty of press conferences. He’d given speeches, won debates, argued in front of the State Congress. Hell, he’d even negotiated with Somali pirates. But he’d always done it alone. All alone, never with anyone by his side.

It was disconcerting having her there.

It was disastrous having her there.

“Phil,” he said, pointing to the reporter from the AP. “Go ahead.”

“What do you say to critics who believe this is all a press stunt?” he asked.

“I don’t think of marriage as a press stunt,” he said, and pointed to a woman in the back row. “Agnes, go ahead.”

In the back row Wallace lifted his hands to his head, the first indication that Harrison had answered the question wrong. Three questions later Wallace was all but imploding in the back, and for the first time in his career Harrison felt a press conference get away from him.

All because Ryan was standing too close. Her hand in his was sweaty and kind of cold. She was pressed right up against his side and he could feel her breast against his arm. Her hip against his. Her other hand crossed in front of her body, holding onto his elbow.

Like they were in love and she was thrilled to be at his side.

She leaned in closer to him, her mouth behind his ear. “You all right?” she breathed.

Great. Even she knew he was bombing.

She lifted a hand to tuck a piece of hair off his forehead, a tender moment that the photographers captured in full.

Her smile was full of secrets, of inside jokes. It was the most intimate thing he’d ever experienced in a room full of strangers. Horrifyingly, he felt his body react as if they were alone. As if that smile were real.

It’s an act, he told himself. Just an act. But it didn’t seem to do any good.

His brain buzzed, empty and useless.

“Where did you meet?” Bill Maynard, the journalist from the Journal-Constitution, was a big man with a gray beard and a hard-on for bringing down the Montgomery family.

“An art gallery,” he said, and then realized that wasn’t quite the lie they’d agreed on. And his brain was blank; he couldn’t remember what lies he was supposed to tell and what truths. What questions they’d decided to deflect and which to answer.

“Harrison is not quite telling the truth,” Ryan said, stepping up to the microphone, giving him a wink over her shoulder. “We met outside an art gallery. I was on my way to work and we ran into each other.”

“You were working at a bar?” another journalist asked, and he could feel the temperature in the room change. Grow feverish. This was going to be one of the details they avoided. They’d agreed on that back in his loft.

“I was,” she agreed with a smile. “I worked as a bartender and modeled when I could get the work.”

“You were the Lip Girl, weren’t you?” Maynard shouted, and in the back Wallace thumped his head against the wall, his eyes closed.

“A child of the eighties, I take it,” she said brightly, flirting slightly with the uncharmable journalist. To Harrison’s surprise, the guy actually smiled. “I was the Lip Girl. And no, I won’t do the slogan.” A few of the journalists groaned. “And yes. I was seventeen.”

Oh God, she wasn’t supposed to say that. They had agreed not to bring up the Lip Girl thing. “I was at a Philadelphia Eagles game with my family, and a casting director saw me on the Jumbotron and offered me an audition. I grew up in North Philly and the opportunity to go to New York, to see some of the world, to make money—it was a thrilling experience for a girl like me.”

“A girl like you?” one of the journalists asked. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a high school dropout.”

All the journalists dropped their heads, scribbling away.

She glanced back at Harrison like this was a sore spot between them and he squeezed her hand, trying to convey to her how badly they needed her to get back on script. “I have my GED and I’ve taken a few college courses, but after the Lip Girl campaign I got married, too young as it happened, and when I got divorced I was too busy trying to make a living to go back to school. But I plan on changing that as soon as possible.”

They had not discussed that in his loft, and he wondered if it was true or not.

“Why get married?” another journalist asked. “Why now?”

“Because we’re not children,” she said. “We’re adults and we know what we want. I know our marriage is not what anyone would expect. We’re vastly different. But …” She looked down at their hands, switching the grip so their fingers were intertwined, and the sensitive skin between his fingers grew hot. “I think that’s what is so amazing about Harrison.” She gave him a shy smile and then swerved back toward the script. “He doesn’t see the differences between people. He sees what we share; he sees the things in all of us that make us human. That bind us together. That’s what matters to him. Those are the things that I love about him. There are plenty of people out there who think he’s far too good for me. And there might be a few people back in my neighborhood who think he doesn’t deserve me. But that doesn’t matter. Not to him. And not to me. I look forward to helping his work with the campaign. With VetAid, with school reform. I look forward to being his wife.”

Oh God, it was such a speech. He glanced over at Wallace, who was staring, mouth open, eyes wide with delight. He might have written some of those words, but never had anyone dreamed she’d deliver them like that.

“Are you pregnant?” Maynard asked.

She looked at Harrison with such fondness, he couldn’t help for one starstruck moment to believe her words.

“I sure hope so.”

And then she leaned in and pressed her lips—dry and trembling—to his.

The room exploded in more flashbulbs and she broke away, smiling and blushing, and he put his arm around her shoulders, curling her into his chest.

“That’s all the time we have,” Harrison said. “We’ve got an appointment later today at the Carthright School to see how their charter program can be adopted statewide and possibly nationwide. Thank you for your time.”

There were more questions and more flashes fired off, but Harrison slowly led her through the door into his office, where they would stay until the journalists filed out.

The moment the door closed behind them, he grabbed her hands.

“You … you were amazing.”

“I need to sit down.”

“What?”

“Sit. I need to sit.”

He realized she was shaking, her skin clammy and pale. “God. Okay.” He helped her down on the couch and she immediately put her head between her knees.

Quickly, he grabbed the garbage can by his desk and brought it over to her. Unsure of what to do but feeling outrageously grateful and in awe, he sat beside her and slowly rubbed her back until she sat up again.

“You went off script,” he said.

“I couldn’t remember what we’d agreed on,” she said. “My mind went blank.”

Mine too, because you were holding my hand. Because you are so beautiful in that suit. Because no one—not ever—has stood by my side.

“So I just 8 Miled it.”

“8 Miled?”

“That movie with Eminem? He’s doing this rap battle and before anyone can use his past against him, he just admits to all of it.”

“You got that from a movie?”

“You’ve never seen it?” She sat up, her color returned. “You should—it’s a good one. I’m guessing you don’t see a lot of movies?”

“I saw Lincoln.”

She laughed. “Of course you did.”

How in the hell did they start talking about this?

“Whatever your inspiration was, you did an amazing job.” He still stroked her back, because it felt good and she was letting him. But then suddenly, they both seemed to realize he was touching her. And there was no one in the room to witness it, to make it count toward anything.

Let me touch you, he thought, stunned by how badly he wanted to. Let me just touch you.

She smiled slightly and shrugged away. “It was good, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure I have words to convey how great it was.” He walked to his desk, searching for distance.

“Well, you were going down the tubes.”

“I was.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the pro.”

“I am. I just … I’ve never had someone by my side before.” As soon as the words came out they seemed too important. Too large a confession, as if he’d just shown her something he meant to keep secret. He checked his cell phone just to have something to do, to seem busy.

She was looking at him as if she could sense beneath his Montgomery persona that absolute ache of loneliness. The rot of distrust.

The door was flung open and Wallace came in, beaming and starry-eyed. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said to Ryan. “I’m going to kiss you right on your smart mouth.”

Her laughter was bright and perfect, and Harrison felt himself on edge at the sound of it. At the merry reality of their relationship.

He hated you, he wanted to say. Just a few days ago.

“Is that okay, Harrison?” Wallace asked, shutting the door behind him. “That won’t be weird, will it?”

“Not any weirder than the rest of our lives,” he said, pretending to still be absorbed with his messages, when in truth he wasn’t really seeing any of it.

“Let’s settle on a high-five.” She lifted her hand for Wallace to smack.

“We can do better than that,” Wallace said, and he pulled her from her seat and hugged her. “You were something else out there. I can practically hear our poll numbers skyrocketing.”

Ryan relaxed into the hug with a laugh and a sigh, as if somehow Wallace had known just what she needed.

Shame pierced him and spread through his body, pumped right along with his blood. And with it came jealousy.

“Come on,” he said, putting his phone away. “We need to get to the Carthright School. The show is not over.”