Chapter 5
The problem when you shatter is you’re so busy trying to pick up the pieces you don’t deal with the reason you broke in the first place.
That Sunday I tried to be me. The usual me. The happy, bridal me. I tried not to pull away when Bradley moved to kiss me. I tried not to cry. I tried not to snap at my mother when she felt the need to overshare that my father had been cheating on her for years and it was fine with her. I tried not to blame myself for being inadequate.
At home that night my mother must have told my father to talk to me because he knocked on my bedroom door, something he never did. “Bel, it’s your father. Let me in.”
I had thrown Bradley out, telling him I didn’t want to see his face for the rest of the night. “Where am I supposed to sleep?” he had asked, looking bewildered.
“The guest room. I don’t know.” I didn’t care. He could sleep on the goddamn deck for all I cared.
“Dad, can this wait?” I was crying, trying to figure out how to call off my wedding. Did I tell Bradley, then just call the wedding planner and let her bail me out of the mess? That seemed the best course of action, but I didn’t want to dump Bradley with my parents and Sophie in the house. It was a private pain I didn’t want to share.
But there’s nothing private about the pain of learning your whole relationship is a lie six days before your wedding. Everyone was going to know. There was no way around it.
“No, it can’t. I need to talk to you now.”
God. I groaned and peeled myself off the bed. I cracked the door open and peeked through. “What?”
For a second I thought he was going to push his way inside. My dad was a commanding man. Intelligent, cunning, confident. He owned his life and demanded a certain deference. I had spent my whole life trying to please him, but for the most part, he found me uninteresting. He respected Sophie’s brains. He was pleased I was attractive, but otherwise, he readily dismissed me. It wasn’t that he was cruel or didn’t love me. He just loved me in a very removed sort of way.
He had dark eyes, the result of some Italian genes somewhere in our family ancestry. They weren’t concerned as they studied me. They were determined. “You’re marrying Bradley,” he told me with no preamble. “And I don’t want to hear anything else, do you understand me?”
My gut clenched. “Dad…” I heard the pleading in my voice and I hated it. “I can’t.”
He sighed. “Can you open the door? I can only see a sliver of your face.”
I did, reluctantly.
And he did the most extraordinary thing. He reached out and pulled me into a big bear hug. My father wasn’t a hugger. He had not wrapped his arms around me since I had gotten too big to pick up and carry around.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” he murmured in my ear. “Give Bradley a second chance. He’s downstairs crying.”
Now I was crying too. My head was on his firm chest. I wanted comfort, and yet his words felt like anything but. It felt like he was siding with Bradley. I pulled back, disheartened. “How am I supposed to trust him?”
“He’ll earn it back. But don’t throw away your whole beautiful future because he had a moment of weakness. You’ll regret it forever, I know you will. This is what you want.”
I nodded, because I realized he wouldn’t leave my doorway until I agreed with him. That’s how he was. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to turn myself inside out, scrub off all these nasty feelings, and put myself back together clean and whole. As if none of this had ever happened. As if it was a bad dream.
It felt like a nightmare.
“Good girl.” He gave me a smile.
“Don’t send Bradley up here,” I said, panic rising in me. “I don’t want to talk to him. He can sleep in the guest room.”
“Whatever you need to do. A few days to pull yourself together won’t hurt him. He does owe you that.”
But nothing else? There it was again. The implication that I needed to do something to improve myself or fix the situation. The buck-up, get-over-it attitude. An assumption that I was wildly overreacting.
I was so hurt. Devastated, really. I felt destroyed by Bradley and then insulted by my parents. No one seemed to actually care about my feelings. I slammed the door shut without another word, confused as hell.
Needing air, I stepped out onto my balcony, then immediately returned. I didn’t like the sound of the ocean. It felt lonely to me. I sat on my bed and stared at my gorgeous engagement ring from Tiffany. Round cut, with a halo of diamonds, 2.5 karats. Classic and timeless.
Like my wedding was intended to be.
Maybe my mother and father were right. Maybe this was what I had signed up for, without even realizing it. Maybe I was breaking my end of the bargain.
I took the ring off the way I did every night at bedtime and dropped it into a glass bowl on my nightstand without the usual care I took. My finger felt bare without it tonight. Taking it off felt ominous. I wasn’t going to marry Bradley. Or was I?
I had no idea.
I hadn’t slept all week, and today was my wedding day. I’d had night after night of staring at the ceiling, emotions churning. I couldn’t eat, forcing myself to drink protein shakes because I couldn’t swallow solid food. Everything tasted thick and sour and revolting and I constantly gagged. I couldn’t look at Bradley without darting my gaze in another direction and I was strung out, exhausted, hands constantly trembling.
With every day, every wedding preparation, every guest arrival, it felt like the noose around my neck was tightening and I couldn’t breathe.
“Why are you going ahead with this?” Sophie had asked me last night after the rehearsal dinner when I went into the restroom to splash cold water on my face, upset by the sight of my excited grandparents.
I had no idea. I had meant to dump him on his ass. I really had. But everyone was watching me and my parents’ disapproval hung like a storm cloud over me and I couldn’t help but feel that somehow if I ended my engagement, Bradley won. I would be the loser in this situation in everyone else’s eyes. They would feel sorry for me.
I was going ahead with it because I didn’t want anyone to know Bradley was cheating. Because it was too humiliating, too painful.
And because I looked around and saw everyone who loved me gathered, celebrating what they thought was a happy occasion, that my mother and I had invested a hundred hours in planning. That my father had opened his wallet to pay for without question or complaint. I didn’t want to disappoint them.
Plus to cancel would be to admit that I was an idiot. A stupid, naïve girl who had sailed through life with nothing bad ever happening to me, assuming it never would. I had lived a charmed life for the most part, and I had no skills to deal with something bad. Not something like this. Not this bewildering, shocking, numbing heartbreak and myriad of emotions.
Bradley might be a cheat, but he had to love me. Right? Otherwise why would he marry me? My father had said he was crying. He loved me, he just had a restless sexual personality. He needed variety, the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline rush of doing something dirty and forbidden.
Then again, maybe he was just a snake in the grass.
I was pretty sure that was the simple truth.
Those were all the things I told myself as I got dressed in my wedding gown. The dress I had been disappointed in at my fitting because it didn’t capture what I wanted it to. Perfection. But now I knew perfection was a myth and the dress didn’t matter. The wedding didn’t matter. I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw nothing but a mistake.
I looked the part. The quintessential bride. Hair, veil, and makeup on point, dress showing off my body to its best advantage. I looked in the mirror and I remembered being a little girl, trying on my mother’s overblown gown from the eighties, drowning in its lace and satin. The long sleeves, the high neck. Feeling very glamorous and excited for the day when it would be my turn to be the princess walking down the aisle to my prince. My mother would stand behind me and smile at us in the mirror, her hands warm on my shoulders, and she would whisper how lucky I was that I had been born beautiful. How proud she was and how she knew I would have the richest, most handsome man of all because I was so perfectly pretty, with impeccable manners.
I believed her. But I also wondered who I was beyond my appearance, which was an accident of genetics and not even particularly interesting. I was pedestrian pretty. A basic bitch turned bride. Whose fiancé wanted a good, hard bathroom bang.
For a second I thought I was going to faint. Everything went black. “Sophie,” I said, reaching out for my sister.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, grabbing my arm. “Are you okay?”
I turned to her, vision blurring with tears. She looked so pretty in her blush bridesmaid dress. I felt sad that she had been sad that her lobster fisherman hookup had ghosted her, but I hadn’t been able to give her any emotional support, too wrecked myself. “You look so pretty,” I sobbed.
“What?” Sophie just stared at me for a second, then she turned to all my friends, who were busily putting on makeup, sliding into shoes, fussing with their blowouts. “All of you need to leave.”
The photographer was snapping shots of my bouquet resting on the table, and I felt the most overwhelming urge to run. Spots danced in front of my eyes and I swore I could hear my blood pumping in my ears.
“Excuse me?” Kennedy said. “Why?”
“Because I need to talk to Bella.”
“Sophie, don’t be OCD right now,” was Kennedy’s response as she curled her hair. “We’re all busy, and what if someone sees us? I’m not going anywhere. Bella doesn’t want that.”
I did want that. Sophie studied me and I silently pleaded with her. I was going to lose it and she knew it.
“Get out,” she repeated, turning and waving her arms violently at everyone. “Get the hell out now.” Then she went and did her light switch thing, where she turned the light on and off—it was a creepy and annoying tic she had. Usually she did it to test the flow of electricity, but this time she was clearly doing it to annoy the shit out of everyone and get them to leave.
It worked. There was grumbling and questions for me. “Do you want us to leave, Bella?”
“Yeah, just give me five minutes,” I managed to say. My hands were shaking. I looked at the photographer. “Naomi, can you do some shots of the guests arriving, please? Thank you.”
I hadn’t slept or eaten in days and I felt light-headed, nauseous. Like a reed swaying in a light breeze.
After what felt like forever they finally all gathered their purses, shoes, and bouquets and left the room, the door slamming shut behind them. I grabbed my rib cage. “Soph, I can’t do this. I just can’t.” I shook my head frantically at her, now in a total panic. “I can’t pretend this is all okay when Bradley isn’t even sorry he’s cheating. I can’t even stand the sight of him.”
Let everyone feel sorry for me. Let them think I was a pathetic loser who couldn’t hold her fiancé’s attention. I didn’t care anymore.
I couldn’t do this.
Bile was crawling up my throat.
My sister asked me the same thing she had asked me a week earlier. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” I glanced wildly around for my phone and my purse. “I need to get the hell out of here before I completely lose it. Please help me.”
Sophie took both of my hands. “Bella, look at me.”
I focused on her, taking deep breaths. I was in a cold sweat, my heart racing. I had a feeling this was a legit panic attack.
“You need to call an Uber and go to a hotel in the next town over. I’ll take care of everything here, okay?” She gestured behind her to the door that led to the back parking lot, meant for brides to enter with discretion. “The wedding planner can handle all the details, it’s no big deal.”
“Mom and Dad are going to hate me,” I wailed. “Oh my God.”
“No they won’t. I promise.” Her voice was soothing, her expression caring, which meant a lot to me. It was hard for Sophie to express emotion, and as my younger sister there weren’t a lot of moments where she had offered to comfort me. “You need to do what’s right for you.”
I nodded. “You’re right. You’re right.” I suddenly realized that if my parents refused to speak to me, that would actually be preferable to marrying Bradley. And avoiding him on our wedding night, since one, he hadn’t gotten an STD test, and two, the thought of him touching me made me want to vomit.
There was no way I could go through with this wedding.
It wasn’t about revenge or humiliating Bradley. It was about saving my sanity.
My dignity.
Classy and fabulous. I was both, damn it, and I deserved better than this.
Way better.
She handed me my phone. I unlocked it and impulsively texted Christian.
Hi.
God, what was I even doing? I had texted him like we were strangers on Tinder. He would think I was insane. I hadn’t contacted him all week.
But I felt like he was the one person who had no opinion or bias in this situation, and he had already seen me break down in a wine-and-sugar implosion.
Yet today was my wedding day and he knew that. He wouldn’t answer me.
Sophie was on her phone, texting the wedding planner, I had to assume.
“Don’t tell anyone yet!” I yelled, freaking the freak out. If they knew I was ditching they would arrive en masse to try to talk to me.
“I’m texting the wedding planner to let her know you’re having stomach problems and to keep everyone out.”
For some reason that offended me. “Stomach problems? Oh my God.” It seemed so gross. So undignified. But Sophie was just trying to buy me time.
My phone buzzed.
It was Christian.
Hi.
There was a pause, then he texted again.
How’s the wedding?
I can’t do it. I’m standing here, dressed, and I can’t do it. I feel like I’m having a heart attack.
I tossed the phone down onto the table and fanned myself. I needed to get my shoes on. They were waiting there, by the vanity, ready for me to step into them as the photographer captured the moment. They were beautiful Louboutins with a neutral mesh embellished with crystals. Blingy and bridal and fairy-tale gorgeous. Slipping them on now was the exact opposite of how I expected to feel.
Christian texted me.
Are you going to call it off?
YES. I am calling an Uber in a minute and sneaking out the back. Sophie is going to cover for me.
Do you want me to pick you up?
I didn’t even hesitate.
Please, yes.
I realized that’s why I had texted him. I wanted him to rescue me. To come and get me and give me someone to talk to instead of having to go to a hotel by myself. I felt ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to tell him no. That I wanted him to help me. That I had reached out.
I had never broken the rules. I had never done something so rebellious, inconsiderate, last-minute, socially unacceptable. It was scary as hell.
Gathering my phone and my purse, I threw my overnight bag over my head and shoulder. Ten long minutes later Christian texted he was there and I hiked up the skirt of my designer dress and waved to Sophie. I shoved open the back door and ran.
“Christian, you’re a fucking idiot,” I murmured to myself as I sat in my car behind a classic stone church. I had graduated from being attracted to trouble to picking it up in a church parking lot.
Then she came flying out of the back door of the church, her skirt bundled up in her arms, exposing her legs from the knees down, a veil flowing behind her. She ran in heels like the devil himself was after her, and hell, maybe he was.
I had been shocked that she had texted me, and even more shocked still to find myself offering to pick her up. But Bella had gotten under my skin. Maybe it was seeing her holding my son so sweetly. Maybe it was her humble admission that she wasn’t good in bed. Or more likely it was the fact that she had come to my mom’s still planning to marry an extreme douchebag and had now seen the goddamn light. I didn’t want her to change her mind and lock herself into a life with such a miserable guy.
Am I known for being Mr. Monogamous? No. But I wouldn’t put it off on my girlfriend if I cheated. It would be my fault and I would take responsibility, not make excuses. And hell, I never cheated on a woman I was involved with, because I was never involved. I just helped women cheat.
Yep. Fucking saint sitting at church, that was me.
I started to get out to open the door for her but she called out, winded and hysterical, “Get in and drive!” She yanked open the passenger door, tossed a bag over the seat to the back, and scrambled to get inside.
I slid back behind the wheel and glanced around to see if anyone was coming out after her. “You in?”
There hadn’t been a door slam. She was grappling to get it closed, but finally I heard the click. Her head turned toward me. “Okay, I’m good.”
I hit the locks just in case the door wasn’t completely closed. I would fucking flip out if she spilled onto the road in a wedding dress. “Where are we going?” I asked her.
“Anywhere.” She pushed the veil back off her face with trembling fingers. “Somewhere where no one can see me or find me.”
“I know a place.” We had a piece of property that had belonged to my mother’s father that had been used back in the day for fishing and hunting. There was a dilapidated shack on it and an old railroad caboose my grandfather had thought was cool.
I was driving but I couldn’t stop myself from looking at Bella. She was engulfed in all the trappings of a bride. There was white fabric everywhere, and her hair was curled in long waves. She had on extra makeup and thick, dark eyelashes, and her cleavage was popping. “You look beautiful,” I said, even though it was probably the last thing she wanted to hear. But she did.
She was stunning. Breathtaking. Mouthwatering. Even her anxious breathing just set her cleavage heaving, turning me on. I wanted to yank that bodice down and suck her nipples. Lift her skirt and dive on under there with fingers, mouth, my hard cock. I wanted to yank that tiara veil thing off her head and bury my hands in her hair, tugging her head backward, forcing her to look at me.
I also wanted to hold her naked in my arms and reassure her that she was enough. Sexy. Satisfying.
Maybe I was actually going to have a chance to do all of that.
“What?” She waved her hand in dismissal. “God, stop, you don’t have to give me compliments.”
I just shrugged. “I don’t have to do anything. I wanted to say that because it’s true. You’re fucking gorgeous.”
She gave a nervous laugh and said, “Thanks.” Then she threw back her head and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Oh my God, thanks for picking me up. I finally feel like I can breathe. It was like I was choking in there.” She touched her neck and her eyes flew back open. “Have you ever felt like that?”
“Yeah,” I said shortly. When Ali told me she was pregnant, after I had found out she was still with my brother.
She lifted her phone up and started texting. “I need to tell Sophie that I’m gone and safe.”
“Did you tell Bradley?” I asked, curious.
“No.” She winced. “Does that make me a horrible person? I just couldn’t. I didn’t want a scene. Then my mother would know and flip out and everyone would have an opinion…”
“I don’t have an opinion,” I told her as I drove back through town. “And I don’t think you’re a horrible person. Maybe if he wasn’t fucking around behind your back you wouldn’t have stood him up at the altar.”
She made a sound in the back of her throat. “Holy moly, I stood Bradley up at the altar. I’m going to hyperventilate.”
But she didn’t actually look as shaky as she had when she’d first gotten into the car, and there was color back in her cheeks. Then she actually laughed. She looked over at me and grinned. “I have never in my entire life done something so insane. I feel lighter already.”
I couldn’t help but grin back at her. “Good for you. That took balls, Bella.”
“I have balls,” she said in amazement. Then she ripped her veil off her head and hit the button to send the window down. She pitched the veil out of the car and watched it fly backward.
“Now you’ve littered too so you’re breaking rules and the law.” I thought it was funny.
But she seemed to have instant second thoughts. “Stop the car! Go back, go back. Please.”
“Are you serious?” I raised my eyebrows at her.
“Yes! I could sell that veil and give my father the money back. That tiara alone cost three grand.” She shot me a pleading look. “Please?”
“Sure.” I turned into a parking lot and spun back around. The thing had probably been run over already, but if it made her feel better to sell it, whatever. I had to give her props for wanting to give the money back to her father. “I’ll get it.”
“No, I want to do it.”
Amazingly, it had landed on the sidewalk and appeared to be untouched. Bella ran over in her heels and snagged it, waving it up in the air triumphantly. I noticed several cars slow down and rubberneck. This whole runaway bride shit was bound to be all over town by the end of the night. Locals liked to gossip about the rich outsiders who had built all over the coast.
Bella got back in the car and sighed. “Whew. That was close. Okay, so maybe I’m not good at impulsive.”
“I think you’re doing just fine.” I hit the gas again and headed out of town. “Your phone sounds like it’s blowing up.”
She must have turned the ringer off, but it was buzzing like crazy on the dashboard.
“Where are we going?” she asked, ignoring my comment.
“My family has a camp. It’s a dump, but no one will think to look there. You can stay there for a few days.”
“Can you stay with me?”
That gave me pause. I glanced over at her. “What do you want from me, Bella? I asked you that last week and I’m still not sure.” I wasn’t her fucking therapist. I had no answers to her problems.
“I don’t know.” She smoothed her wedding dress. “But I do know that I’m not in a relationship anymore. You told me to call you when that happened. So I did. And I want you to stay with me. Overnight.”
That turned me on. I couldn’t help it. “Bella, are you flirting with me?” I asked her.
She smacked my arm and made a sound of protest. “I don’t want to be alone.”
I felt the urge to rub my temples and resisted. Shit, what the hell was I doing? This was such a bad idea. I was not good friend material for women.
“So you want a counselor? A friend? I think your sister would be a better bet than me.” I didn’t have a lot of advice to give to a pampered princess who had ditched out on her wedding. I had zero experience with that, and I wasn’t sure she would like my advice anyway if I could muster some up. Because it would be along of lines of just cut the guy off and never speak to him or of him ever again.
But did I really want to go there?
Even if she was beautiful. Even if I did feel bad for her. Even if I did feel a strange pull toward her.
I didn’t even need to get laid. I’d done that twice in the past week with the brunette Christina. It had been a decent release, even if she was no Bella in the beauty department. She was a woman who knew how to fuck. Unlike Bella, allegedly.
Damn it, why was I picturing being her sexual savior? Being a goddamn hero to the rich girl? It was stupid.
Bella was fingering the diamonds on the tiara in her lap. “I don’t want a counselor. I don’t even want to talk.” She looked over at me from under those long eyelashes. “I just want you to fuck me until I forget everything.”
Now that almost had me driving off the road. She had no idea how hot she was and how much I wanted to push inside her tight body. I had never heard her say “fuck” before. It should have been a red flag for me to retreat, but I had already told her no once when she was still engaged. Only an idiot would turn her down twice.
I was driving along the coast and I couldn’t risk staring at her too long or we’d end up going off a cliff, but I did shoot her an intense glance. “Now that is something I can do.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding both breathless and giddy.
It made my cock throb in my jeans. “Really. I’m supposed to work tonight, but your offer sounds better. I’ll get someone to switch shifts with me.” Since my mother was already planning to watch Camp that wouldn’t matter.
“Thank you,” she said.
That amused me. “Thank me after I’ve made you come.” I was looking forward to the challenge.
“Oh!” She gave a small nod. “Okay. Best of luck to you.”
Bella sounded so polite I laughed out loud. “I’m not going on a job interview. I’m going down on you.”
“No. No, you’re not. I already told you I don’t like that.”
“You’ll like it.” That was something I didn’t doubt. She just needed to be led to that point.
“But—”
“If you want me to stay, don’t argue with me,” I told her.
Her jaw dropped. “Well, that’s mean.”
I shot her a grin. “You’re used to people blowing smoke up your ass. I’m not going to do that.”
“I certainly hope not.”
Her voice sounded prim, prudish, but her expression gave her away. She was amused.
Pulling down the road that would take us to the cabin, or shack in more exact terms, I realized I didn’t have any condoms on me. That was going to put a dent in my plans. But we could work around it for the afternoon, then I would have to go to the store anyway. There wasn’t any food and I wouldn’t trust the water for drinking.
“If I say I don’t like something, you will stop, right?” she asked, sounding timid and vulnerable.
That had me slamming on the brakes and turning to her. “Yes. You have my word on that.” I put the car in park. “That is not what I meant.” I reached out and touched her smooth cheek, her skin so soft and flawless. “I just meant that you’re going to want it. I know you are.”
“You’re kind of arrogant,” she murmured.
I gave her a smirk. “I think it’s called being an alpha male. Women love them, haven’t you heard?”
“I guess that’s why I’m sitting here,” she said.
That made me shake my head. “No, you’re sitting here because your former fiancé is a dick and you are brave as fuck to dump him.” I meant that. She was a badass for pulling the plug. I could only imagine the chaos that was going on back at that church, and she had known that would happen.
“I don’t feel very brave. I should have called it off last week when I found out.”
“Better late than never.”
Bella was biting her lip. “Hey. Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re entitled to your feelings, you know.”
She nodded. “I am worried. But I feel free at the same time. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. It totally does. Now let’s check out this shithole I brought you to.”
“It’s very rustic,” she said, peering out the window.
That made me laugh. Bella was polite, always. She had a gift of putting a positive spin on the world’s crappiest situation. I guess that made her an optimist. “That’s one way to put it.”
I got out of the car and went around and opened the door for her. I held out my hand. She took it and attempted to push herself out of the car. I was about to give her a firm tug because all that fabric seemed to be holding her in place, then thought better of it. I eyed her shoes dubiously. “You might want to take those off,” I said, pointing to them. They were covered in rhinestones or diamonds or whatever the fuck, and had a very high heel. We were on a dirt driveway. I had visions of her taking a facer and me having to drive her to the emergency room.
Bella hiked her skirt up, displaying long, tan, shimmery legs. She had some kind of lotion on her that had every inch of skin sparkling from ankle to thigh. Like she had been dipped in gold powder. I wondered how high up that glitter went. My mouth went dry as she bent over to slip off her shoe. Her bronze legs were on display, and now so were the swells of her breasts, pushing up and out of the top of her gown. What kind of a fucked-up fantasy was I having that I actually liked that she was in a wedding dress? Kiss the bride and all that shit, without having to put a ring on her finger. Man, I was a bastard.
But I was what I was. I had been raised with a secret even my siblings didn’t know and I had a skewed perspective on relationships, marriage in particular.
At the moment I was completely turned on by Bella the bride.
“All set?” I asked.
She raised her head, flipping her hair back off her face. I had a vision of those perfect curls surrounding me as she sucked my cock. I remembered the advice of my favorite uncle. Never look down on someone unless they’re giving you head. I needed to totally give up my attitude about her being a rich girl. Bella seemed to have a good heart. Better than me.
“Come here, princess,” I murmured. “Let me help you stand up.”
I hoped she didn’t stop and think about the irony of this being her wedding night.
Then again, there was something so fucking perfect about that.
I couldn’t wait to see what sexy lingerie she had on under those layers of white virginal fabric.