The Devil Wears Black
I knew what he meant. I’d looked at postcollege Amber like a new, shiny, limited-edition car. She’d raised my stock and seemed like a good addition to my life at the time. I looked at Madison like she was a piñata full of surprises and orgasms I wanted to burst. With my dick-shaped bat. She kept me on my toes and made me second-guess what she was going to do or say. And I had ended up watching Me before You. Guess what? Louisa Clark was hot as hell.
“Open up your heart. Life is shorter than you think. And when you’re in my position, bedridden, a breath away from death, you don’t think about all the money you made, all the lucrative deals you signed, about the revenues and people who screwed you over and people you screwed over in business. You think about how lucky you are to be eating homemade banana bread and listening to your grandchild laughing from the other room and the love of your life being the person who made her laugh.”
I closed my eyes, nodding. “I promise I . . .” I started talking, but when I opened my eyes, I saw Dad passed out. He was fast asleep, the last flame of the joint burning in his hand. I took the joint, put it out in an ashtray on his nightstand, kissed him good night, and left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MADDIE
“Are you okay?” Sven asked as he tugged and smoothed the dress on my body.
I wasn’t.
I was absolutely not okay.
The model for the Dream Wedding Dress was MIA, again, and I had to fill in for her. At this point, I was furious. It was one thing to give him my measurements. It was another completely to model the frigging thing, especially when she was at least eight inches taller than me. How unprofessional.
“I’m fine,” I clipped. “You should talk to this girl’s agency. She’s stood us up twice in a row now. Maybe you should just get a size zero replacement.”
Phew, now I really was a long cry from Martyr Maddie. The old me would never say anything remotely negative about someone. The new me, however, wanted to hold people accountable for their actions. Living with the new me, I realized, was much more convenient than sharing a body with my previous version.
“Nah, too late for that.” Sven crouched forward, pinning needles around the fabric bunched at my waist. He had another row of needles in his mouth as he spoke. “Besides, even if I could get another model, I want the one that looks like a real woman. She’s worth it. Trust me.”
“Supermodels are real women too. In fact, women come in all shapes and sizes and colors and heights, and none of their physical characteristics make them any less of a woman.” Nina raised her arm in the air as if asking for permission as they both inspected me in my work of art.
“Amen.” I high-fived Nina before giving the customary bride-to-be twirl in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror we kept in the studio mostly for Sven’s daily angle check. Designers and interns and administrative assistants gathered around me to look at the dress. Crimson marred my neck and cheeks, and my skin became blotchy with embarrassment. I wasn’t used to everyone’s eyes on me.
“Fine. I’ll amend. The model is worth it because she looks like she was born for that dress, and I don’t care that she is busy. Now, Maddie, would you do me a favor and straighten your back? You look like you’re about to hide inside this dress.”
I did as I was told, smoothing my hand across the lush fabric of the Moonflower. I’d named the dress design after the white flower, which looked like a long dress midtwirl when it opened. But there was a catch that made me insist on the name—the moonflower only opened at night. It blossomed in the dark. Sven had said to call it something that reminded me of myself.
Nothing reminded me of myself more than blossoming in the arms of darkness.
I’d lost my mother in the midst of my awkward swing into adulthood. Only guided by my widower father, who’d been busy saving my late mother’s other legacy—her flower shop.
I’d fallen in love with Chase Black when his father was dying.
And I’d fallen in love with myself, too, once I’d realized I was worthy of a man like Chase Black. Frankly, that I was worthy of anyone.
I bit my lower lip as I stared in the mirror, thinking about all the women who would hopefully walk down the aisle wearing the dress. Then about the lives they were going to have with their husbands (or wives) afterward. I thought about the children they would have. The positive pregnancy tests. The promotions. The Christmas mornings. The family vacations. Entire lives would be wrapped around the Moonflower. Thousands of women would look at this dress years from now, and it would symbolize something different to each of them. Love. Hope. Heartbreak. It filled my heart with excitement.
“Maddie.” Nina stepped forward, passing me my phone, which was dancing in her palm. “You have a phone call.”
I frowned at the caller ID. Katie. Did she want to cancel on our lunch plans? I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hey, K. What’s up?”
“Maddie,” she choked out. My heart immediately sank.
“Katie.” My voice quivered. “What happened?”
It was terrible. Asking a question you knew the answer to just so it could be out in the open. So we could deal with it. Layla’s word of the day today was disaster. I should have known.
“It’s Dad.” Her voice sounded soft and hoarse, like it was melting in her throat. “He died.”
The next hour was a blur. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see clearly.
Maybe that was what made me burst in a blaze out of the building wearing a wedding dress that resembled a three-tier cake, before Sven and Nina pulled me back in, kicking and screaming I had to go see the Blacks. Nina shoved me in the bathroom and peeled the dress from my body before dressing me up in my normal clothes. I shook uncontrollably, trying to call Chase and getting hit with the cold, impersonal sound of his voice mail each time. Thank God Nina had been working hard on making amends and being the best version of herself at the office. She made sure I had a taxi waiting downstairs.
The journey to the hospital passed in a blink. I couldn’t decipher the faces or the words of the staff who directed me to Ronan Black’s room. He wasn’t there anymore when I got there. Chase was standing with his back to me, staring out the window, the empty, still-crumpled bed behind him. Lori was curled into herself on a clinically green love seat, her head tucked in Katie’s shoulder. Julian was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands in his lap. Amber and Clementine were nowhere to be seen. I rushed to Katie and Lori first, not quite ready to witness Chase’s pain up close.