Save the Date

by Jenny B. Jones

  “Those people are totally going rogue on the guest book,” Sanjay said as he stepped inside. “Their failure to comply with protocol makes me question the fate of our world.”

  Chuck checked himself out in the mirror. “Just like it warns in Revelation.”

  Lucy watched Sanjay pull out his iPhone.

  “What are you doing?” Chuck asked. “Did you just get footage of me smelling my pits? Cause if you post that, I will take that feathered pen outside and stick it so far up your nose—”

  Lucy laughed and stepped between them. “You’re not nervous, are you, Chuck?”

  “About the wedding? Yes,” Chuck said. “About the next fifty years? No. It was like my sermon last week was for me as much as it was for anybody else. I hadn’t realized how much I had let all those negative thoughts take over. I was dreading today, wondering if I had what it takes to make Morgan happy. I’m glad I can go through this ceremony with a clear conscience.” He watched her in the mirror as he checked his hair. “When it’s right, it’s right. You know?”

  “Yeah.” How about when it was semi-right? Or had potential to be something eventually? She hadn’t lingered at Alex’s place last night.

  She had given Alex and Finley their time, but today, there was no escaping the conversation she needed to finish with her fiancé.

  “Well, I guess my work is done here,” Lucy said. “I’ll see you at the altar.”

  “Hey, Luce?”

  She stopped at the door and turned.

  “The real deal is worth waiting for. Anything else just looks good, but won’t keep you going for the long haul. Kind of like that banana split I had for lunch.” His hands rested on her shoulders. “I’m proud of you. You have your girls’ home. You’re changing lives. And you’ve finally let the old hang-ups die and given Alex a chance.” He glanced at her sparkling engagement ring and smiled. “And just look where it’s gotten you.”

  Lucy stood behind her friend at the altar. Holding hands with Chuck, Morgan could’ve been a model for a bride magazine in her strapless white dress and her delicate tulle veil. Wearing a silly grin, Chuck couldn’t take his eyes off her. That’s what it was supposed to look like. And feel like. Not the miserable sensation of a derailed roller coaster.

  At the pastor’s prompting, the couple faced one another to recite their vows. They had written their promises themselves, and when it was Chuck’s turn, he stood before his bride, a man confident in who he was.

  “Morgan, the day I met you, my life changed.”

  Lucy let her eyes skim over the church pews and found Alex’s steady gaze on her. He smiled and sent her a slow wink. He was easily the most handsome man in the church in his dark suit, with the lights through the stained glass bringing out the auburn highlights in his hair.

  “ . . . and I stopped settling. It didn’t matter that you’re hot and I’m bigger than Chewbacca.” Chuck never took his eyes off of Morgan, even as the audience laughed. “It didn’t matter that you’re all refined, and I typically eat dinner with a spork. Because you loved me. For who I am. And I promise you, Morgan Cramer, that I will always put your needs before mine. Always make you feel like you are more than enough for me.”

  Sweat broke out along Lucy’s hairline, yet her skin felt like winter had just swept through the room.

  God was talking to her.

  Again.

  She knew what she needed to do. She just hadn’t. Clare was right, she was good enough. She wasn’t second-rate, and it was time she started living like it.

  There Alex sat. On the fifth row. Waiting for her. Because he knew she would come to him after the service. They simply existed in this twisted holding pattern. Well, Lucy Wiltshire wasn’t going to let the game clock keep running. It was time to reclaim her backbone. She was through not being enough—to herself and everyone else.

  “You may kiss your bride.”

  The wedding guests clapped and hooted. Some teens stood and high-fived. There was nothing elegant about Morgan’s Chuck. Or the people he hung out with. Herself included.

  Guests made their way to the reception hall while the wedding party took pictures. Lucy struggled to focus on the camera as the church emptied out and Alex sat alone in his pew.

  The last picture snapped, and the remaining group answered the siren’s call of cake and watered-down punch. Except Lucy.

  Her peep-toe heels clicked on the floor as she walked to where Alex sat, hands folded over the seat in front of him, looking like a fallen angel just stopping by.

  He took her hand, kissed her fingers, and pulled her closer. “I can’t stop looking at you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Head angled, he leaned toward her.

  She halted him with a hand.

  “Afraid I’ll mess up your lipstick?”

  She simply looked at him. The pull to him was so tangible she wondered that there weren’t cords tethered between them. “Did I ever tell you about my senior year?”

  His eyes studied her, and she knew he was trying to figure out her play. “No.”

  “My mom and I had moved to Florida to live with her fiancé, Robert,” she said. “I had this whole life in front of me. A new school. College.” Even after all these years, the memories still had the power to suffocate. “Then the car wreck, and . . . she was gone. And my dream of a home and family died with her.” Lucy inhaled and pushed through, because if she didn’t, she’d falter and hand Alex her soul. “Suddenly Robert was a single parent, and he couldn’t handle it. I went to a few foster homes, but nothing worked out. By the time I left the last one, I still had months to go before I could move to my dorm at the university. So . . . I lived in my car.”

  “Babe—” He reached for her, but she shrugged his hand away.

  “I know what Marinell’s life is like. I know what it’s like to love your family so much it doesn’t matter if you eat or have a place to sleep. And I know what it’s like to be so utterly alone you don’t know how you’re going to get through the day. How you’re going to survive in a world that suddenly considers you an adult. I was lucky—many of these kids don’t survive it.”

  There was such a look of hurt on Alex’s face, she had to close her eyes. He cared, but it couldn’t be enough. Not this time. “God pulled me out of that. And for years I let Satan use it to keep me down. But I’m through being the girl who was left behind.”

  “Luce.” He ran his hand down her arm. “I had no idea.”

  She met his gaze, dared him to look away. “Do you love me?”

  His eyebrows slammed together as he frowned. “I know last night was crazy. Maybe I didn’t make much sense,” he said. “After the election—”

  “Don’t spin this, Congressman Sinclair.” The politeness dissolved from her tone. “What exactly is it you feel for me?”

  “I . . .” He was caged. Trapped. They both knew it. “I think you’re an amazing person. I love spending time with you.”

  So that was it. She was still just an expensive prop. Nothing more than a political chess piece and a fun friend. “You know, I thought becoming your fiancée would go down as the biggest mistake of my life.” The sanctuary walls closed in on her with each word. “But I seem to have topped that—by falling in love with you.”

  “Lucy, I—”

  “Don’t say it.” She jerked away from his reach, facing the altar. Retreating within. “Just tell me.” She wiped away tears, angry at herself that she couldn’t command them to stop. “Do you feel anything for me? Or am I strictly just a means to an end? Was this part of the plan? Make me fall for you so I’d play a more convincing fiancée?”

  “I care about you.” He leaned forward, forcing her to look at him. “And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t continue seeing each other after the election. You’re an important part of my life.”

  “How important?”

  He said nothing.

  “What’s going to happen on October fifteenth?”

  Alex took a steadying breath. “
We tell people we’re busy and need more time to plan the wedding. It doesn’t have to be a problem.”

  “Oh, it’s a problem.” Her laugh was bitter. “Don’t you get it? I’m no better than all those stupid girls in People. I went and fell for you and thought I was different. Because that’s what unites all of us ladies, Alex. We all thought we were the exception.”

  “You are.” His raised voice bounced off the cathedral ceiling. He stood and towered over her. “I have never let someone in the way I have you. You and I are good together—you can’t deny that. Are you just going to throw that away because I’m not ready to book the chapel?”

  “And where exactly do you see us headed?”

  “I still want us to be together. Why do we have to talk future right now? You don’t even want to be a politician’s wife.”

  No, but she wanted to be Alex’s.

  “Marriage isn’t in my plans,” he said, his frustration building. “I’ve been honest about that. And you also know politics is a team sport. Can you honestly tell me you’re up for a lifetime of black-tie dinners and seeing your picture in the press? Do you want to marry that?”

  “You say you don’t know what’s going to happen to us after the election, but I do. Anyone who’s ever read one article on your personal life could guess this ending. You’ll keep me around a few weeks, but then when you’re all secure in Congress, you’ll look at me and try to remember why you’d needed me in the first place. You’ll have things to do and people to see. And I won’t fit into that agenda.”

  “That’s real fair.”

  “And as history repeats itself, you’ll grow bored, and you’ll kindly let me go. I’m sure you’ll be all charming about it—make me feel like it’s the best thing for me. That you’re doing me a favor.”

  He didn’t even try to argue. His playbook was no secret.

  “So you’re just going to walk away?” Anger thrummed in his voice. “Break the engagement?”

  “I’ll honor our agreement. But on election night, I’m done. You can twist that story however you like for the press. And you can even keep your money. It turns out, I’m a little bit rich.” She slipped the diamond ring off her finger. It was one more lie she couldn’t stand to look at. “And you can keep this as well.”

  He held it between two fingers, his eyes fierce. “Fine.” Lucy had cut his pride, hit him where no woman had dared. “Walk away. So I get my votes and you get what?”

  “Hopefully,” she said, “what’s left of my dignity.”

  “I’ve never lied to you about where we were headed.”

  “No. But I’ve been lying to myself.” Her heart was a piece of glass, shattered in his warrior’s hands. “And this time, I’m not going to be the one left behind.”

  Alone, Lucy joined the wedding party in the reception hall of the church. She had to pull it together, because this was Morgan’s day, and she didn’t want to ruin it.

  Cake. She needed cake.

  Lucy exchanged pleasantries with a few friends as she made her way to the table that held a giant cake in the shape of the Millennium Falcon, the aircraft Han Solo had used to storm the galaxy.

  “Hello, Lucy.”

  She slid her fork into fluffy icing and turned at the voice.

  “Hello, Matt.”

  She waited for the onslaught of feelings, the attack of memories. But it didn’t come.

  “Nice wedding,” he said.

  “Yes.” The cake tasted like dust in her mouth. She simply couldn’t eat. “I didn’t know you were here.” She’d had eyes for only one man in that chapel.

  Dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, Matt presented a dashing picture. Yet her heart didn’t give the slightest flutter.

  “I wondered if maybe you and I could meet sometime,” he said. “Talk.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  He took a step closer, and she inhaled his familiar cologne. “I can’t let this go,” he whispered roughly. “I know I hurt you. But I also know we belong together.”

  She set her cake down, brushed some crumbs from her fingertips. “On paper, yes. We do. But in reality? Matt, you like me because I’m comfortable. Familiar. You were forced out of your routine in Dallas.” Lucy gave a small smile. “And for a long time I adored the thought of you—your stability. I loved knowing you’d go to work every day, keep a roof over my head, and return in time for dinner. I could trust your kindness. Your predictability.” How had she ever thought she could spend the rest of her life with Matt? “I loved you. But I loved your safety even more.”

  His eyes pierced hers. “And Sinclair’s what you want?”

  “Love is what I want.” Her ring finger looked empty on her hand. “And this time, I’m not settling.” She leaned on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “And neither should you.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Alex sat in his office at the campaign headquarters and twirled a Montblanc in his fingers. He had given everyone the night off, and the place was empty.

  Like him.

  He threw his pen across the desk where it bounced off a phone, rolling off the edge and onto the floor.

  I love you.

  Lucy’s words played on repeat in his brain. The image of her face when she’d said it—it wouldn’t leave him alone. The way he’d brushed her off. The things he couldn’t give. It wasn’t in the plan. Besides being the antidote to his reputation woes, Alex had picked her because she was safe. Someone he didn’t have to worry about falling for.

  But then he’d gotten to know her. She had stood up to him. Made him laugh. She wasn’t impressed with his face, his physique, his Sinclair name, or his million-dollar passing arm. When Lucy looked at him, she saw the real him.

  The last thing he wanted anyone to see.

  The election was in two weeks. Alex didn’t know if Lucy would make good on her promise to stand by him, but he couldn’t imagine her not being there. He still needed her. She just didn’t need him—not with her money and her demands.

  He looked at the latest poll numbers on his phone. His lead was small but steady. The thought of losing had Alex waking up in a cold sweat every night. This bid for Congress was all he had. He hadn’t even thought beyond that. If he didn’t win, he would be just another sad retired ballplayer. That stupid Dancing with the Stars would probably call. Alex didn’t paso doble for anyone. And what about ESPN? He didn’t want to sit next to Troy Aikman and talk about games he wasn’t playing and no longer cared about.

  God, what am I supposed to do here?

  His brother was gone. Now Lucy. Maybe even his career.

  And just where did that leave him?

  Lucy walked into Clare’s house and shut the door behind her. She would pack up her things and leave tomorrow, whether the apartment was ready or not. It was past time she got back to the real world.

  “There you are!” Julian intercepted her in the hall. “Come, come.” With sweeping hands he beckoned. “Join us in the living room.”

  She was too exhausted to protest, so she just followed doggedly behind.

  “Where’ve you been?” Sanjay stood next to Larry, one of the original Hobbits, who was cutting into what looked like a wing of the wedding cake. “Chuck and Morgan gave us the leftover cake, so Julian and Clare invited us over.” He reached for a plate balanced on the Ming vase and grabbed her a fork.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Lucy said.

  “Did all that wedding stuff stress you out?” Julian sidestepped two more Hobbits, reeling her in for a side-hug. “Don’t worry. I’m going to help you out with your big day.” His face pulled into a pout. “Though with only three months left, if anyone has reason to stress, it’s your wedding coordinator. These things don’t come together overnight, you know.”

  Clare walked into the room, in deep conversation with one of Sanjay’s newest recruits. “But I don’t understand why you’d want to teleport.” She took a bite of cake. “What if you zapped yourself to New York City and your cells g
ot messed up and your nose was stuck to your—” Clare’s mouth clamped shut as she got one look at Lucy and lowered her fork. “My dear, your makeup is all melted and your hair— completely mussed! We’ve gone over this. See me in my office at once.” She charged out before Lucy could argue. Not that she felt like it.

  With a resigned sigh, Lucy followed her down the hall and into the study. “I’m too tired for this right now. I know I totally messed up my updo but—”

  “Enough!” Clare shut the door behind them and turned to face Lucy, arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t care about your appearance.”

  Lucy blinked. “Do you have a fever?”

  “Lucy, what in the world happened tonight?” Clare’s face softened, and it proved Lucy’s undoing. Tears sprang to the surface and flowed freely down her cheeks. “There, there.” Clare reached out her arms, and Lucy went right to them. “Tell me all about it.”

  Heaving breaths kept Lucy from choking out the words.

  “Did Alex hurt you?”

  Lucy shook her head, then erased that answer with a nod.

  “I can take care of that.” Her fingers caressed Lucy’s hair. “I know people.”

  Lucy sniffed, wiped her nose, then raised her aching head. “I broke up with Alex.”

  Her grandmother’s eyes widened. “Why?”

  One more step into the abyss wouldn’t sink her any more than she already was. “Alex and I”—it shamed her to even put the thoughts to words—“we’ve been faking the engagement.”

  Clare said nothing.

  Maybe she didn’t understand. “We made a deal—I would pose as his wife-to-be until the election, and he would give me the funds for Saving Grace.” The woman was clearly in shock. Offended to the tips of her pedicured toes. Lucy spoke slower this time. “I’m not really engaged to Alex—we staged the whole thing.”

  “Well, I know that.”

  Now it was Lucy’s turn to go still. “What did you say?”