“This is bullshit,” Graham finally said, his voice cutting through the air like a knife. “I won’t marry her.”
“You will or your reputation will be the least of your worries,” my father smiled at him. “Now,” he stood and buttoned his jacket. “Should we eat?”
Like anyone could eat after that fiasco. But I stood and waited for my mother and father to leave the room. Then I was left alone with Graham.
“Just so you know, I will never love you. I will never treat that child like my own. This is business and that’s it.”
I tilted my head and looked at him with pity. He didn’t want this anymore than I did. “I will never love you either. My heart belongs to someone else and always will. But you’re not the only one here that my father backed into a corner. I have no choice in this.”
He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “How far along are you?”
“I don’t know. I only found out yesterday, right before my father showed up and dragged me back here.”
“If we’re going to make this convincing, we’ll have to marry in private, then release a statement that we got married a few days after you got cold feet. People will know that you got pregnant before we were married otherwise.”
I nodded in agreement. “If that’s what you want.”
He stared at me for a moment. “What is he holding over you?”
I stared at him numbly. I refused to feel anything right now. I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. “He threatened to ruin the man I love, just as he’s threatening to ruin you.”
“Does he know?” Graham nodded to my stomach, staring at it for a moment.
I shook my head. “No, and he never will. If I don’t play along, my father will take my child from me, and that’s not something I’ll ever let happen.”
Joe
“Joe?”
Kat’s voice broke through the haze I was lost in. I felt the bed dip behind me and then Carly’s face appeared in front of me. Charlie was standing behind her, and then I saw Anna at the foot of the bed. God, this was pathetic.
Deciding that while it was one thing to be a pussy in front of my brothers, I couldn’t do it in front of these women, I sat upright in bed.
Kat reached out her hand. “How are you?”
I shrugged. “You know. It’s not like it’s a surprise.”
“Yes it is,” Carly snapped. “She was friends with all of us. We didn’t see this coming.”
I sighed and wiped the sleep from my eyes. It was dark outside. How long had I been laying here? “Yeah, well, when I gave her a ride that day, I knew what a selfish bitch she was. I should have realized that it wouldn’t last.”
“Joe, she really did love you,” Charlie said softly.
“If she loved me, she wouldn’t have written that crappy letter.”
“What did it say?” Anna asked.
I pulled the note out and handed it over to her. She took it and read it, her brows furrowed as she read it. “That’s it?”
“What did you expect? She loves me, but not enough to stick around.”
“But she was doing all this budgeting and stuff, planning for winter. This doesn’t make sense,” Carly said as she read the note. “She wouldn’t even let me buy her a pair of boots because she wanted to do this on her own.”
“Well, there you have it. She couldn’t afford the boots, realized that she never would be able to if she stuck with me, and she took off. It’s pretty cut and dry.”
“You don’t believe that,” Kat said.
“Yes, I do,” I seethed. “Ask Charlie. People don’t really change. That’s why she doesn’t want to marry Will. She’s worried that she won’t be able to let go of her neurosis about getting married.”
“Look at you,” Kat grinned, “using all those big words.”
“Yeah, well, it’s time I started acting like a man.”
“Is that what you think? That she left you because you weren’t man enough for her?” Charlie asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? I couldn’t provide for her. I could barely give her the bare necessities.”
“Joe, that’s just not true,” Anna scolded me. “You just started your business. You gave her a job and she chose what to do with that paycheck. You gave her a place to stay when she had nowhere to go.”
“Yeah, you did everything you could for her,” Kat said. “Like she said, you’ll find someone worthy of you.”
My face crumpled and tears slipped down my cheeks. “I don’t want someone worthy. I want her.”
The girls all looked at each other in confusion. Yeah, I just went from calling her a bitch to whining that I only wanted her. It was confusing for me too.
“You know what?” Carly said, snatching up the letter. “You don’t need to see this anymore. This is bad for you.”
“It’s all I have left of her,” I cried.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not healthy for you to keep staring at this. She’s gone and we need to go to the next stage of grief.”
She strode out of the room, only to return a few minutes later with ice cream and spoons. “You need ice cream.”
I swiped at my face and took the spoon. “Will this help?”
“Trust me, this is what all women do when they’ve been dumped. Or so I’m told.”
She looked to Charlie and Charlie held up her hands. “Don’t look at me. I was all about the non-relationships until Will came along.”
“Well, what did you do when you lost Will?”
She shrugged. “I worked and I gave myself orgasms.”
“I don’t think I could even get it up right now. It wouldn’t be the same without her.”
“Please, don’t tell us,” Kat grimaced. “I can’t handle hearing about another man’s sex life.”
“It wasn’t just about the sex, you know? When I was with her, I felt like I was whole. You know that feeling like you’ve found someone that makes you want so much more? She was that person. I wanted to be better for her. I only wanted her. And she was a virgin, and the moment she told me she wanted me to be her first, it was like the clouds parted and the light was shining through.”
Carly winced and pulled the ice cream away from me. “I was wrong. You don’t need ice cream. You need alcohol to forget her.”
“I could never forget her.” I pulled the pillow closer and sniffed. “The way she smelled like strawberries from the shampoo she used. I can still smell it on her pillow. And how she used to run her hand up and down my chest in the morning? That was my favorite thing.” I chuckled to myself as I remembered one morning in particular. “She liked to bury her nose in my armpit and sniff.”
“That’s…” Anna shook her head, a disgusted look on her face.
“Romantic?” I asked hopefully.
“No, that’s just disgusting.”
“Yeah, I’m with Anna,” Charlie agreed. “That’s not romantic at all.”
“It seemed romantic AF at the time.”
“Yeah, it’s really not,” Kat said, patting me on the arm. “But hey, at least you have those memories, right?”
“I suppose.” But I didn’t just want to have those memories. I wanted her. “Do you think I should try and find her? She said in her note that she was going to marry Graham. Maybe she was just trying to tell me where she was going.”
Carly shook her head. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You don’t want to be the one chasing her.”
“But what if she wants me to chase her? Maybe she needs me to go after her and rescue her. I could be her white knight.”
“Honey, there’s no white knight situation here,” Charlie said. “She left because she wanted to. It’s not like she was kidnapped.”
But then I remembered what Andrew said. “Maybe she was forced to write that note. Maybe she really was kidnapped and she’s out there right now, waiting for me to come find her.”
I heard raised voices in the other room and tried to block them out so I coul
d think, but they just kept getting louder.
“Men,” Anna muttered. “I’ll take care of this.”
She walked to the door and flung it open, ready to yell at them, but something stopped her.
Curious, I got up for the first time in what felt like days, and went to see what was going on. My brothers were all huddled together in the living room, going through my note.
“Look, right there, she says she loves him,” Andrew pointed out.
“Yeah, but if she didn’t want this to be goodbye, she would have signed it Love, Sofia,” Robert pointed out.
Josh shook his head. “You guys are looking at the wrong clues. It’s in the very first line. She wanted to tell him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Right fucking there. When have you ever known Sofia to hold back?”
“See?” Andrew snapped. “And she says it’s the most amazing time of her life…who leaves during the most amazing time of their life? No, this isn’t a goodbye note. This is a plea for help.”
“You’re full of shit,” Eric snapped. “She says right there that he’ll find someone worthy of him. Which could either mean that she thinks she’s not good enough, or it could mean that she thinks they’re not on the same level, like she’s too good for him.”
“I have to agree,” Will nodded. “Who says they’ll remember someone fondly. I could understand if she said she would remember him as she fondled herself, but that’s clearly not what it says.”
Josh whistled loudly as they continued to argue, getting them all to quiet down. “Look, I’ve been on the other side of these two different worlds. I’m telling you, this is a love letter. She wants him, but she can’t have him, and until we find out why, she’s out there waiting for him.”
“Sure,” Robert nodded. “Let’s send our brother out there in search of a woman that’s already torn his heart to shreds. The letter clearly says goodbye. Leave it at that. He’s not enough. We’re not enough!”
Anna cleared her throat and they all jerked their heads up to look at us staring at them. “And I thought the women were all in Joe’s bedroom.”
Sofia
My father had this all set up so perfectly. Everything was prepared for me to marry Graham today. The minister was coming to the house, because there was no way my father would allow us to just go down to the courthouse. Graham’s parents would be there, along with mine, but no one else was to know what was going on.
I stood in front of the mirror in my room, looking at the way the dress I chose fit me. It was from my closet, a dress I had worn before, but it didn’t fit the same way at all. I had changed. I had started eating food, and it showed in this dress. The zipper was a little too tight and my curves showed, but it didn’t look bad. But that was mostly because I had chosen to wear black today. This wedding was completely different from my first. On that day, I was wearing something that was supposed to make me look regal for all the world to see. Today, I was mourning the loss of my freedom.
I touched my shoulder where Joe had tattooed the feather. It was something I would hold onto when things got tough. Even if I didn’t have him, I had my child and I had a piece of him tattooed on my body.
“You are not wearing that dress,” my mother snapped from behind me. “Go pick out something more appropriate.”
Sighing, I turned to my mother. “Since I’ve put on weight, it’s black or nothing. This is the only dress I have that fits.”
She pursed her lips at me. “You’ll have to change your eating habits. We can’t have you going out in public looking like this.”
“Mother, I’m pregnant. I’m not going to be skinny in a few months.”
“Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean you can eat everything in sight. There are plenty of women that get pregnant and still maintain a healthy weight.”
Right, her version of a healthy weight was much different than mine. Only it took escaping her clutches to see it. I would just have to hope that Graham didn’t expect me to be a twig like she did.
“Well, there’s no time to find you a different dress. Graham’s waiting downstairs for you.”
With one last look in the mirror, I steadied my nerves and made the dreaded walk down to the living room where everyone was waiting. I got some weird looks from Graham’s parents, but nobody said anything. My father didn’t care what I was wearing as long as his precious merger went through, which was exactly what this was. As for Graham, he barely spared me a glance.
The minister looked uncomfortable as he started the ceremony. I stared off over his shoulder and pretended that none of this was happening. And when it came time to say my vows, I repeated them robotically, not caring if I sounded happy or not. It didn’t matter at this point. There was no one here to witness and spread gossip.
As Graham slid the ring on my finger, the first piece of my heart finally shattered. It should be Joe putting a ring on my finger. It should be his family surrounding us. But instead, it was a man that I didn’t care about and a family I despised. I brushed the tear from my cheek and turned back to the minister. When he said that Graham could kiss me, I stayed exactly where I was, and let him lean down to kiss my cheek. I could tell he didn’t even want to do that much.
My mother scurried about, talking with Graham’s parents while I sat in the living room by myself and stared out the window. My life would be so much different now. I had no clue what Graham would expect from me once we were back at his house, and I didn’t really care to find out right now. All I cared about was the massive hole in my chest where my heart used to be.
“I think we should slip out before your parents try to rope us into any more of this ridiculous show.”
I looked up at Graham and nodded. Surprisingly, he held out his hand for me. I didn’t want to take it, but I also didn’t want to start our marriage off with anger and resentment. There was already enough of that going around. So, I played the part of the good wife and took his hand. We said goodbye to everyone, though I wasn’t sure I actually opened my mouth once.
It wasn’t until we got back to his house that I realized I hadn’t packed a thing to take with me. I didn’t want anything from that life. I longed for all of my clothes back at Joe’s apartment.
“I’ll show you to your room,” Graham said as he shut the door behind us.
I nodded and followed him up the stairs, and was surprised when he led me to a guest room. Relief flooded me. If I was getting my own room, surely that meant that he wasn’t going to expect sex from me. He walked over to the closet and flipped on a light.
“I’ve had a personal shopper gather some things for you.” His eyes trailed over my body and he sighed. “Though, you’ve put on some weight since you’ve been gone. They might not fit you.”
He moved for the door, but I thought now was as good a time as any to clear the air. “Graham, what exactly are you expecting of me?”
He turned to me with cold eyes. “I expect you to behave like the good wife I was promised. You’ll attend functions with me whenever I need you to and you’ll host dinner parties when I ask. I expect you to be pleasant and have a fucking smile on your face. And at the end of the night, you’ll go to your room and I’ll go to mine. It doesn’t really matter to me now who you fuck, as long as you’re discreet about it. But that man will never be allowed back into your life. I won’t have you making a mockery of me.”
“You know we’ll be expected to have kids.” I didn’t like the thought of it, but I knew my mother and father well enough to know that was part of the agreement.
But Graham just sneered at me. “Your father will have one grandchild and that’s enough. I wouldn’t touch you now if you were the only woman available.”
He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I moved to the window seat and sat down staring out into the sunlight, and for the first time in two days, I smiled.
* * *
Almost a week had passed and the monotony of my days were blending together and driving me insane. I sat
in my room. I read. I even watched TV, but the whole time, I was wishing that I was back in that small apartment with Joe. I missed waking up in the morning beside him and the feel of him at night. I missed talking with his clients at the shop. I missed going out with his brother’s girlfriends. I even missed Andrew.
The longer I sat in my room, trying to avoid running into Graham, the lonelier I became. Was this really going to be my life with him? Would we always ignore each other and spend our time apart from each other? If I was going to survive living here, I had to at least attempt to have some sort of relationship with Graham, even if it was only that we spoke to each other at the end of every day.
I walked downstairs when I saw his car pull up that night. I had asked the cook to wait on dinner until he was home. She looked at me like I was crazy, but nodded and did as I asked. When I met him at the door, he looked at me like I was a fly on his shoe.
“Was there something you needed?”
“I thought we would eat dinner together tonight.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because we’re both stuck in this relationship for the foreseeable future. I thought maybe we could come to some sort of understanding. Maybe become allies.”
He watched me for a moment, sure that I was just making this up in some sort of attempt to get on his good side for something.
“No thanks. I have enough allies.”
He shoved past me and headed for his study, but I was determined not to give up. “Even against my father?” He stopped in his tracks and slowly turned toward me. “When I was going to marry you the first time, my father talked about how I would need to pay attention to what was going on with you so I could feed him information.”
Priceless Ink: A Small Town Romance Page 29