by Avery Flynn
“Everly.” Because she’d seen through it all right from the beginning.
“You mean the woman who’s not your girl even though you love her?”
“I don’t love her.” He just couldn’t figure her out when it appeared that she had his number. The first time they’d met most likely.
Frankie laughed. “Lie to yourself; don’t lie to me.”
Heat rushed through him along with the sneaking suspicion that he was full of shit. “I’m not.”
“Okay.” Frankie shrugged and nodded. “Then say it. Say, ‘I don’t love Everly Ribinski, the hottest girl who ever told me to fuck off and die.’”
“She didn’t say that.” Delay? Him? Never.
Frankie just shook his head. “Stop stalling.”
He wasn’t stalling; he was just stupefied. He wanted to say it. He needed to say it to get his know-it-all best friend off his ass but…he couldn’t. The words turned to ash on his tongue. There was only one reason for that. He loved her. Like a complete moron, he’d fooled around and fallen in love. Hell, he had probably already been halfway there when he’d decided the best idea in the world was to sit on a lounge chair in the parking garage and wait for his bitch queen of an upstairs neighbor to come home. And when she’d gone toe to toe with Irena at the gala, that hadn’t been her being unable to control her temper. That had been her defending him, something he had so little experience with—or so he thought—that he hadn’t been able to identify that feeling of gratitude so he’d freaked out and had pushed her away.
“Shit,” he said, ramming his fingers through his hair. “I’ve fucked it all up.”
Frankie just raised an eyebrow, so Tyler gave him the whole story from the parking spot coin flip to the gala blowup to the way Everly had cut him to the quick at dinner.
“Damn.” Frankie chuckled. “I like that woman. If she hadn’t already fallen for you, I would be shoving you out of the way to make my move.”
“Go for it.” Misery sunk like an anchor in his gut. “She told me to hit the road, wouldn’t even let me apologize tonight at dinner.”
“If I even believed for a millisecond that you meant that, I would. I might be the one who runs into burning buildings for a living, but you’re the true idiot,” Frankie said. “Everly is one of us and, unlike some douchebags, doesn’t need to try to hide it.”
“You got that from one poker night at your house?” Tyler wasn’t disagreeing, but that didn’t mean he was accepting it with grace, either.
“I’m a people person.” He shrugged. “Look, here’s what I’m telling you. Everly is a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve. If she wanted to put you on blast, she would have, and smoke would still be wafting from your charred-beyond-recognition ass because of the chewing out you got. But she didn’t. You want her, you gotta fight for her.”
Yeah, it was the kind of thing that made sense on paper, but how in the hell he was supposed to actually make it happen when she wouldn’t even talk to him was a whole other thing. “How?”
“You’re the fucking evil-genius plotter who’s in love with her—you go figure it out,” Frankie said, and gathered up their empty beers as he stood. “Just do it quick because if I have another one of these touchy-feely conversations anytime soon I might throw up.”
“Such a softie.” Tyler stood and walked back toward the house with Frankie.
“Trust me,” his friend said. “‘Soft’ is not the word the ladies use to describe me.”
Tyler may have been laughing again by the time he walked out to his car, but his brain was going at supersonic speeds. Frankie was wrong about the love thing—there was no way he’d fallen for the exact opposite of the kind of woman he needed in his life—but he wanted her, missed her, needed to be around her. Some might say that was the same thing, but he’d seen love up close and personal with his parents. They fought. They said I love you. They fought some more. That wasn’t what he needed in his life. But he did need Everly because he…well, because he did. So like the schemer he was, he spent the drive home going through options and prognosticating outcomes, because this was one plot that had to go according to plan.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
On the best of days, Everly wasn’t a fan of weddings—especially not fancy, five-hundred-guest weddings at the most sought-after church in Harbor City—but today was even worse. She hated love. Love sucked donkey balls dipped in rancid mayo. Love was a lie. Yeah, the timing of her moving through the heartbreak stages from sad but numb to hurt and pissed had coincided with showing up to the chapel to watch Carlo say “I do” for business purposes only to that evil hag Irena. Wasn’t she just the luckiest? Even worse, she had to pretend to be happy about being there. The irony of having to act like a member of Harbor City’s elite wishing the couple well after what had gone down with Tyler wasn’t lost on her.
And speak of the devil, he was heading straight toward where she and Nonna were waiting in the vestibule before they walked down to their assigned seats in the front row. The man looked like hell. His tie was askew. His shirt wrinkled. His scruffy beard had moved straight into the lost-in-the-wilderness stage. And the jerk was still hot enough to make her girlie parts sit up and say, “Hello hottie.” God, she hated him.
“What is he doing here?” she mumbled to herself as he made a beeline over to them.
“Lui è molto carino,” Nonna said, patting Everly’s forearm.
Cute? Yeah, despite the fact that his black tux seemed to hang on him a little more than it had before, it still made his blue eyes stand out. Of course, that wasn’t what she needed to be thinking about right now. Wishing there were more people than just her, Nonna, Alberto, and Carlo in the vestibule to add cover, Everly turned her attention to the closed door leading to the chapel because watching him wasn’t doing a damn thing to make the swirling emotions inside her subside.
It was a mistake. Diverting her focus just meant she didn’t see his final approach until it was too late.
“Everly,” Tyler said, tucking an errant hair behind her ear. “We need to talk.”
Hating how her body instantly responded to him with a yes-please shiver, she refused to look at him. “I’m busy.”
“Everly.” His voice deepened. “I want you. I promise I can make it fun again, just like it was before.”
She whirled on him. “What did you say to me?”
He just stood there, so close she could literally lean over and brush her lips across his jaw, looking like a man who’d been through the wringer and still managed to be the hottest person she’d ever seen in her life. It wasn’t fair. And now he told her he wanted her? Not needed her. Not loved her. But wanted her. After radio silence for weeks? After he’d watched her walk away at the gala without even trying to go after her. After his lame attempt to apologize last night? The spark of anger in her belly grew into a flame, and she held onto it with both hands, not caring if she got burned. Really, it was too late for that anyway.
“I want it to be like it was before,” he repeated. “Fun.”
Alberto, Carlo, and Nonna all stared at the live show of Everly’s humiliation, their mouths agape. Scratch that. Carlo’s mouth was agape. Nonna smiled placidly and Alberto had the smug expression of a man who had all the answers.
When she didn’t say anything—she couldn’t—he kept talking. “I know I was slow on the uptake. Turns out I’m good at reading other people’s motives and shit when it comes to knowing my own. And my motive, from the first moment you almost killed me with your boxes but spared me when I put my foot in my mouth, was to be with you. I’m miserable without you. You look miserable without me.”
She raised an eyebrow in an oh-really reaction because she’d seen herself in the mirror today but couldn’t promise the same of him. “So you want me and that means that I should just fall to the ground overwhelmed with joy? Do you know how many times my dad told my mom he wanted her? Do you know how many times she believed him? Every time right up until she put that rope around h
er neck. I deserve more than someone who wants me. I deserve someone who loves me. Can you say that? Can you say those words?”
Tyler didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The panic in his eyes round with shock said it all.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even close. Emotion turned into a lump in her throat, and no matter how many times she swallowed, she couldn’t get past it. And worst of all, she wanted to believe him because those were the only words she’d been wanting to hear from him since that night she’d come home to find him on a lounge chair in the parking garage. Giving in would be easy…and beyond a risk she was willing to take. Just having fun was one thing, but she wanted more than that from him. She wanted love.
“Everly,” he finally managed to get out—but it was too late.
She held up her hand, silencing him because she couldn’t stand to hear the words. How often had her mother made herself believe only to end up broken because of a man? Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the others in the vestibule with them. None of them bothered to hide their curiosity because they didn’t need to. They knew who they were and what they wanted. Unlike Tyler, they weren’t pretending. Using up her very last bit of control to keep herself from falling apart, she turned back to Tyler and did what she had to do, what her mother should have done.
“Please.” He reached out, but she evaded his touch. “We can go back to what it was.”
Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen.
“It’s too late for that. I want someone who knows that I’m worth fighting for, not someone who is fighting to forget who I am…” She leveled a glare at Tyler that should have fried him right down to his toes. “Or who he is. I want someone who loves me as much as I love him.” As much as I love you…
Before she could say anything else, the chapel doors opened and an entire church full of wedding guests turned in their direction. She slammed her mouth shut and slipped her arm through Nonna’s. The older woman looked at her, then over to Tyler, and then back again.
“L’amore ti fa matto,” she said, and held out her free hand to Tyler.
Nonna couldn’t be more wrong in her assessment of the situation. Love may make some people crazy, but it just fucked up Everly’s world.
Together, she, Nonna, Alberto, and Carlo walked down the aisle into the church, leaving Tyler behind, just like she needed her heart to do.
…
Tyler stood dumbfounded in the vestibule as the minister began explaining to the wedding guests seated that the bride would be reading from her favorite sonnet behind the closed vestibule door before walking down the aisle.
L’amore? Love? Why did people keep saying that? It wasn’t love. Love was crazy and out of control and overwhelming to the point where a person could lose themselves completely. He scrubbed his palm against the nearly three-week growth of beard that he hadn’t meant to grow and caught a glimpse of himself in the glass case of church mementos. It was impossible to miss the meals he’d skipped with how his tux hung on him or the more than a hint of wild desperation in his tired eyes. Crazy? Yeah, he looked a little bit that way. Out of control? He was going with yes. Overwhelmed? That was affirmative.
“Fucking A,” he said, too shocked to care that he was talking to himself. “I love her.”
“Do not even think about it, Tyler Jacobson.” Irena’s snotty tone was like taking a dull knife to the eye.
He turned to see her flanked by attendants as she marched from the waiting lounge straight toward him. She was in a poofy, overdesigned monstrosity of a wedding dress, a mic in one hand and a piece of paper crumpled in the other. There was an unhinged fury in her eyes that at any other time would have made him head for cover. Right now, though, he was still too stunned about the fact that he’d fallen in love with Everly to give a shit.
“You and that low-rent tramp had better not even be considering stealing my thunder. This is my day. Mine.” Irena raised the hand holding the mic and pointed it at him, her thumb brushing the power button. “I am the bride and you shouldn’t even be here. Neither should that social-climbing gutter rat. Why Alberto insisted, I have no clue beyond the nearly unbearable Pollyanna attitude of that man, but I swear to God if either of you do a single thing to mess up my day, I will make it my life’s mission to put you two back in the slums where you belong.”
His gaze slid from the little red light on the mic to the closed doors between them and a church full of wedding guests. In half a heartbeat he knew exactly what he needed to do. It was time to let his Waterbury hang out.
“You could try,” he said, making sure his voice was loud enough to be heard clearly through the speakers in the church. “You might even be able to do it, but I’ll tell you something, Irena, a single broke Everly in a run-down tenement is still worth more than three hundred of you.” He took a step closer to his ex-fiancée, determined that the only person he cared about on the other side of the doors would catch every word. “Do you want to know why? Because she knows who she is. She’s earned what she has. She doesn’t fight to keep other people down, she fights to protect them. You’re deluded if you think you could ever take anything away from Everly.”
Irena rolled her eyes. “Thank God I’m not actually in love with Carlo because that sentimental bullshit was almost enough to make me puke.”
“For once you’re right about something,” he said, all but dipping his head to be close to the mic. “I love Everly. I can’t imagine life without her.”
“Yep.” Irena made a gagging face. “I definitely just threw up in my mouth a little.”
After everything the woman had put Everly through, he should draw out the moment more, but all he cared about was getting to the woman he loved as soon as possible. “You want to know something that will really send you over the edge?”
“What, you want her to have your babies?”
“Someday, but that’s not what I was going to say.” Of course, the image of mini Everlys filled his head. “I was going to tell you that your mic is live and everyone inside that church heard every bitchy little word you just said. After the pain in the ass you’ve been over the years and all the shit you’ve pulled, that should be the best thing about this whole exchange, but you know what?” He grabbed the mic from her hand while she stood there blinking rapidly, her mouth hanging open. “The only thing I care about anyone hearing is this: I don’t just want you, Everly Ribinski. I love you. So much so that I’d tell all these big-money assholes exactly what they can do with their hotel deal if they don’t want to give the consulting position to a scholarship kid like me. Because even a lifetime of being accepted by them doesn’t mean anything compared to spending just five minutes with you.”
And with that, he dropped the mic, yanked open the doors leading to the church, and marched inside, determined to find his woman.
That wasn’t going to happen right away, though, because the place was total chaos, with football-offensive-lineman-size ushers plugging up the aisle, not letting anyone through—with one exception.
Carlo rushed past him out into the vestibule. No doubt he had something to say to Irena regarding the catty line about his dad that had gone out on the hot mic, but Tyler didn’t care. She didn’t matter. Most of the people in the church didn’t matter. The only one who really did was sitting with Nonna near the front. She was the only person there who wasn’t transfixed by the Irena and Carlo show going on behind him. He had to get past the ushers and get to her.
“What do you mean, you can’t go through with it?” Irena yelled loud enough that they must have heard her across the harbor in Waterbury and pulled Tyler’s attention behind him. “That you were wrong to think it could work? There is an entire church full of people waiting for us to get married.”
Carlo shrugged. “We both know this whole marriage was just a business arrangement, and with that performance piped in over the speakers, you know it’s not going to work out anymore.”
“So you are leaving me at the altar?” Irena asked, all preten
se of the Harbor City sweetheart part she played to a T gone and the actual harpy she was on full display.
Carlo glanced back at the chapel, relief apparent on his face even from where Tyler was standing.
“Technically,” Carlo said, “you’re in the vestibule.”
“And you think that matters?” She grabbed her voluminous skirt with both hands. “You…you…Italian asshole.”
With that, she stormed off, her attendants scurrying after her. Everyone in the church sat watching as Carlo made his way back up the aisle to the halfway point where Alberto was waiting, a huge smile on his face. The two men conferred for a minute before Carlo strode up to the front of the church and the minister waiting there, his hand on his Bible, and turned to address the crowd.
“I’m sorry to tell you that the wedding is off,” Carlo said, his voice sounding happier than Tyler had ever heard it before. “Thank you all for coming.”
The church erupted with chatter. Irena’s family marched out, their chins high and their gazes locked straight forward. Everly and Nonna marched up to Alberto and Carlo in the front, offering their support and solidarity. Tyler remained standing near the back, desperate for a plan to appear in his mind fully formed as to how he was going to get Everly to listen to him plead his case. The place was deafening with everyone talking at once. No doubt those with friends who weren’t there were busily texting them to let them know what had just happened at what was supposed to be the society wedding of the year. It was exactly the kind of gleeful reaction at someone else’s expense that he’d dreaded being at the center of for as long as he’d been around these people. It almost made him feel bad for Irena. Almost. And it reminded him that in Waterbury, this wouldn’t be happening. Oh, people would be having a shit fit, but there’d be a lot more sympathetic faces than those he saw in the church.
Damn, he’d been lucky to find the Carlyles. He never would have made it in this piranha pit without them. And he couldn’t make it—anywhere—without Everly.