The Decoy Bride

by Lizzie Shane

  A clinking sound echoed through the room and all eyes turned to where the boy mayor was tapping a fork against an empty champagne bottle, in the absence of glass champagne flutes. “If I could have your attention for a moment—”

  “Oh joy. Another speech,” Reg muttered under his breath, and his wife shushed him.

  Mayor Mike began waxing poetic about the heroic accomplishment of the field house and the words washed over Cross. Honored to be part of…incredible spirit of collaboration…the culmination of the efforts of so many…but one member of our community…

  Cross tuned in as he realized the mayor wasn’t just blathering. He was making a toast to Cross.

  “I think we all know that the Field House would not exist today without the incredible generosity of a certain someone and I would like to take this opportunity to give special recognition to the guardian angel without whom the Field House would have remained a pipe dream. Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses to Aaron Cross Junior.”

  A cheer went up and he jerked his chin in a nod to acknowledge the praise, feeling inexplicably awkward. As if his patronage were a lie.

  Would he have done it if he’d known the truth about his father? Would he still have built the field house? He’d been wondering that a lot over the last few days.

  When he’d quit football, he’d felt guilty for not trying harder to go back. He’d felt guilty for finally going his own way and not trying to be his father version 2.0. So he’d built the field house—using the money left over from his NFL contracts after Lauren took her cut. He’d set aside some for his mother’s retirement and then sunk the rest into the field house.

  Because he felt like he’d failed a ghost. And now, knowing the ghost wasn’t the man everyone had said he was—or if he was that he was something else too, someone else’s father—he had to wonder if he would have done it, if he’d known.

  But he wasn’t ready yet to consider whether it was a good thing he hadn’t known. Just like he wasn’t ready to talk to his mother.

  He slipped out of the cocktail party as it was winding down, cutting through the familiar side streets to get back to his car and then driving out to the high school to see what he’d built.

  It really was beautiful.

  Bigger than any high school needed, and state of the art, but still functional. A ribbon that would be ceremonially cut tomorrow had been strung across the doors, but Cross circled the exterior, studying the words that had been etched into the stone.

  The Aaron Cross Senior Field House and Athletic Center.

  He’d done this. Not bad for a dumb jock from a hick town.

  “Aaron?”

  He should have known she would follow him. And perhaps on some level he’d expected her to. There was something sort of fitting about having this discussion here. At the monument he’d built to the man he’d thought his father was.

  He turned to face his mother. She stood, nervously twisting the strap of her purse between her hands.

  “You left without saying goodbye,” she murmured.

  He looked back to the building, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to say to you anymore. I don’t want to be angry at you, but I’m afraid if I talk to you, I’ll start yelling.” And he’d never yelled at her in his life.

  But there was one thing he needed to say. One thing he needed to know. Even if it led to the yelling.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “You were so young,” she murmured.

  “I’m not young anymore,” he snapped, then forced himself to stop, closing his eyes, concentrating on the June heat pressing against his skin. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I didn’t intend to keep it from you. I just never knew when to tell you. I didn’t know how. How do you tell your son his father—whom he idolized—had a child with someone else?”

  “And who taught me to idolize him?” he asked, looking up into her face, softened by the years.

  “Parenting is harder than it looks, you know,” she said softly. “You want to protect your kids, even from the truth. I always felt like I was walking a tightrope with you. Trying to avoid tainting your memories of your father. Always trying to focus on the positive. Maybe I went too far.”

  “It felt like he wasn’t even human. This god I had to live up to.”

  “Oh, Aaron, no. I never meant for you to feel like you had to live up to anything.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been compared to him my entire life. Compared to him and found lacking, like he’s some kind of unattainable superhuman god. The myth of Big Aaron. And you fed into it. You hid my half-sister from me.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Talk to my child about the other women? Discuss the paternity suit we paid to keep quiet?”

  “Why pay to hide the truth at all?”

  “Because it was your name too!” The words were loud enough to startle him. “What was I supposed to do? Tarnish the name he gave you? I only wanted to protect you and maybe I went about it the wrong way, but I couldn’t talk to you about my husband. He was your father. And he was a good father. A good athlete. And on the whole, not a bad man, even if he wasn’t the most faithful.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  She smiled, huffing out a soft breath. “That question always sounds so simple but it’s not. I thought about it. Maybe things would have been different in the long run if he’d lived, but at the time all I could think was how much he loved you and you loved him—even if you don’t remember it now—and I couldn’t take you away from that. As long as it didn’t touch you, I could tell myself it didn’t touch our family. So I kept his secrets. Far longer than I should have. And yes, I convinced myself that you didn’t need to know. They never reached out to us until now—”

  “I still deserved to know.”

  “I know.” The words were weary, exhausted. “But I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

  He swallowed thickly, shaking his head. “You let me build a monument to him. I’ve been chasing a ghost who was never real.”

  “He was real, Aaron. And he did love you. No one is all good or all bad. We’re all somewhere in between. You have to take the bad with the good.”

  “But I only ever heard the good.”

  “And that was my mistake. I see that now. I worried that my bitterness would taint your feelings for him, so I overcompensated, but you never need to feel like you have to live up to him. I am so proud of you. You are a thousand times the man he was. You always were. You never needed to compete with him.” She shook her head, her chin wobbling. “I only wanted you to be happy.” She searched his eyes. “Are you happy, Aaron?”

  He gazed into his mother’s eyes—and realized he had no idea how to answer her question. He wasn’t sure he’d ever known how to be happy. How to release the constant need to do more. To be more. He didn’t know how to just be.

  Until Bree.

  He missed her, like an ache in his chest. She’d made him feel…everything.

  Before her, his life hadn’t really been a life so much as an endless series of tasks to complete, but with her…she made every second feel alive—and as if it was enough, as if he was enough, like he didn’t have to keep striving. He’d never felt that before. Not Cross, the chronic overachiever.

  He still wanted to push himself to be the best, but it felt different now, like a goal more than an imperative. He may not be good at being happy yet, but with Bree…

  “I’m getting there.”

  *

  After the conversation outside the field house, they went back to his mother’s house—the same one he’d grown up in and which she refused to move out of. They sat in the kitchen, at the familiar cracked wooden table, and talked until midnight.

  Cross had always thought they were close, he’d always thought he could tell her anything, but now…they just talked. About everything and anything. He wasn’t trying to be perfect for
her and she wasn’t trying to sugarcoat the truth for him. She told him stories about his father he’d never heard—some that didn’t show him in a glowing light, but also some that did, and some where she was groaning and smiling at the same time, and for the first time his father didn’t seem like some ideal he had to live up to. He just felt like a man.

  He’d been angry at his father as much as his mother these last few weeks—very ready to hate him for betraying his mother, the feeling all the more extreme because of the perfect picture of his father he’d built in his head, but he found himself letting go of that as well.

  Yes, he’d been an asshole sometimes—but he had been a prince among men sometimes too. Aaron Cross Senior was just a man—and Cross realized he’d come to terms with that not a moment too soon when he arrived back at the field house the following morning.

  It was early, over two hours before the ceremony was supposed to start, but there were already members of the Dedication Committee rushing around getting things ready. He stood over to one side, beneath the giant engraving of his father’s name, and waited. He hadn’t thought about the fact that other people would be here when he’d suggested this for their first meeting, thinking only of the fact that it was someplace honoring his father.

  Their father.

  He was early—but Rachel was too.

  He’d had a vague vision of his half-sister in his head—and that vague image had looked a lot like Jennifer Aniston, he realized now, when a woman who looked more like a young Sophia Vergara approached him warily. She was tall, with long, dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail, dark eyes—and his father’s mouth. That was the moment it went from feeling surreal to stunningly real. She smiled, nervously, hesitantly, and it looked familiar.

  “Hi,” she said cautiously, stepping out from behind her car—and he realized she was also about thirteen months pregnant.

  “Rachel?” he asked awkwardly.

  “Yeah,” she said, looking as uncomfortable as he felt, and he suddenly wished Bree was there. She wouldn’t be able to stand the awkwardness. Her energy would blast through it and she would put everyone at ease by asking the wrong question which somehow turned out to be exactly the right question.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Cross said, stiffly, extending his hand for her to shake—and hearing Bree’s exasperated voice in his head. Would you just hug her already? She’s family.

  Rachel took his hand and they shook awkwardly. He released her hand and shoved his deep into his pants pockets. He’d dressed up a little, wanting to look nice for the dedication…and to make a good impression. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, chewing on her lip, and studied the building. “So this is it, huh? The field house you were talking about?”

  “Yeah.” He half-turned to face it.

  “Big.”

  “Yeah.” Say something, you idiot! “You said in your letter some things had changed for you recently?” he blurted.

  “Yeah.” Rachel put both hands on her belly. “You could say that.”

  “Is your…husband…?”

  “The father isn’t in the picture,” she said, the words fast and hard, and Cross’s eyebrows went up.

  “Do I need to kick the shit out of someone?”

  “Is that part of the older brother service? Offering to beat up jerks for me?”

  “Always,” he promised, before sobering. “I’m sorry he was a jerk.”

  She laughed softly without humor. “Yeah. Me too. But he taught me some stuff. Got me to reach out to you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “Are you?” she asked, her voice shaking a little. “I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know you didn’t know. About me and my mom.”

  “My mother told me some of it last night. Not everything. Apparently you weren’t the only paternity claim, but you were the only one that turned out to actually be his.”

  She cringed. “I feel like I owe your mother an apology.”

  “You don’t. You didn’t do anything.”

  She shook her head ruefully. “My mom…she doesn’t always think things through. I’m the planner. The organized one.” She grimaced. “Perfectionist.”

  “Me too. You think we get that from him?” The idea that his drive to be perfect might still be Big Aaron’s legacy—just not in the way he’d thought—was oddly comforting.

  “I don’t know. Do you remember him at all?” she asked. “I have a picture that was taken when I was two. He’s holding me on his shoulders, but I don’t remember any of it.”

  “I only remember bits and pieces—and most of it is stuff people told me about so I’m not sure how much I actually remember myself. He seemed like the tallest man in the world and he had a loud laugh—that’s mostly what I remember. But growing up here—Big Aaron is pretty much the town mascot.”

  Rachel nodded at the building. “I can see that.”

  “I’m glad you could make it for the dedication. Seemed like you should be here too, when we’re honoring Big Aaron’s legacy.”

  Rachel frowned. “You’re being surprisingly cool about all this.”

  “I had a few weeks to think about it.” And he had Bree’s voice in the back of his mind, whispering about how Rachel must be feeling. Seeing things differently.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” he promised, ready to answer any of her questions about their father.

  “Are you really dating Maggie Tate?”

  He released a groaning laugh. “No. I’m not.”

  “Dang. That would have been really cool.”

  “I do know her though,” he offered, suddenly wanting to impress his sister. “I work her security detail sometimes.”

  “It looked like working her security detail involved making out from the picture I saw.”

  “Actually Maggie has a decoy—a woman she pays to impersonate her in public sometimes so she can have some privacy. I was…involved with her for a little while.”

  “And you aren’t anymore?”

  “Honestly I’m not sure what we are anymore. She’s kind of mad at me. I might have been an idiot.”

  He’d definitely screwed things up with her.

  He remembered with vicious clarity the look in her eyes when she’d thrown that final volley at him that night at Maggie’s. He’d told himself it was for the best that it ended when it did, that he couldn’t give her what she deserved anyway and it was better to cut ties now before either of them got in too deep…but it didn’t feel like it was over. And the longer he tried to stay away, the more he missed her every day.

  “And what?” Rachel asked, startling him out of his thoughts. “You’re just going to let her walk away? What if she’s The One?”

  “I don’t believe in The One,” he said, the words automatic. But with Bree…

  Was she The One? Was she his One?

  He’d never really bought into the romantic crap before. His mother’s love for his father had always felt more like a fable than something between real people—like the exaggerated perfection in a celebrity magazine, not the real moments. Like the way she laughed when she left him in her salt spray on the jet skis. Or the restless way she moved—constantly in motion.

  Or the look in her eyes when he’d offered her money to lie.

  She had no reason to forgive him, no reason to want to talk to him again.

  “You scared to show her your softer side?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t have a softer side. And I don’t get scared.”

  She snorted. “All right, tough guy,” she said, as if she knew he was lying.

  Because he had been scared. Scared shitless. He’d thought love was something you did. Something you perfected. Motions to go through. That was what it had been with his first wife. A role to perform. And he’d tried to be good at it. He’d thought he was good at it—and she’d left him anyway. And when she had, when she’d packed her things and walked away, he hadn’t felt anything.

  He’d known then that h
e was broken. That he didn’t know how to love—and that he didn’t need the kind of pressure trying to play at love caused him. He didn’t want to lead someone on by going through the motions—so he’d always kept things casual. And he’d thought he was happy that way.

  He’d been wrong about a lot of things lately. Maybe love wasn’t something you performed. Maybe it was something you felt. Maybe it was that moment when it felt like something in your chest reached out to the other person and all you wanted was to see them smile one more time.

  “She might not take me back.”

  “True,” Rachel acknowledged. “But you never know until you try.”

  Maybe she wouldn’t forgive him. He could admit, the idea of throwing himself at her mercy and begging forgiveness scared the shit out of him…but Cross didn’t hide.

  When something scared him, he ran right at it, screaming all the way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  For nearly two weeks, Bree had waited for Cross to come knocking at her door. Not all the time. Not even more than two or three times a day, but every time her phone buzzed with a text message she wondered if it was him—before she picked up her phone and saw the message came from Andi or her mom.

  Her mother was euphoric that she was moving back to Clement—which Bree tried not to find annoying, but it was an ongoing battle. To her mother this wasn’t her admitting defeat and retreating home in disgrace, it was her waking up and making responsible, forward-thinking decisions with her life. Her mother dreamt of her in a stable, nine-to-five job with benefits, oblivious to the fact that that stability made Bree feel like she was walking through life in a straitjacket.

  She hadn’t picked a date yet, for moving back. Once she did, it would feel final, it would feel real, and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

  If these were going to be her last days living as an artist in LA, she didn’t want to waste them. She’d fallen into her art—spending every waking moment working and coming up for air only when she realized she hadn’t eaten all day or she couldn’t remember the last time she’d showered.