He swiped away the moisture in his eyes and took the spoon. He’d thought of requesting that the chef bake the ring right into the lava cake. But that’d be just a little too cliché, not to mention messy. The woman he loved deserved more than that.
He watched the way her mocha skin glowed in the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower as she took another bite of dessert. Mom had taken his niece for the night, leaving him time to be with Layla. He wanted to have a stroll through this beautiful city and let her show him around.
“So I’m thinking after this, you should play tour guide, and we should go see your favorite places in the city. Starting with the tower,” he said.
“That sounds wonderful.”
As the boat slid sideways toward the dock, they finished their dessert and champagne. Slinging his arm around Layla’s waist, Tyler led her off the boat and toward the lines at the base of the Eiffel Tower. “No wonder Mandy loves it here so much,” he said as they waited. “I could imagine living here.”
“But you love New York.”
“I do. And I love my job there. But there’s just something about this city that’s enthralling.”
“The city of love.”
He nodded, swinging her into his arms and spinning with her. She tossed her head back and laughed, the deep, throaty sound coiling his body tight. He would never tire of making her laugh.
“Oh, my God. Tyler! We’re engaged.”
“Yes, Ms. Marietta, we are. I hope you won’t mind organizing another wedding?”
“Not at all, Mr. Times Square. Not at all,” she said and kissed him.
Chapter Nineteen
“What?” Mandy couldn’t believe it. She was looking right at the ring, and she still couldn’t believe it. Her big bro had proposed!
She yanked Layla into her arms, careful not to squash the bag of pastries she’d nabbed for her and Julien to enjoy this morning. Layla had waylaid her in the lobby on her way back up to the room. Clearly she’d been too damned excited to keep the news of her engagement to herself another second and had come in search of Mandy.
“Congratulations. That’s awesome, girl.”
Layla squeezed her tightly. “I don’t wanna steal your thunder. This is your week. Your actual wedding day. But I just couldn’t keep it a secret.”
“I don’t blame ya. Lemme have another look at that rock.”
Layla released her and presented her left hand for inspection.
“Whoa, that brother of mine.”
“He sure knows how to spoil a girl.”
“Where’d he do it? He wouldn’t tell me where you were going last night, the swine.”
Layla laughed. “Seine boat tour. At the base of the Eiffel Tower.”
“That sap!” Mandy teased, but her heart melted. She knew better than anyone how sweet and gentle Ty could be. She was deliriously happy he’d made it official and that Layla would be a part of their family. She’d never seen Ty this relaxed, and she knew she had Layla to thank for that.
“Enough about me. Come on,” Layla said, leading Mandy into the elevator and back upstairs.
“I have to go have breakfast with my fiancé,” Mandy insisted as they got off on their floor.
“Fine, fine. Go, but come across the hall when you’re done.”
“Of course.” Mandy smiled and shook her head. Her big brother, engaged. With the smile still on her face, she opened the door to the suite, and Julien’s voice drifted toward her from the bedroom.
“Yes, Papa. I knew she was pregnant long before I asked her to marry me.”
Mandy froze. No way. Shit. She grabbed the front door before it closed behind her and let Julien know she was there. Silently she backed out of the room and walked to the elevator in a fog. She couldn’t believe it.
He had only proposed because she was pregnant. It was about not abandoning his child. Which was admirable, of course. But it hadn’t been about loving her. About who Mandy was as a person.
Mandy fought to breathe as the elevator descended. She looked down at her empty hands. Where had she dropped the croissants? It didn’t matter. How could she have been so stupid as to think he’d proposed so soon because he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? She should’ve known what everyone else seemed to. She’d been wrong for him from the start. Everyone—Pierre, Annabelle, even her mother—had said at some point she was foolish to jump into a relationship with such a young man. He’d regret his decision, in a month or ten years—who knew? It wouldn’t matter, because no doubt the resentment would come one day. He had his whole life ahead of him, and she would only hold him back.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Mandy got off. She barely registered the floor number as she walked toward one of the restaurants in the hotel. She couldn’t eat anything, because her stomach had turned to lead, but she needed somewhere to sit and think. She chose a table in the back and ordered hot chocolate and a croissant she could pick at when it arrived.
Half an hour later, she was still staring at her plate, no closer to calming herself. How could he have let her think for weeks that he didn’t know about the baby? Allowed her to continue to believe he’d proposed to her for the right reasons after all this time.
She left a five-euro bill on the table and headed back to the elevators. She had to talk to Julien about this before the proceedings this afternoon. She couldn’t get married unless he assured her he wanted her, not just the any woman who happened to be the mother of his child.
Layla was knocking on the suite door as Mandy exited the elevator on their floor.
“There you are! Sheesh, it’s been almost an hour, woman. We have things to do. Let’s go.”
“Where’s Julien?”
“Ty grabbed the baby, and he and Julien went off to do guy stuff somewhere. Don’t worry. They’re fine.”
Shit.
“Besides, we have a surprise for you,” Layla said, grinning.
Mandy barely suppressed a groan. Now was not the time for more surprises. But she couldn’t go running after Julien if she didn’t know where he was, and she definitely didn’t need her brother as an audience to her personal conversation with her fiancé. Why hadn’t she been ten minutes later this morning so she wouldn’t have heard Julien speaking with his dad? She could have gone about her business in blissful ignorance, damn it.
Layla put an arm around Mandy and shuffled her across the hall and into the Monet Suite. A three-paneled mirror stood in the middle of the living room area, a small round stool before it.
Her mother came out of one of the bedrooms carrying a garment bag.
“Don’t get mad. Just get undressed,” Mom said.
Crap.
What the hell was she going to do now? She couldn’t refuse. Layla and Mom were both looking at her with such hope in their eyes, she knew she’d never forgive herself if she let them down. She wouldn’t dump her doubts on them. It was too cruel to ruin everything now. She just had to make it through whatever they had in store for her and then find Julien.
Realizing she couldn’t stall any longer, she unzipped the cream-and-coral dress she was wearing and slipped it off. Mom hung the garment bag on the edge of one mirror and unzipped it, revealing a long white dress that took Mandy’s breath away.
“Oh, God, Mom…is that…?”
“Yes, sweetie. Come on over so we can put it on you.”
She almost didn’t recognize her mom’s old wedding dress. The sleeves had been cut off, the lace overlay removed, and the original sheer front over the chest, which closed at the neck, and the sweetheart neckline had been embellished with rhinestones and pearls.
Mom and Layla slipped the dress off the hanger and lowered the silk sheath over Mandy’s head. She already had a dress for the wedding this afternoon and had planned on wearing the same one on Friday. But this was a real wedding dress. Her mother’s, in fact. No wonder Layla had sent the guys suit shopping. Next to this beautiful garment, Julien’s regular suit would have stood out.
It had been altered to fit Mandy perfectly. “Who did you have model it for you?” Mandy asked.
Layla put up her hand. “That’d be me.”
Mom zipped the dress up and closed the top two buttons at the base of Mandy’s skull. She swept up Mandy’s hair and secured it with a clip that she’d procured from somewhere. One look at Mom’s tears made Mandy’s heart clench. Mom spun her around to face the mirrors, and Mandy’s legs threatened to buckle. Layla steadied her with a hand on the small of her back.
“And I thought the dress looked good on me. Sister, you are rocking it.”
The room began to spin, and Mandy’s throat constricted.
“It’s beautiful,” Mandy said, and it really was. But as she imagined herself walking down the aisle in the dress, large splotches of her vision dimmed to black. “I, um…Could we take it off now?”
Her mom and Layla shared a worried look through the mirror as they started undoing the dress, but she couldn’t assuage their fears. Panic was setting in something fierce, and she had to get a little fresh air.
“Thank you, Mom. This is a wonderful surprise. I just…I don’t want Julien to see me in it. Can you hide it before he gets back?” She knew it was a lame excuse, but it was all she could come up with.
“Of course, honey. As soon as you tell me what the hell’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I, um…I’m a little overwhelmed. I need a while to relax.” Mandy stepped out of the dress, trying to regain her composure. She didn’t want to spook them. Couldn’t let this spiral out of control. She picked up her simple dress with shaking fingers and pulled it on. “Zip me up, please?” she asked Layla while her mom put the amazing wedding dress away. She just needed some time.
Chapter Twenty
Julien handed his daughter to Tyler. The living room area of the Monet Suite faded from his vision as the weight of Layla’s news sank in. Mandy was gone. They were supposed to meet in forty minutes to finalize all the documents and make their way over to the mayor’s office.
“What do you mean, she’s not here?” His stomach bottomed out. No. God, no, she couldn’t have left him. It wasn’t possible that fate would be so cruel as to seduce both his mother and the love of his life away from him.
She wouldn’t do this to him.
“She said she just needed a little time on her own today. And that she’d meet us at the mayor’s office. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” Layla said.
But the look on Angela’s face told him he might have something to worry about after all. “I knew I should have waited to give her the dress until tonight. Damn it,” she said.
He had to find her. Pulling out his cell with shaking fingers, he took a deep breath, trying to force his brain to work through the haze of fear and confusion swamping him. He knew Mandy. She was simply having a last-minute freak-out. Like when they’d been on the way to the hospital and she’d panicked, telling him their daughter wasn’t ready and she was staying right in her mother’s belly where she belonged.
This was the same thing.
He called Mandy, praying for an answer, but the call rolled right into voice mail. “Ma belle, où es tu?” He knew the message sounded desperate, but he was. She had to come back to him.
He closed the phone and slid his hand along the keypad, texting her the same urgent Where are you? They had two hours before their appointment. It was enough time for her to get there on her own. He told his inner warning bells to shut the hell up.
“What happened?” he asked.
Angela and Layla sat down across from him. Tyler, holding a now wailing Sophie, walked out of the main area of the room to go attend to his niece. It was probably best she wasn’t here for this anyway. He remembered in vivid detail the day his mother had walked out on him, though he’d been five. Sophie was much younger, but the little girl was smart as hell. No doubt she’d picked up on his tension immediately. Hopefully Tyler could get her calmed down and would keep her away from the drama unfolding in the salon.
“We put her in the dress, and she cried,” Angela said. “That’s usually a good sign…but in this case, apparently not. She had us take it off and ‘hide it so you wouldn’t see it’—her words, not mine—and then said to tell you everything was fine and she would see you this afternoon.”
Mandy crying was never a good sign. He’d only seen it on a couple of occasions, and those had all ended badly. He’d been sure that first time, after Annabelle had kissed him and insulted Mandy, that she would kick him out of her apartment and never see him again. She’d given him a second chance. Now he would have to do the same for her. The next two hours would be agonizing, but if she said she needed a bit of time and would meet him there, he had to trust her.
Tyler reappeared from the bedroom empty-handed and closed the door halfway. “Sound asleep,” he announced.
Putain. Julien had thought maybe he could quell his doubts while playing with Sophie. He wouldn’t be selfish and wake his daughter for his own needs. He was a better man than that. But he couldn’t sit in a room full of Mandy’s family members and wait.
“Please have her call me if she returns. If not, I’ll see you both in the lobby at half past three,” he said, referring to Tyler and Angela. “Layla, I hate to ask, but could you perhaps—”
“Stay with Sophie?” Layla finished the sentence for him.
He nodded.
“Of course.”
He didn’t say it was so their daughter wouldn’t be there waiting for a mother who wouldn’t show up, but it seemed he didn’t have to. They were all thinking it; he could see it on their faces.
God, how could she have done this? He rose from the couch, a place that should have been more than comfortable, but he couldn’t have cared less. He didn’t feel much of anything as he walked from the room without another word. The door of the room he’d shared with Mandy glared him in the face as soon as he entered the hallway.
Because he couldn’t stop the need to do something for the next two hours, he lunged into the room and tore through the bedchamber, searching for any sign that Mandy had really run. He checked the wardrobe. The dress she’d bought for the wedding was gone. All her other clothes remained exactly where they had been, save the ones they’d left scattered about the floor last night. He found those in the hamper in the bathroom. He checked everything twice, making sure. As far as he could tell, nothing else was missing. If she’d run, she probably would’ve taken everything with her. That had to mean something. At least she’d taken the wedding dress. It was a good sign. Maybe.
Perhaps she’d let her phone die again, and that was why she hadn’t answered when he called. She hadn’t shut it off. She wasn’t purposefully ignoring him. He knew he was lying to himself, but for now it was all he had. He closed the door to the suite with a loud click, a strange sense of calm settling over him. She hadn’t left him. Not for good, anyway. He still had a chance.
He held tightly to that comfort as he descended in the elevator to the first-floor bar. The hollow feeling in the center of his chest was not lessened by the wine he poured down his throat over the next hour. He checked his phone every three minutes, disgusted with himself. No calls, no texts.
Finally his phone buzzed, and he nearly leaped out of his skin.
“Allô?” he said without checking to see who it was.
“Oui, I just wanted to confirm the time to meet you at the mayor’s office,” his father said in French.
“Four o’clock,” Julien replied. He had no idea if his father would pick up on the strained note in his voice, but it didn’t matter. Not now. “I will see you then.” He hung up, not bothering with a good-bye. Heaven forbid he be on the phone when Mandy called. And she would call. He knew it. But he could not waste any more time in the bar. Nor could he show up to his own wedding drunk.
Julien paid the bartender and made his way upstairs. He held his breath before reopening the door to the suite he’d shared with Mandy, praying she would be inside. But the
moment the door swung open, he knew she wasn’t there. Silence had never unnerved him as it did in those few minutes he spent standing in the deserted suite. He rushed into the shower, hoping the hurried movements would help keep his mind too busy to focus on what his gut was telling him.
His bride had run.
* * * *
Mandy stared at her engagement ring—a gold band with three small stones. It was beautiful, perfect for her. Given to her by a man she loved. So what the hell was the problem? She’d chickened out, unable to ask Julien if he’d proposed just because of the baby. He professed he loved her, but it took more than love to make a marriage work.
As if that hadn’t been bad enough, she’d known the minute she saw the wedding dress that she shouldn’t have tried it on. That her mom’s dress would make the wedding too real. That it would bring out her deepest fears that she wasn’t cut out for marriage, wasn’t able to give herself fully to someone else. Now here she sat, in the shadow of her beloved Cathédrale de Notre Dame, in the dress she should be getting married in.
It wasn’t too late, she realized as she glanced at her phone. It was set to ignore, so she had no idea how many times Julien had called her. Or how many texts and calls had come in from her mother or Ty. She was such a disappointment. To them, to herself. But especially to Julien.
How could she do this to him? She knew he loved her, with an intensity she could have survived in the short term. For a few months, a year perhaps. But now that they had passed the one-year mark and she spent all her time wrapped up in taking care of him, of their baby, and ignoring her needs at every turn, she knew it couldn’t last. This was by far her longest relationship. She wasn’t sure the others could even be called relationships.
Sure, there’d been guys. Nice guys, a couple of jerks thrown in. But she’d never loved a single one of them. She knew better than to fall in love, and this was why. She’d gone against her better judgment letting Julien sweeten her up, seducing her into going out with him. And then when she got pregnant, she knew she had to do the right thing. The honorable thing. Apparently Julien had felt the same. But getting married because she was pregnant was wrong. She didn’t even know if she could call marriage with Julien honorable. Tying him down when he was so young, giving Sophie a father who wasn’t ready to be a parent and would later resent them both for the union. She just didn’t know what was right and what was wrong at this point.
Marietta Hotels 2: An Engagement in Paris Page 12