by Ali Parker
Which was going to be hard because Kristo was meeting with his lawyer today to discuss what the hell was going to happen with us going forward. But that lawyer had seemed pretty certain that the marriage was null and void, which meant everything I’d built with him was going to come apart at the seams.
Would I have to give the money for Jolene back? Would he kick me out of the house? Would I lose his family as well? My brain was pulsing with questions, and I couldn’t answer any of them with the help of the radio and the sound of a regular Monday morning commute. I wanted to rip the steering wheel off the dash and toss it into traffic, but I knew that wasn’t going to help.
I arrived at work and headed straight to the stacks, going through the motions of filing the new set of papers that had arrived over the weekend. It was mindless work, long and dull, but it was detailed enough that I had to keep focused on what I was doing and stop my mind from wandering. I would take it for now, given the utter state my head was currently in.
When I was about halfway done, a head popped up from another stack, a head I had never seen before. Most of the students who were regulars in this place I knew by face if not name, and our small staff was hard to forget. The woman was a few years younger than me with a bob of bright blond hair and a wide, slightly crooked smile.
“Hey!” she exclaimed as she approached me, and the sweet brightness in her voice practically made my head hurt, it was so dissonant with what was going on in there at the moment. I managed to smile back.
“Hello, can I help you?” I asked, and the woman furrowed her brow but didn’t stop smiling.
“I’m Darla,” she reminded me. “The new hire? We spoke on the phone about a week ago?”
“Oh, right, yes.” I slapped the heel of my hand to my forehead. “I’m sorry. it’s been a crazy weekend.”
“Good things, I hope?” She grinned as she extended her hand to me. I shrugged.
“Guess we’ll see,” I replied, and shook her hand. “Good to meet you. Can I show you around?”
“I don’t want to drag you away from any work.” She looked down at the pile I had been working on, and I waved my hand.
“Oh, that’s just busywork,” I replied. “I’ll be glad for the distraction, really. Come on, let me show you the place.”
We chatted as I showed her around the library, and she was a better distraction than the papers had been. She was very talkative and excitable, probably because it was her first day on the job, and her happiness was a salve to the mess that was currently going on in my head at that moment.
“I’ve been so looking forward to starting work here,” Darla told me as she followed me to the history section. “I’ve heard so much about this place. I always wanted to work here.”
“Yeah, me too.” I cocked my head at her. “Ever since I saw this place when I first came to the university, I knew I had to work here one day.”
“That’s exactly how I felt,” Darla said, once again seeming to forget that the two of us were in a library. A woman looked up from a stack of books she was working on and shot us a dirty look. Darla noticed, and she slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling at the scolding glare.
“Do the staff have to uphold the quiet-in-the-library rules?” She lowered her voice and turned to me, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Because I could see this place being a great venue for a rave if we just cleared out all these silly books.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. I liked her energy.
“You’re going to do well here.” I nodded to Darla as we headed down to the offices. “I’m sure of it.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” she replied, stretching and yawning as we headed down the stacks. “Sorry, I’m just not used to getting up at normal work hours. I’m a night owl.”
“Trust me, most of the staff around here keep to themselves.” I waved a hand at her. “I think you could get away with catching a nap in your office if you were inclined that way.”
“Sounds like the words of a person speaking from experience,” she teased, and I laughed again. Fuck, it felt good to laugh after the few days I’d had.
“I’ll never tell.” I tapped the side of my nose, and I took her into the office and ran through the duties she’d be expected to cover the first week. One of the great things about living in a library was that everyone who came here was highly trained in their job so you didn’t have to mess around with running down in painful detail everything they needed to get done while they were here. They could just up and get after it, which Darla did as soon as I was finished.
“Thanks for the tour.” She grinned at me gratefully. “I won’t get under your feet anymore, I promise.”
“Oh, feel free to.” I waved my hand at her. “Nice to have some actual enthusiasm around here for a change.”
I watched as Darla made her way out of my office, and I leaned back in my seat and let out a long sigh. I knew I shouldn’t have let it bother me, but I couldn’t stop looking at the clock, wondering if Kristo was finished with that meeting yet. I had been checking my phone constantly since I’d arrived at work, on the off-chance he might somehow have decided what was going to happen to the two of us without my knowing. This state of uncertainty was driving me crazy, and I needed to lock something down before I lost my mind entirely.
I went back to the papers I had been filing and tried to focus my attention on them, but my head was restless and wouldn’t let me. What was going to happen with Kristo and me? Would we get married now? Would we just keep up with the charade? Either of us could walk away at any moment, and that made the ground feel like it was slipping out from beneath me. I hated this feeling, hated how uncertain I was, hated how my brain seemed to be sloshing full of thoughts and feelings like a bucket just waiting to be overturned. Before Kristo had come along, my life had been simple—tough, yes, but simple. I’d had my job and my sister and my life all alone, and I could live with that. At least I knew what to do with it.
And yet, looking back, I knew I would have done it all again, started from scratch if it meant being with him, even like this. Because I loved him. I didn’t know how I was so sure, but I loved him. I looked down at the ring on my finger, the one he had given me that I hadn’t taken off since I had heard the news, and I chewed on my lip. I wanted to be his wife, even if we were both just playing the game. I had vouched for another nine months by his side. Now, that was threatening to get ripped away before I was ready, and I could barely think straight as I result.
I eventually gave up on the work in front of me, got to my feet, and headed to get something to eat from the cafeteria. I wasn’t much in the mood for food, but I needed to get something down me before I passed out or something equally embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone I worked with catching a hint of what was going on behind the scenes of my life. They had all just met Kristo at the gala, and they had been so charmed by him, I couldn’t bear the thought of having to tell them I’d been unable to keep him around.
I sat there, munching on an apple, barely tasting it as I stared off into space and wondered what the hell the next few days were going to bring. When Darla sat down next to me, it took her waving her hand in front of my face to notice she was even there.
“Earth to Amaya.” She grinned, and I turned to her and fluttered my eyes back to reality.
“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered. “Just thinking.”
“What were you thinking about?” she asked, gazing at me with a wide-open face, and I found myself reneging on my former promise to myself. I said I wouldn’t tell anyone I worked with, but I barely worked with her yet, did I?
“If you could marry for money, if love wasn’t on the table,” I blurted before I had a chance to talk myself out of this monumentally stupid decision, “would you do it?”
She cocked an eyebrow at me, opened and closed her mouth, and then finally responded.
“That’s one hell of a question,” she eventually replied. “I’m not sure. Guess it would depend on how much mo
ney and how dire the financial straits were that I was in.”
“Right.” I lowered my gaze to the half-eaten apple in my hand. I didn’t want it anymore.
Darla leaned in close and smiled at me, coconspirators in this.
“I have no idea what’s going on with you,” she told me. “But your life sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than anyone else’s in this place.”
“I don’t know about that.” I smiled weakly.
“Well, that’s up to me to decide,” she replied. “So expect to see a lot of me, huh?”
And with that, she started to chow down on the veggie burger and fries in front of her, and I took another bite of my apple. I didn’t want her to know the truth about my life, but it would be good to have a friend around here for a change. I wasn’t much good at hanging on to friends, and having a new one in my life could only be a good thing with all the stress I was handling. As I ate, the gem of the ring sparkled in the light, the thin blue light cascading around my hand.
49
“So none of it’s real?”
“None of it’s real.” Michael Masser, one of my lawyers, shook his head at me. We were sitting at either end of a table strewn with papers, each of them detailing exactly how Amaya and I had been screwed over by the shady chapel that had allegedly married us.
“Fucking hell,” I snarled, and I got to my feet and turned on him, but it wasn’t his fault. I stopped myself before I launched into a tirade, knowing he wasn’t the focus of my anger or that he shouldn’t be.
“What do we do now?” I asked. He stared back up at me for a long moment, a seriously? expression on his face. I ignored it. I just needed someone, anyone, to give me some guidance here.
“If you want to stay married to her, you have to get a license in this state.” He shrugged. “Make sure it’s all above-board and legal. Then, you can start with the contract from scratch and take it from there.”
“Right.” I got to my feet. I felt as though my body had been crumpled up the last few hours, and practically all my bones clicked as I stood up again. I stretched and sighed. If I wanted to keep Amaya in my life, I had to convince her to marry me again—for the sake of the contract, of course. And that meant switching on my prime seduction skills.
“Thanks for your help today.” I shook hands with Michael. “I’ll be in touch soon.”
“No problem.” He furrowed his brow at me, and I could tell he was busting to ask me what the fuck I was going to do about all of this, but that was for me and Amaya to know and for everyone else to keep the fuck quiet about.
I made my way out of the room and started down back to my car, but before I went anywhere, I ducked into a small flower shop opposite the offices. If I was going to convince this woman to stay married to me, then I was going to need to romance her. Before, that had required me to get the two of us so drunk, we couldn’t think of any good reasons not to do something that stupid. This time, it would take a little more effort. But of us were warier now, more careful. Maybe an extra bottle of champagne?
I stepped into the flower shop and inhaled the overwhelming perfume of the plants around me. I thought about getting roses for a second, but that wasn’t her style. That would have been too cheesy for her. I scanned the shop, and my eyes settled on a bouquet of daisies, delicate and feminine like her.
“I’ll take those, thanks.” I approached the woman behind the desk. She handed me the daisies, and I headed out the door. Champagne. That was what we needed next. I grabbed the nicest bottle I could find from the nearest store and headed back to my car to get everything set up back at the apartment.
She wasn’t there when I got back, much to my relief. I had time to set everything up. I chilled the champagne, made sure there was no tag on the daisies, and tidied the apartment as best I could. I ignored the voice at the back of my mind that was telling me this was a seriously dumb idea, that there was no way I was going to trick a woman like Amaya into marrying me a second time. First time was a fluke but second time and she’d actually have to have feelings for me. Right? Just the way I did for her.
I paced the apartment waiting for her to return, keeping a close eye on the clock and counting down the minutes until I should send out a search party to go after her. But to my surprise, she got back a little early. As soon as I heard the door click, I went to grab her stuff for her, meeting her as she came through it.
“Hey,” I greeted her with a peck on the cheek, taking her coat and her bag and hanging them up for her. She smiled, a little suspiciously, and cocked her head at me.
“Hey,” she replied. “What’s going on?”
“Come on, let’s go outside.” I took her hand. “It’s a beautiful day, and I have champagne.”
“You have champagne?” She giggled. “What’s this in aid of?”
“I just want you to be able to relax after work, that’s all,” I replied, smiling at her. “Is that allowed?”
“Sure is,” she replied, and I grabbed the champagne and a couple of glasses and then remembered the flowers. I picked up from the counter and proffered them to her.
“For you,” I told her. “They reminded me of you, so I got them.”
“They reminded you of me?” She took them from me and buried her nose in them, inhaling deeply. “Mmm, if that means I smell this good, I’ll take it.”
She put them in water, and we gathered our stuff and headed down to the small courtyard attached to the building. I rarely made it down here, but it was pretty enough, and the way the light was hitting it right then made it look like pure luxury.
“How did I never know this place was down here?” She gasped as we emerged from the stairwell.
“I don’t really bother coming out here.” I shrugged. “That’s on me.”
“Well, I’m going to be dragging you out here a lot,” she warned me.
“I can live with that.” I grinned, and I popped the champagne and poured us both a glass. I held one out to her, and she took a sip.
“Ooh, I like that,” she smiled. “Reminds me of …”
She trailed off, but I knew where her mind was at once.
“The first time we met?” I filled in for her, and she nodded nervously, as though any mention of what happened in Vegas was tantamount to stirring the pot.
“Yeah, that’s right,” she agreed, and she took a sip of her champagne and eyed me over the top of the glass. I wished I could work out what was going on in that head of hers. I wanted to reach out and grab her, to shake it loose, but I knew I had to play the long game and—
“Kristo!”
As soon as I heard that voice, my stomach dropped, a learned reaction from all those times that very same voice had cursed me out for having my hand in the cookie jar when I was a kid. I spun around and found myself face-to-face with my nonna.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, and I shifted so that I was standing in front of Amaya. It wasn’t that I thought my grandmother would actually try to physically hurt her, but the brunt of whatever she was dealing with was going to hit me and not her. Nonna stormed toward me and jabbed her finger into my chest, a motion that would have been funny if it hadn’t been so deadly serious.
“A contract?” she yelled, her voice cracking. “You married this woman, and she took money from you for it?”
Fucking Cleo and her big mouth. My stomach dropped. Well, the secret was out now.
“It’s not like that.” I brushed her away from me, not liking the way she was coming at me like I owed her something. Hadn’t enough happened in the last few days? Didn’t I get some kind of cosmic fucking break for a minute?
“Good grief,” Amaya breathed behind me, and I handed her my glass and pointed to the stairs.
“Go back to the apartment,” I told her.
“But—”
“Trust me, you don’t want to be around to see this,” I warned her, and she took my advice and ducked up the stairs and left us behind. Balaban grudge matches were legendarily bad-nat
ured, and I could see that my grandmother was seething with a barely-contained fury.
“You were lying to me all this time,” she continued, her voice threateningly low. “All this time, when you brought that woman into our house, when you brought that girl into our house, it was all a lie.”
“It wasn’t all a lie,” I protested as best I could. “Jolene really is Amaya’s sister, and I really am supporting her.”
“Then why the contract?” She tossed her hands in the air and began pacing back and forth. It was the most animated I’d seen her in months, maybe even years, but then, my grandma did love a bit of righteous fury when she got the chance.
“It was a mistake,” I told her. “The contract, I mean. It doesn’t matter now. We dissolved it.”
“You lied to me for months.” She shook her head, and I could see the genuine hurt in her eyes, and my stomach twisted as I thought about how I’d hurt them, all of them, my family, pulling this new person into the mix and acting as though it wasn’t going to unsettle everything they’d built. If they just hadn’t liked Amaya so much, none of this would have been happening. Hell, Nonna would have been popping the champagne if she hated my once-wife and found out the whole thing was a scam. But I could see the hurt painted across her face, and it pained me to see it, knowing I was the one who put it there.
“You’re a bastard of a grandson.” She jabbed her finger back into my chest again, and I let her. I deserved that, at least. “You lied to your own grandmother. To your own family.”
“I know, I know,” I conceded. “But I thought—”
“I don’t give a damn what you thought.” She drew herself up to her full height and, even though she was a good six inches shorter than me, she seemed to spread to fill her surroundings. “You brought this woman into our lives, this woman none of us knew, and you told us—”
I caught her by the arms and brought her back down to earth, and she deflated at once as though I’d punctured her.
“Sit down,” I told her firmly. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you carry on like that.”