by Corri Lee
The music finally began. Everyone rose to their feet to watch the not-so-blushing bride pace moodily towards the bamboo arch. Wearing a false smile, Siobhan caught sight of me and mouthed, ‘Don’t you fucking dare’, baring her teeth quickly before smoothing back out into the smug, self-satisfied bitch who’d bullied me in that bathroom.
Consider me warned.
Esme craned her neck around Chris, who sat on the other side of Blaze, and slapped my shoulder. “Can you imagine what Hunter would think if he knew why she was saying that?” She whispered brightly with a note of amusement.
I whispered back, “He knows,” and shushed her with a finger to my lips.
“What?” The entire row behind us glared at her. “You told him? What did he say?”
“Nothing. Sit your booty down, woman.”
The next fifteen minutes dragged past. I scowled through the formalities, irritated by the sunlight and aware of an unpleasant churning in my stomach.
Damn migraines.
Blaze tried to distract me with kisses peppered across my bare forearms, palms and cheeks. It almost worked.
The minister’s voice rang out clear as a bell. “And do you, Hunter, take Siobhan to be your wife?” The only line of the ceremony I’d really heard so far, because it was the one that mattered.
A tense silence spread across the garden. Hunter turned to look over his shoulder at me, so I gave him a nod of encouragement. I’d have been crapping my pants if I was about to commit to a life with her, too. But his silence spread on, eventually broken by murmurs.
Daniel looked around Jonathan and Blaze’s heads and whispered. “What’s going on?” at me, but I shrugged. What the hell was going on? I thought he was ready—that’s what he’d said. Had he just gotten stuck like an old scratched vinyl record?
“No. I’m sorry, I can’t.” Whoa. He could not seriously be waiting until half way through the proceedings to back down. He surely wasn’t that callous. “I can’t... I need time to think about this.”
I have to admit that I initially felt a little bit smug, having hated Siobhan for years. I did derive some kind of sick satisfaction from watching a big black tear run from her over-made eyes down her cheek and onto that pure white dress.
But I quickly started to feel a little humility and some embarrassment for the way my friend was acting. His timing to do this was awful, and would damage Siobhan for years, maybe permanently and irreparably. I shrank down in my chair a few inches knowing that there was no way I could defend him.
She shoved his shoulder. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve had five years to fucking think and now you’ve decided to finally do it at the fucking altar?”
“I’m sorry, Siobhan. Everyone.” Hunter turned to the assembly and sighed. “Please know that if I’d been a little smarter, I wouldn’t have done this today. I thought this was best. But a couple of days ago, I had to define love for a friend...” My brow creased and I felt Blaze’s eyes turn to me. “... and the person I had in mind when I explained it wasn’t Siobhan. It was...”
Oh no. Oh no, no, don’t do this. Don’t say this now, not in front of your friends and family. Don’t make me kick your ass for not only having an affair but lying about it, too.
“... Emmeline.”
My eyes scrunched up reflexively, trying to block out all the faces that turned in my direction. I only wished that I could block out the din of the uproar that arose from Siobhan and her family. The impulse was to stand up, grab Blaze and run, but I was stuck and frozen to the spot going through the motions of realising that I should have just told Hunter how I felt years ago instead of hiding behind bravado.
“You’ve got a fucking nerve.” My eyes shot open at the sound of Blaze’s voice snapping out next to me. “She spends years destroying herself to feel good enough for you, ends up sectioned because of your fiancée, takes years of you undermining her and talking to her like crap—and now that she’s moved on, you want to fuck her up again?”
Hunter squared his shoulders defensively. “With all due respect, you’re the last person who should be claiming morality over fucking her up.”
“Stop it.” Finally finding the drive to move, I stood and stepped between the two men before one of them lunged. Most girls would have loved to watch two men brawl over her, but I wasn’t most girls. I was one barely functional girl stood in a nightmare scenario and the only person who could see it to the end. “Hunter, this is ridiculous, you’re just nervous.”
He took a step towards me, stalled by Samson’s arm. “No, I’m not! I was mad about you from the first day, but you just seemed so uninterested. You friend zoned me, so I took what I could get. And then you got hot!” He thrust his hands into his hair in frustration. “You lost all that weight and it was like you were doing it on purpose to taunt me. I had no idea that you were ill, so when you collapsed, I was so angry because you were trying to take away the reason I woke up smiling.
“And then you moved to London and you weren’t there anymore. Everywhere reminded me of you, so eventually we came to Japan. I didn’t say goodbye because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to go if I saw you. I found it so hard to talk to you after that because I just wanted to see your face and I—”
Childishly, I shoved my fingers into my ears and shook my head. I couldn’t hear it, didn’t want to be near it. Didn’t have the inner resolve to take this kind of upheaval and walk away with my head held high. Couldn’t bear to think that I’d come believe it would encourage him to be with her but it had done just the opposite. “Hunter, what about Siobhan? You love her, I know you do.”
“She was a distraction from a pathetic cycle of mooning after you, Emmeline!” I stepped back, stunned, bumping into a still seething Blaze. While I’d craved change, so had Hunter. He’d just found his earlier. We were so alike in the way we’d acted and felt—too stubborn to speak out but so weak behind closed doors. The anorexia wouldn’t have been such a waste if I’d just stepped forward and told him...
No, that was a ridiculous way to be thinking. Life had played out this way for a reason. “You’re digging yourself a pretty deep hole. Trust me, offending your support network and irretrievably burning bridges is not a path you want to be taking.”
“But you love me. Have done for years.” Oh, hell. I was finding myself in the situation I’d dreamt of in the worst place possible. His life was ruined and I’d lose friends one way or another. Could I ever really be happy with Hunter after all the bad blood between us?
“Of course I love you.” Another murmur rippled through the garden. “Because you’re my best friend. But I told you that loving you for nine years was difficult and painful. All those things you described—yes, I felt them but I also felt bad about it. That’s not love. I don’t love you, I love—”
Oh. It all suddenly clicked into place.
“Emmeline?”
Blankly staring off to the side, I remembered what he’d said at the airport. “ ‘Sometimes it sneaks up on you when you least expect it’.” It did. I had over-thought it, questioned it and doubted it right up until the words were about to fall out of my mouth.
“I love Blaze. Hopelessly, irrationally, recklessly and madly. And I don’t feel even slightly guilty.” Stepping forward, I brushed my fingertips across Hunter’s ashen cheek. “Be smart. Make some good decisions today. I love you, just not that way.”
Shyly, I turned around and looked up into Blaze’s wide, shimmering eyes. He looked like a child standing over a pot of gold at the foot of a rainbow—awed, confused and disbelieving. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him look so vulnerable. It was beautiful.
“As for you... I love you, Blaze. Love you that way.” In a second, I was crushed up against his chest, squeezed like a cobra’s prey with his hands in my hair, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care when Daniel and Jonathan jumped up and started applauding, soon joined by my parents, Chris and Esme. I just cared that he was happy.
The storm rum
bled outside, wild and monsoon-like. The downpour had started almost immediately after we’d run from the wedding and jumped into the limo, sneaking up like a thief. Rain pelted the windows, threatening to make them shatter, and I watched the trees struggle and sway in the winds, trying not to crack and splinter under the strain.
I totally got how they felt.
Blaze lay behind me, keeping me protectively tucked up against his chest with one arm under my head and the other wrapped around me. He hadn’t spoken since my mood had plummeted when we got back to the hotel and the adrenaline wore off.
The whole day had been a disaster, and I didn’t know how much of it was my fault—how much I could have prevented by keeping my mouth shut.
“What do you think is happening?” And why was it taking so long?
He rolled me onto my back and stroked the hair from my face. “At a guess, Siobhan screamed at Hunter and ran into the house with her family close behind. He tried to follow her but wasn’t allowed into his own home, so he was stuck outside with a bunch of pissed off and jet-lagged wedding guests who had nothing but harsh words. He tried to talk it through with his friends, who weren’t all that friendly, until Siobhan calmed down enough to have a civilised conversation. That’s probably what they’re doing now.”
“Think they’ll still get married?” I realised how stupid the question was as soon as I’d said it. Rolling back onto my side, I grumbled, “I’m glad I’m not there.”
I couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like to be standing in the middle of all of it. In fact, I was still struggling to process why it had happened. There was a dense fog surrounding the afternoon that stopped me from making any real sense of it, probably to protect my own sanity.
Why hide it for all this time? It was hypocritical to even think it, but why didn’t he just tell me years ago? It’s not like he was punching above his weight like I was, and he stood to lose nothing.
I had to tell myself that I might never have met Blaze if he did. That we were incompatible and would have grown apart because he wanted to dictate and I wanted my independence. We were both too stubborn to compromise on our differences and needs. And that this day could never have been our wedding day.
“Are you okay?”
“Maybe,” I pulled Blaze’s arm around me tighter. “I’m just trying to understand it all. Why he never said before. Why he had to say it today. If he’d have said it at all if I hadn’t told him I’d loved him once.” Sitting up, my hands balled into fists. “Why the hell he’d fuck his life up when he knew I don’t feel that way for him any more, and even if I did, you were sitting right there!”
“Don’t get me wrong, Emmeline,” Blaze pulled me back down to lay with him, banding his arms around me like restraining my body would also restrain my anger, “I wanted to kick his ass. Actually, I still want to. I want to kill him. He obviously thought telling you would make you want him again, but he underestimated you—he underestimated us.”
He growled against the back of my head, giving me a possessive squeeze. The day had been tough on him, too; I hadn’t put enough consideration into that. “But if you’d never said it, he probably would have just gone ahead and gotten married. Is it better that he’s miserable and married to a woman who thinks he loves her than be miserable and alone? You probably did her a favour by giving him an excuse to put an end to it. Siobhan will thank you for it when she finds a guy with the balls to be upfront and not handle unrequited love to someone else by marrying her.”
“Jeez,” I muttered sardonically, “you really don’t like Hunter.” And I couldn’t really blame him. Hell, I even understood it, having started to hate him a bit myself. It was conceited of him to think I’d run to him given the chance, even when he knew that I was crazy for Blaze. I suppose I’d caused that by my uncertainty over love. But then to say that I wasn’t hot when we first met... “Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you start wondering why you forced yourself to be restricted by self-imposed boundaries?”
“Every day since I met you, cupcake. I figure it kept me out of bounds until I found you.”
That provoked my first genuine smile in hours. The idea that the fates had kept us out of reach until we met, like we were always destined to be, made me happy. Happy because I believed it—believed in dreams, wishes, karma and fate, and as far as karma went, we were both long overdue a payout of good.
“I meant what I said back there, you know. I love you. I over-thought it; thought I didn’t know what it was or how to show it, but now I know it was there the whole time. I might have even loved you immediately.” It was freeing to say it and a relief to be able to tell him so easily. It was almost like the final pieces of our relationship had finally slotted together and the foundations were firmly built. All that lay ahead was building on that solidarity and continuing forward knowing that we had love, honesty and trust, and that we had both made huge sacrifices for each other that we didn’t regret.
I crawled off the bed and held a hand out to Blaze. “We’re doing this all wrong. We should be celebrating my breakthrough.” And we were in the land of saké and sushi. What better place celebrate?
He grinned, grabbed my hand and pulled me on top of him. “Now you’re talking.”
A better place was bed, apparently. C’est la vie.
Nobody looked twice when we ambled down to the lobby in nothing but terry towel bathrobes. The heat had dropped, but not enough to make anyone rock a business suit, so many of the other guests were in tiny shorts and tank tops. If anything, we were the most modestly dressed people there despite our total lack of underwear.
We curled up on a couch facing each other with our legs tangled together while we drank the champagne we ordered to make up for the meal and cheap fizz we would have had at the wedding reception.
There was an unspoken agreement that we were writing our trip to Japan off as a bit of a flop and our trip to New York in three weeks time would have to make up for it. It was already significant for being Blaze’s thirtieth birthday and Valentines Day, but now it needed all the enjoyment of two holidays, too.
“Thank God we were already leaving tomorrow.”
Blaze combed his fingers through the front of my hair. “I dunno, I’ve been enjoying not being the sad sucker washing our sheets.”
“Ew!” I slapped his arm, aware that he’d made a vulgar but fair point. “I just want to get home and move past this. It feels like everything up to this point was a prelude and life is starting now. Our life.”
“Almost, cupcake.” He kissed the back of my hand and I knew he was thinking about Natasha, how she was one more obstacle to overcome. I felt bad for him, and for everything he’d given up for her just to spend nearly seven years caring for a woman who fulfilled none of his needs and now denied him of his right to be happy...
Blaze narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you thinking right now? You look like you’re scheming.”
“I may be, Mr. Valentine. Fetch my laptop, I’ll order dinner and then I’ll let you know if I’m a genius. I just had an idea.”
“Okay.” Blaze tossed his napkin down on his plate and loosened the belt on his robe. “You’re a genius.”
“If it works,” I qualified. “We’re going to need Henry’s help.” Honestly, my idea was borderline insane, but if the right people were pulling for us, it was insane enough to be feasible. “Let’s get your birthday out of the way first though, okay?”
Agreeing with a nod, Blaze rounded the table to kiss me and refilled my glass of wine. We probably should have made more of Tokyo after the storm had died down, but the sushi from the hotel restaurant had done a good enough job of catering to our oriental loving palate.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
He sat down in the seat next to me rather than return to the chair opposite. “Why are you on a first name basis with Henry? When did you last call him ‘Dad’?”
I went rigid. “That was two something
’s.”
“It was two anything’s.”
Damn it.
“I said the D word at the winter ball. And I don’t usually say it because he hasn’t earned it,” I explained matter of factly. “Most of the stuff kids do with their dads I did with Daniel and his parents. Henry just threw money at me.” I didn’t like to admit that I was bitter over the fact Tallulah got more of Henry’s time before he became obsessed with making money, but I was. They were closer—though Henry liked me better and spoke badly of her—just by virtue of her being older. “I spent a long time wishing I could be a daddy’s girl but while he was so busy taking care of business, he never took care of business.” And I’d deserved to be his unequivocal first priority instead of being bundled off to boarding school.
Sensing years of hurt, Blaze tucked my hair behind my ear, stroking my face with his thumb. “I knew you before we even met, you know. He’d talk about you a lot—try and pimp you out to me.”
“Awesome,” I snarled. “Daddy thought I needed a pity fuck.”
“He did not. He wanted me to look after you. Thought we were a match Ivy could approve of. I was sceptical because of how your sister turned out, even though he spoke so highly of you.” I could appreciate that. Tally and I weren’t even slightly alike, but it was reasonable to expect people to think we might be. “What were the chances we’d find our way to each other anyway? That I could love you so much without knowing that I even knew you?”
“I wished for you.” I fiddled with the hem of my robe, feeling more awkward about being a paradoxical optimistic pessimist than telling him so. “I wished for a life changing distraction and there you were. If I’d known you were waiting, I’d have wished sooner.”
“Oh, Emmeline.” Blaze pulled me over onto his lap with that vulnerable look about him again like he couldn’t possibly believe I was there. “I love you. I don’t know how I managed a single day without telling you that.”