She looks like I just slapped her. “How did you know?”
“We were in the room when your phone rang.”
“Oh, that call.” She lays a hand on her chest, obviously relieved. “Marianne.”
“But it wasn’t really Marianne, was it? You looked at Jeremy—twice. And you’ve acted weird all day.”
She covers her face with her hands. “Oh, Chelsea, I’ve done something terrible. Well, it wouldn’t have been quite so terrible if you and Jeremy hadn’t—” She shakes her head. “No, I can’t pass the blame. It’s fully my—”
“Mom. You’re freaking me out. What are you talking about?”
“The caller tonight was Marianne, but I was afraid it was Amanda calling again, though with the time difference, I should have known it wasn’t.”
“Mom.” I think she’s lost her mind. “Who’s Amanda?”
“Amanda Pearce.”
Now, I feel like I’m losing it. “Jeremy’s mother? How do you know—ohmygod.” I rocket to my feet. “Did his father have a heart attack? Is he dead?”
“Chelsea, calm down. Don’t you think I would have told Jeremy immediately if something had happened to his father?”
“I don’t know, Mom. None of this is making sense.” I sit back down. “Since when does Jeremy’s mother call you? And why? And how the hell did she get your cell number?”
My mom’s too polite to roll her eyes, but she’s doing this eyes-wide-lips-pursed thing that means the same.
“I’ve talked to her twice. Today. I called her first, this morning.” She looks me in the eye, waiting, as though I’m supposed to make something of that.
“Okay. So you called her this morning, and then she called you back. What did you talk—oh. Oh no. Oh fuck.”
“Exactly. Evidently, it’s no surprise to you that she had no idea who I am—who you are, for that matter. Our conversation was awkward and upsetting for us both.”
“You shouldn’t have called her, Mom. Jeremy said he’d talk to his parents about the trip. It wasn’t your place to—” I stop talking because her eyes are glistening.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I sincerely wish I hadn’t made the call. Jeremy’s going to be furious with me, isn’t he?”
“No, he won’t.” Yes, he will. “You’re right. We should have told them about our engagement weeks ago. Months ago. So … now they know.”
“I’m sorry for interfering.”
“It’s okay. Really.” I fake a smile and crawl to the head of the bed to hug her. “How did his mother react?”
“Well, she sounded a lot calmer than I felt. She asked a lot of questions about you. And then she asked about the wedding plans. I couldn’t tell her much about those, of course. She put me on hold for a minute, and when she came back, she asked about our schedules for March. I told her—well, I wasn’t sure about yours and Jeremy’s, but I said I didn’t think there was anything important, so I hope I didn’t—”
“Mom.”
“Oh. Yes, well, then she asked if she could call me back.”
“And she did.”
“Yes, about an hour later. She wanted to know if we would be free to visit the first two weeks of March, and by then, I’d asked you what you had coming up in March, so I told—”
“They’re coming here?”
“Well … no.”
“Oh, wow.” I jump off the bed again. “We’re going to London.”
She pats the bed beside her, and I sit. She takes my hand. “Aren’t you forgetting something, sweetie?”
“Oh, yeah. A passport. I forgot to tell you I got one months ago. I didn’t even tell Jeremy, but I figured—”
“Chelsea?” She’s questioning me with a look.
“What?” She just keeps looking at me. “Oh crap. Jeremy.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you first.”
“He’s already said he won’t go.”
“Which I told his mother.”
I’m stunned. She always tries hard not to hurt someone’s feelings. “I can’t believe you told her that.”
“I hated to, but she left me no choice. She made it sound like you didn’t want to meet them, and I couldn’t let her think that.”
“What did she say when you told her it was Jeremy who said no?”
“Well, first she sighed—you know, like she’d heard that a hundred times? Then she said, ‘Jeremy will come.’ And I told her, if she could convince him to, I’d be happy to buy the tickets, but”—she closes her eyes for a second and gives a quick shake of her head—“Amanda said she’d already booked the flight. Isn’t that odd?”
Probably not odd for Jeremy’s mother. Probably not odd for someone used to having her every word obeyed.
I shrug. “I guess she just hoped that if she’d already bought the tickets, Jeremy wouldn’t refuse.”
“Well”—she sighs—“you can tell him tomorrow.”
“No way. He’d be less likely to freak out if you tell him.”
She hides her face again. “Oh, why did I start this?”
“Because you care, Mom. Look, how about this? You serve another of his favorites for dinner tomorrow night, and afterward, we’ll tell him together.”
CHAPTER 5
My mom doesn’t get a chance to cook that butter-him-up dinner for Jeremy. He’s the one who answers the door when the FedEx man knocks just after lunch. One glance at the overnight delivery envelope, and I know what’s coming. His jaw tightens when he reads the return address. My mom and I exchange a look and then watch in silence as he tears open the envelope and pulls out the airline tickets.
“Bloody hell.”
My mom catches my eye and nods toward Jeremy.
“What is it?” I say, but when his eyes meet mine, they’re saying I waited too long to ask the question.
“You knew.” He looks from me to my mom and back to me. “Bloody fucking hell.”
My mom heads to the kitchen before I can ask her to. “I had nothing to do with this, Jeremy. Your mother told Mom she’d already bought the tickets.”
“Your mom?” With a sigh, he closes his eyes and shakes his head for a moment. “The phone call last night.” He throws the tickets and envelope on the floor. “I will not be manipulated like this. I am not at their beck and call.”
This is not the time to correct him on the timing of his mother’s phone calls. “They just want to meet me and my mom. That’s normal.”
His eyes bulge, and he throws his hands in the air as he makes some unintelligible sound.
“Don’t be unreasonable, Jeremy.”
By the look he gives me, you’d think I suddenly sprouted six more heads and a tail.
He starts pacing the floor. “You … I can’t … impossible to …”
Impossible to finish a sentence? He whirls toward me. I freak for a second, sure that I slipped and said that out loud, but then he just shakes his head and goes back to pacing. I’ve never seen Jeremy this mad. Not even when I accidentally told a roomful of writers he was my fiancé—six weeks before he proposed!
For once, I keep my mouth shut and wait out the storm.
After several minutes of pacing, he stops in front of one of the windows and stands there looking out. His jaw moves as though he’s talking, but I don’t hear anything. He turns toward me and smiles.
“None of this matters,” he says calmly. “We’re not going to London.”
“Well, I’m going. And so is my mom. Your mother invited us.”
“You will not.”
“I’m sorry, but you seem to be under the illusion that you’re my boss.”
“I’m your fiancé. And they are my parents.”
“Great. So you can introduce me to them in two weeks.”
He stands rigid, looking straight into my eyes without blinking. I can’t read a single thing from him.
“No need,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
Jeremy stalks to the front door, pausing like a drama queen befo
re he declares, “The wedding is off!”
Like hell. “What’s the call on the engagement, Mr. High Tea? Still on?”
His response is a growl, and then he slams the door behind him.
Sometimes, I swear he thinks we’re characters in one of our novels.
My mom peeks in from the hallway. “Is it safe to come out?”
“Yeah. He’s gone.” I flop down on the sofa. She moves my feet aside so she can sit at the other end.
“He doesn’t really mean the wedding’s canceled, sweetie.”
“Oh, I know.” She tries hard to give Jeremy and me privacy, but I’m sure our argument carried through the whole house. “Do you think we should give up the idea of going to London?”
“Well …” She pats my leg twice before folding her hands in her lap. She delays her answer even longer by sighing.
“So you do think we should forget it.”
“No, of course not. I suggested the trip. I was just trying to remember if I heard his sister mention their parents when she was here last fall.”
“Laura’s not the one who has a problem with them. Apparently, they adore her.”
“She is sweet, isn’t she?”
“Mom.”
“What? Was she just putting on an act when I was around?”
I sit up, hugging my knees. “You’re insinuating Jeremy isn’t sweet, and that’s why his parents hate him.”
“Oh, for goodness sake. You know I didn’t mean any such thing. I love Jeremy like he was my own.”
The way she sides with him so often makes me wonder if she loves him better than her own. Better than her only daughter, at least. “It just doesn’t seem right to marry him without knowing more about his family.”
“It does seem odd that he’s adamant you shouldn’t meet them.”
Ah-ha. My mom’s suspicious too. I lean forward and grab her arm. “What do you think he’s hiding?”
She blinks. “Hiding?”
I stand and start pacing the length of the living room, picking up the tickets along the way. “I’ve gone through a dozen scenarios. You know, I once considered that he was working undercover for the FBI or something.”
“You what?”
“Or that he was some kind of criminal. Maybe a mobster. Maybe in the witness protection program.”
“But … why?”
My mother is staring at me like I’m insane. Clearly I didn’t inherit my imagination gene from her. I return to the sofa.
“For one thing, he didn’t appear to have a job—that was before I knew he was a writer. And he was so secretive.”
“But … you hadn’t even met him then. How could you tell he was secretive?”
“I …” Why does she always try to confuse me? “Just trust me. Gabi thought so too.”
She sighs. “If you hadn’t spoken to him, sweetie, how could he tell you anything about himself?”
“Well … we had spoken.”
“More than saying hello?”
I jump up and start pacing again. “The point is … he’s not telling me everything now.”
“And you’ve—”
“Yes, Mom, I’ve asked. He says his parents don’t care about him, so why should I meet them.”
“Well, obviously, it’s not true that they don’t care. Why else would they pay for us all to come to London?”
I stop dead. “That’s true. So that’s not the reason he doesn’t want to go.” I stare at the door Jeremy slammed as I consider possibilities. Then it hits me. I trudge back to the sofa, sink beside her, and lean my head on her shoulder. “I think I know why.”
Our room is glowing neon red from the sunset, and Jeremy’s still not home. But that’s okay. I can’t talk about the London trip yet. I’m not ready to hear him tell me the truth. For hours, I’ve sat here on our bed with the TV on, but I wouldn’t be able to name a single program that came on if you paid me. I’ve been trying to deny the real reason he doesn’t want me to meet his parents by thinking up others.
Reason number one—his parents object to me only because I’m American. No, that’s stupid. Okay. Reason number two—it has to be because I’m not Alison. He said they expected him to marry her. It was practically an arranged marriage, right? So they’re furious about him not marrying her. That’s why he doesn’t want me to meet them. He’s just protecting my feelings.
I really, really want to believe that one. But would his mother pay for me to come there just so they could tell me in person how much they hate me? Still, I hold on to reason number two for a while on the chance that it’s true they hate Jeremy and might get off on humiliating both of us at once.
But that third reason keeps screaming at me. I’ve pushed it away a zillion times, but it keeps coming back. What if the real reason—I jump when the door opens.
Jeremy slinks in. I turn off the TV but stay on the bed. He stops at the foot of it, head down and hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets.
“I’m sorry for overreacting,” he says. “I already apologized to Marie.” His head snaps up. “Not that she’s more important than you, but she was in the living room when I came in.”
Let my suspicion be wrong. Please, please, please let it be wrong.
“Say something, Chelsea.”
“Did my mom accept your apology?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
He cocks his head, puzzled. “Does that mean you do too?”
“Is the wedding still on?”
“Of course it is. I love you.”
“Okay.”
He sighs. Just a normal sigh of relief. But for some reason I can’t explain, it ticks me off. Big time. “How do you feel about a wedding in the back yard?”
“In your mother’s back garden?”
“No, I thought we’d pick some random stranger’s yard.”
His right eyebrow arches, and he stares at me for a moment before he gives me a half smile. “I thought you had your heart set on the beach?”
“Yeah, well, you don’t want all that wind and sand, not that you had the guts to tell me that.”
A frown cuts a deep crease between his brows, and he moves toward me, but I shoot him a look that stops him. He finger-combs both hands through his hair as though he’s going to put it in a tail and then holds them there as he studies me.
“Apparently, I’ve misinterpreted something,” he says slowly. “You’re still angry.”
“Are you really planning to marry me?” There. I said it.
His mouth gapes, and his hands drop to his sides.
He’s shocked that I figured him out. “That’s why you don’t want me to meet your parents, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“If you’d married Alison, you would have been totally involved in all the wedding plans, right?”
He scoffs. “If I’d married her—which I never intended to do—I would have been lucky if she’d remembered to tell me the date and location.”
“But your parents would have been thrilled to have her for a daughter-in-law.”
“Why are we talking about Alison, for God’s sake?” Suddenly, his face slackens. “Chelsea … have you changed your mind about marrying?”
“You’re just using me, aren’t you? And when you’ve had enough of slumming, you’ll go back to England and marry her or some other upper-class woman like her.”
The ring on my left hand feels like it weighs far more than three carats of diamonds and a circlet of gold should. I’m trying to wriggle it off when he lunges forward.
“Don’t you dare.” He pulls me off the bed and into his arms.
In seconds, I’m a quivering blob of tears. Every time he tells me he loves me, I cry harder. He probably thinks I’m insane. Probably I am.
Twilight darkens our room before I get myself calmed down. If he wasn’t holding me so tight, I’d be a puddle on the floor.
“Now,” he says, “you’re going to tell me what’s really going on.”
I pry Jeremy�
�s arms loose. I need a minute, so I turn on the bedside lamp and grab a tissue to dry my eyes and blow my nose. He loves me … so he says. He’s really going to marry me … so he says.
“Chelsea …” He turns me back toward him and lifts my chin so I have to look at him.
Oh, hell. I might as well just face it. “You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you? That’s the real reason you don’t want me to meet your parents.”
He closes his eyes.
Oh, God. I was right. My breath comes in quick, tiny, cold puffs. I try to move away, but he grabs me by the throat with both hands.
“You”—he smiles as he pretends to strangle me—“have gone completely around the bend.” He moves his hands to my waist and pulls me into a kiss. “How could I ever be ashamed of you?”
“That’s not the reason you don’t want me to meet your parents?”
“I assure you it’s not.”
“Then why?”
He looks away from me. “We don’t get on well. I told you that.”
“So they don’t approve of you being a writer. You’re still their son. Their firstborn. And you’re getting married. That’s major. And Mom said your mother asked a lot of questions about us and the wedding, so that doesn’t sound like she’s not interested in you.”
He says nothing. And he won’t look at me either. Crap. He is hiding something. What, what, what? And just like that it comes to me.
“Have you been married before? That’s what you’re afraid I’ll find out, isn’t it? Ohmygod. You have a child?”
Okay, judging by his bugged-out eyes, I’ve reinforced that “around the bend” thing. He starts laughing.
When he catches his breath, he says, “Dear God. You’ll imagine me an ex-con before long. A prison escapee even.”
I’m struggling to look innocent of ever imagining any such thing whatsoever. “Don’t be ridiculous. But you didn’t answer my questions.”
Jeremy’s eyes say he’s doubting I’m serious, so I ask again. “Have you ever been married and do you have—”
“Of course not. No ex-wife. No children. How can you think I wouldn’t have told you those things by now?”
“Seriously? There’s a lot you haven’t told me about your life.”
“Not really. And there’s certainly nothing crucial I haven’t told you. Well, all right. Here’s something. I’m an ex-smoker. I started when I was twelve and quit … well, not quite a year ago.”
Love & Liability (A High Tea & Flip-Flops Novel Book 2) Page 5