Put a Ring On It

by Beth Kendrick

  “Rumors and gossip don’t hold up in courts of law. When and where did the marriage take place?”

  “About two weeks ago.” Brighton had to pull up the digital calendar on her smartphone to cite the exact date. “We flew to Vegas for the ceremony.”

  “Are you both current residents of Delaware?”

  “I’m a part-time resident,” Jake said.

  “I’m from New Jersey,” Brighton said.

  “But you currently reside here with your husband?”

  “Well, yes.” I guess. “Technically.”

  “Do you have a copy of the marriage license?”

  “Yes.” Brighton crossed her legs and folded her hands on her knee. “But I should probably tell you that we were drunk at the time. Which they’re normally very strict about.”

  The attorney put down the pen. “You were drunk? Then how . . . ?”

  “I bribed the official,” Jake said.

  The lawyer put down his pen, picked it up, then put it down again. “I’ll need to make some inquiries.” He spoke to them in the same tone an elementary school principal might use to shame spitball-wielding third graders.

  Brighton had to suppress the sudden and inappropriate urge to laugh.

  “Not to worry—we’ll get everything sorted out,” the attorney continued. “And we can start the clock on your mandated separation period.”

  Brighton started making notes of her own. “There’s a mandated separation period?”

  “Thirty days.”

  “So what happens? We file for divorce, wait thirty days, and then a judge finalizes it?”

  “In theory. I’ll have to check about the residency issues. But the inebriation issues have the potential to complicate matters.” He thinned his lips. “As do the bribery issues.”

  Brighton got the church giggles again, which the attorney pretended not to notice.

  “The fact that you two are sharing a living space also complicates matters,” he said.

  “I’ll move out,” Jake and Brighton said at exactly the same time.

  She turned to him. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s your house.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to make your life any harder than I already have.”

  She glimpsed a mix of pity and regret in his eyes. Pity. Just when she thought she couldn’t feel any more inadequate.

  “No.” She crossed her arms.

  “I insist.” He shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “I’ve got somewhere else you can go,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Brighton . . . ,” he started.

  She addressed the lawyer. “When can we start the paperwork?”

  He glanced from Brighton to Jake and back again. “Ms. Smith is my client, then?”

  “Yes,” Jake confirmed. “But I’ll pay your retainer on the way out.”

  Brighton stood up and snatched the strap of her handbag. “That won’t be necessary. I’m perfectly capable of paying my own retainer.”

  Jake got to his feet, towering over her. “I know you’re capable, but I want to do this for you.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to do this for me.”

  They squared off, separated by the matching wing chairs.

  “I’ll go find some coffee.” The lawyer practically ran out to the hall and closed the door behind him.

  “Do not do this,” Brighton warned before Jake could say another word.

  “I am doing this.” He set his jaw. “The least I can do is be a gentleman and pay the retainer.”

  “Because that’s what gentlemen do? Bankroll quickie divorces to random women they met in a bar when the long-lost loves of their lives showed up?”

  “Yes.” His jaw muscle twitched again. “That’s what gentlemen do.”

  Her whole body tensed, just like the night she first saw him. “For the last time: I do not want your money.”

  “Why not?” He took a step toward her. “Be practical, Brighton.”

  “I cannot be practical about this.” She could be practical about everything else in her life, but not him.

  “It’s just money.”

  “Exactly.” Her voice quavered. “It doesn’t mean anything to you, so you throw it around to make all of life’s little inconveniences disappear. Like me.”

  He sighed and rubbed one side of his cheek. “Yeah, about that . . .”

  Brighton fell silent.

  “I know it’s too late. All this stuff with Genevieve . . . But I’m sorry, Brighton. I am.” Another step and he was close enough to raise his hand to touch her face.

  She held her breath, waiting for . . . she didn’t know what, exactly.

  He dropped his hand to his side. “The least I can do is make this marriage worth your while. We never got around to drafting that post-nup you wanted.”

  She held up both palms. “Please stop talking.”

  “I don’t want you to leave with nothing,” he said.

  “Jake.” She turned away from him, studying the framed oil painting on the far wall. “I married you for spite and sent pictures of your private jet and your perfectly sculpted cheekbones to my ex on our wedding night. Nothing is exactly what I deserve.”

  “I’m giving you a settlement. You’ve earned it.”

  She whirled back around. “Excuse me?”

  His smartphone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket to check his message while he told her, “Name your price.”

  Brighton literally couldn’t breathe for a moment. She clutched the back of a chair for support.

  “Hell, I’ll give you the beach house if you want it.”

  She waited for him to look up from the phone screen again. Seconds ticked by.

  Finally, she gave up on getting his full attention. “You’re willing to walk away from Don’t Be Koi if it means a nice, easy divorce?”

  “Sure.” He still hadn’t glanced back at her. “It’s just a house.”

  “What about the furniture?” she pressed. “The artwork? The boat?” She hadn’t actually seen a boat, but she was willing to bet he had one stashed away somewhere.

  “Sure.” He inclined his head. “Whatever you want.”

  “What I want is not to be treated like a prostitute.”

  His head snapped up.

  “Yes,” she assured him before he could protest. “I see what you’re doing. You’re treating me like a business decision.”

  He put his phone away and crossed his arms, waiting.

  “But the fact is, I’m not a business decision. I’m your wife.” She glanced around the empty room and lowered her voice. “I did things with you that I’ve never done with anybody else. I skateboarded with you.”

  His expression flickered for a split second, and then he recovered his composure. “That’s why I’m trying to make this easy.”

  “And that’s why I’m upset. It makes me sad to think that you could write a check or sign over a deed and forget about me.” She paused as she remembered who she was talking to. “Wait—let me try to explain. ‘Sad’ is a feeling people get when—”

  “Don’t.” His voice deepened. “It’s not like that.”

  “It kind of is.” She wasn’t sure if he could hear her. “I was planning to stay, Jake. And now I can’t.”

  He finally betrayed a hint of frustration. “I have no idea what you want right now.”

  She wanted him to love her—to adore her—too much to let her go, but she couldn’t say that. So she went up on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck, and brushed her lips against his. She knew she shouldn’t, but she didn’t care. He kissed her, she kissed him, and then they were making out in the middle of the attorney’s office. Swapping spit at a billable rate of hundreds of dollars per hour.

  There was a lot
of muffled thumping and laughing as they moved from the bookcase to the chair to the rug. They ended up sweaty and intertwined, staring up at the underside of the massive mahogany desk.

  At which point rational thought staged a comeback.

  “I’m glad I married you, Brighton.” He gazed down at her, his brown eyes at once so bright and so dark.

  “Me, too.” She rested her cheek against his bare arm. “I wish it didn’t have to end like this, even though I knew it would.” She could hear a phone ringing in the office next door and traffic passing by outside the window. “What’s going to happen with you and Genevieve?”

  He turned away from her and rolled onto his back. “I’m good at a lot of things, Brighton.”

  She looked around at the office furniture they’d just defiled. “Yes, yes you are.”

  “When I set out to accomplish something, I do it. I do not quit. I do not fail. But when I married Genevieve, I showed horrific judgment.” He sat up and put his shirt on. “I had a huge blind spot. I made terrible decisions. I failed.”

  She sat up, too, combing her fingers through her hair. “What are you talking about? You’re the ultimate success story.”

  “Put it this way: If you were phenomenal at every other sport—football, baseball, hockey, lacrosse—but terrible at basketball, why would you keep trying to play basketball?”

  Brighton furrowed her brow, trying to follow. “Jake. We’re not talking about sports. We’re talking about relationships. Everyone gets their heart broken when they’re young.”

  But he reached for his jeans and refused to say anything more.

  “Jake, come on. Talk to me.”

  He stood up and pulled on the jeans. “Let me ask you something: Would you have married me that night if I weren’t rich? Would you still have decided to run off in the middle of the night to Vegas with me if I were an average-looking guy with an average bank account?”

  Brighton tried to envision this. “Well . . .”

  “You wouldn’t,” he answered for her. “Because you say the money doesn’t matter, but it does. If I didn’t have what I have and look the way I look, you wouldn’t have done what you did.”

  “That’s not true!” She located her shoes and looked around for her blouse. “I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was focused on your watch.”

  “A watch that I wouldn’t have if I weren’t rich,” he pointed out. “A beat-up Patek Philippe is still a Patek Philippe. Or so I used to think.”

  “You love that watch,” Brighton said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t still have it.”

  “I bought it because I liked it. I kept it to remind myself not to make the same mistake twice.”

  “And that mistake would be . . . ?”

  Instead of answering her question directly, he said, “I gave her my grandmother’s ring. She never wore it. Not once. It was too small for her finger. She kept saying she would get it resized, but she never did. It embarrassed her. But when she left, she took it with her. I never knew why.”

  Brighton’s throat felt dry and tight. “And you still love her.”

  “Love is a feeling. I’m more about action.” He reached behind the desk and located her blouse. “Here. Let me find your bra.”

  • • •

  A mere ten minutes after Brighton straggled out of the attorney’s office with messy hair, smeared lip gloss, and tattered dignity, Jenna intercepted her in the middle of Main Street.

  “So! I hear you and Jake just got into some very heated negotiations at the family law office.”

  Brighton gaped at the bartender. “How on earth did you hear that? It’s been like five minutes!”

  Jenna shrugged one shoulder. “Welcome to Black Dog Bay.”

  “No, seriously. Did the legal secretary send out a mass e-mail the minute I walked out the door?”

  “I cannot reveal my sources.” Jenna led the way to the Whinery and held the door open. “I can, however, offer you a refreshing glass of sangria. Made it this morning with fresh peaches from the farmers’ market.”

  “How can I say no to that?” Brighton took a seat at the bar. She glanced around at all the pink and silver fripperies and sighed. “And to think this is where this whole, champagne-drenched mess began.”

  Jenna pulled an icy pitcher of sangria from the refrigerator beneath the bar. “Would you do things differently? If you could go back to the night you met him?”

  Brighton nibbled her lower lip, considering. “I should have run out the door the second he smoldered in my direction.”

  “Why? You said yourself it’s been fun.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not a good match for me. He was a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-my-pants, double-dog-dare marriage of convenience. Like a Regency romance meets Mad Libs.”

  Jenna smiled. “Sometimes, that’s just what a woman needs.”

  The Whinery’s front door swung open and Genevieve Van Petten swept in, looking like European royalty with her dark sunglasses, ivory sheath dress, and lean, sculpted legs.

  “Look who’s here,” Brighton muttered. “Daisy Buchanan.” She held her ground and sipped her sangria. Eyes front, back straight, ankles crossed. Show no weakness, give no quarter.

  Genevieve approached and cleared her throat—but not a normal, phlegmy, plebian throat clearing. No. Genevieve’s ahem had been cultivated in the poshest finishing schools in New England. “Hello, Brighton. I hoped I might find you here.” She rested her hand on the back of the nearest barstool. “Is this seat taken?”

  chapter 29

  I’m too sober for this. Brighton signaled Jenna to top off her sangria, then acknowledged the other woman with a curt nod. She could smell the faint trace of Genevieve’s light, floral perfume.

  “May I sit down?” Genevieve asked.

  Brighton kept her expression perfectly pleasant as she inwardly dry heaved. “I can’t stop you, but I should give you fair warning that I’m not feeling very chatty at the moment.”

  “That’s fine; I just need you to listen.” Genevieve arranged herself on the stool with the effortless grace of a ballerina. “I heard that you and Jacob . . .” Her self-assurance finally faltered. “I heard you decided to divorce.”

  Brighton refused to confirm this. She remained still and silent until Genevieve tried again.

  “I know it must have been a surprise, seeing me on his porch like that. Again, I can’t tell you how truly sorry I am.” The perfect high-society blonde tucked a strand of perfect hair behind her perfect ear.

  Brighton couldn’t tamp down her disappointment and anger any longer. She put down her glass and swiveled her stool to confront Genevieve. “Sorry for what, exactly?”

  “That you found yourself caught in the middle of this. I know how hard it is to let go of him.” The other woman’s smile was calm and compassionate. “It’s been fifteen years since we first met. And not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.”

  “I heard that you only got together with him to piss off your parents,” Brighton remarked. “Is that true?”

  Genevieve took this as an invitation to relay her version of the story. “I didn’t marry him to upset my parents. I married him because I couldn’t bear not to. It was the first time in my life I wanted something enough to defy my mother and father. He was different from anyone I’d ever met. So brash and smart; completely unafraid. He made me feel brave, too. When he went down on one knee and asked me to marry him, what could I say?”

  Brighton couldn’t imagine Jake making such an old-world display of gallantry. Proposing on bended knee wasn’t his style.

  Then again, who was she to say what was and wasn’t his style? She was just the human shield he used to ward off this ethereal, blue-blooded siren.

  “From the moment I said yes, I knew it was temporary.” Genevieve sighed. Even in the harsh afternoon sunlight, her complexion appeared
smooth and poreless. “But I thought that if I could escape my family’s expectations for a summer, I might be able to change the rest of my life.”

  “Did you?” Brighton asked.

  Genevieve shook her head. “After we ended things, I went back to my ordinary life. I was exactly the same, at least on the outside.”

  Brighton thought about the corporate office waiting for her back in the city. The closet full of dark suits, the dental appointments and gym memberships, the gray, overcast skies and the bumper-to-bumper commutes.

  “But inside, in my heart and soul, I’ve never been the same.” Genevieve sounded wistful. “And even though I couldn’t manage to change my life, he changed his. Jacob had nothing when we got married.” She paused to let this sink in. “Nothing. Not even a credit card. We lived in a rented studio. I had to eat ramen noodles and SpaghettiOs for the first time in my life.” She shuddered, then waited for Brighton to commiserate.

  “I love SpaghettiOs.” Brighton hadn’t eaten them in years, but suddenly she was starving. “But then, I grew up poor, so . . .”

  “I married him even though he couldn’t afford a proper engagement ring.” Another dramatic pause. “All we had was a hand-me-down from his grandmother.”

  “Wow,” Brighton murmured. “How you’ve suffered.”

  “I’ll admit it: I was ashamed to wear it. I was afraid of what my friends would say. I was cowardly and vain.” Genevieve’s demeanor changed ever so slightly. Her tone and expression shifted as she sized up Brighton. “But I kept it all these years. I still have it.”

  Brighton shook her head. “You didn’t give his family heirloom back after your family got the marriage annulled?”

  “It meant something to me.”

  “It meant something to him, too,” Brighton pointed out.

  Genevieve glanced at Brighton’s left hand. “What did you do with your ring from Jacob?”

  Brighton reached for her sangria. “Don’t have one. As I’m sure you’ve heard, we had kind of a spontaneous wedding.”

  “And he wouldn’t even buy you a ring?” Genevieve looked horrified and a little smug. “That’s awful. When I married him, he was determined to give me everything I wanted.”