The Marriage Merger

by Leiber, Vivian

  “Sure thing.”

  He tossed her a kiss. It was three whole seconds before Mike the mailman came in with her mail and Patricia realized the kiss had only been for show. There had been a lot of those kind of kisses—and a few extra for good measure—in the past two weeks.

  “Hey, Patricia, here’s your mail,” Mike said. “You’re looking a little down. Wedding jitters?”

  “Oh, no,” Patricia said, shaking her head. “Er, maybe that’s it.”

  “It’s awfully nice of Mr. Barrington to give you a wedding.”

  “It sure is. But it’s too bad that his son the Third won’t be coming.”

  “The Third?”

  “Yeah, we call Rex the Second’s son the Third. Because he’s Rex Barrington the Third. Get it?”

  Mike’s handsome face broke out into a grin.

  “Got it. Why isn’t he coming?”

  “Business. He’s been assigned out of the country for what seems like forever. No one’s ever seen him. Except Rex the Second, of course.”

  Mike laughed.

  “By the way,” he said, pushing the mail cart farther down the hall. “I’m supposed to tell you that your mother is here.”

  “Here?” Patricia gulped. “Where here?”

  “In the lobby. Waiting for you. See ya later, Patricia.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Patricia shoved her feet into high heels—the ones so high that she could barely walk in them. But this morning she could sprint. All the way to the elevator bank, and when the elevator didn’t come fast enough, down the stairs to the glass-enclosed lobby. Her mother, regally clad in an aquamarine suit with a fuchsia blouse, stood talking to the receptionist.

  “Mother, what are you doing here?” Patricia asked.

  Her mother rushed to greet her.

  “Bon matin!” she cried out, seeming to forget that Americans, her daughter included, didn’t always speak French.

  “Mother, it’s wonderful to see you, but what are you doing here?” Patricia repeated, softening her voice as she noticed the receptionist peering over her copy of a glamour magazine.

  “I’m here for my only daughter’s wedding,” Mrs. Peel said. “Even if it is just a marriage for legal purposes.”

  “Mother!”

  Her mother looked over at the receptionist.

  “I don’t think she approves of me,” Mrs. Peel whispered to Patricia. “Listen, you’re getting married day after tomorrow and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Besides, immigration officials would take note of the fact that the mother of the bride didn’t appear at the wedding. It would count against you.... Oh, dear, Patricia.”

  “What?”

  “You’re in love,” her mother said, with the same tone of voice she would have used to announce the end of the world.

  “How do you know?”

  “I can see it in your eyes.”

  Patricia touched her brow bone.

  “Does it show?” she asked, grimacing when her mother nodded. If her mother could see, so could the world. “No, you can’t see a thing.”

  “Patricia, a mother knows these things. Even a mother who hasn’t spent much time with her daughter. You’re marrying for love, and he’s not—that’s the real problem, isn’t it?”

  “Please, Mom, keep your voice down,” Patricia said, hustling her mother into an elevator. “I’ve got to get you to my office. You’re going to stay there and not get into any trouble.”

  “I never get into trouble.”

  “That’s what you said before that incident in Helsinki.”

  For the first time in Patricia’s memory, her mother didn’t launch into an explanation of how Helsinki was all the government’s fault.

  Patricia escorted her mother into her office and shut the door behind them. Then she sat with her mother on the love seat by the window and told her... everything. And yet she found herself glossing over the parts that had to do with her virginity. She just couldn’t confess that to her mother!

  “I love him,” she concluded. “But I know he doesn’t love me. Yet. Is getting married to him so terrible?”

  “I’m hardly in the position to pass judgment,” her mother said. “I only wish that Sam could see what a wonderful woman you are. And how precious your love for him is.”

  She reached out to touch the lapel of Patricia’s silk suit.

  “Funny, this is exactly the sort of beautiful, dramatic outfit I always wanted you to wear. Your makeup and hair is more polished and sophisticated. You’re even in heels, and that perfume is so French! Why, you’ve even stopped biting your nails.”

  “Have to. You can’t bite acrylic tips.”

  “After all these years of my nagging you to get some glamour and some sexiness, you finally do it”

  “You like it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “No you don’t,” Patricia said.

  “Okay. Call me crazy, but I miss the old Patricia. I miss the ponytail. The freckles. The chewed-to-the-quick nails. I must be losing my mind—I’m even feeling nostalgic for your gray suits. It wasn’t chic. But it was you.”

  “I’m making myself over because I want Sam to notice me. To fall in love with me. He wouldn’t if I didn’t make some changes.”

  “Is Sam really so shallow that a little eye shadow, a flashy dress and a manicure is going to make him head over heels?”

  “No, but I want to be his kind of woman. To be his colleague, friend, lover and his wife.”

  “Oh, my dear daughter, you’ve got it bad, but he’s got it worse.”

  “What do you mean—he’s got it worse?”

  “It’s difficult enough to love someone so much that you’d do anything for them. But it’s a real tragedy to have someone love you that much and you can’t even see it.”

  It had come down to this: champagne and white roses, tulle and lace, a white duck canvas tent in the backyard of Hacienda Barrington to shield the guests from the unblinking optimism of the late-summer sun. At the French doors leading to the flagstone courtyard, Mildred Van Hess gave Patricia the abundant bouquet of white desert roses.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” she said, and fluttered her hand in the direction of the aisle. “Go on, get going, it’s show time.”

  The string quartet began to play the bridal march. And Patricia’s mother, seated in the first row, had already borrowed a second handkerchief from someone seated behind her. She loudly and dramatically sobbed.

  It wasn’t until Patricia was halfway down the aisle, having passed Olivia and Rachel—who gave her a buoyant thumbs-up—before she realized what an odd comment Mildred had made.

  You’re doing the right thing?

  What kind of thing is that to say to a bride?

  What did she mean by that?

  But when Patricia looked back at Mildred, standing at the door in her sorbet-pink suit, the older woman just nodded.

  You’re doing the right thing?

  Patricia looked ahead to the altar, draped with white canvas cloth, and then she saw Sam, his gray eyes steadily focused on her. He wore a white dinner jacket and black slacks. He looked every inch the proud bridegroom.

  She had done her best to make him proud. Her dress was a slip of white silk with a barely there chiffon smoke tied at its bodice with crisscrossing ribbons. Gascon had worked his magic with a upsweep of curls—Patricia had vetoed his suggestion that her hair would look best au naturel.

  Patricia reached out and squeezed her mother’s hand as she approached the altar—and then she took Sam’s hand.

  “You don’t have to...” he whispered as he took her arm.

  She silenced him with a whisper-slight toss of her head.

  The minister began the familiar words of the wedding ceremony. She had, as a diplomat’s daughter, heard those same words many times—in Greek, in Russian, in Swahili, in Hindu. And yet, spoken here for her benefit, the words carried their own power.

  All the work that Mildred had put into this day
—the flowers, the champagne, the ribbons hanging from every folding chair—all of it dropped away, leaving only the beauty of a woman, a man and a promise.

  She heard the words at first with sadness, realizing how little they truly applied to her. How she wished she was like other women—other women who found their love and would hear these words with confidence and joy. But as the minister continued to read from his book, Patricia felt an odd calm wash over her. And the weeks of deception dropped away.

  These words did apply to her. They were the truth. She was entering into some kind of connection to Sam that would exist long after she left Barrington, long after he thanked her and went on with his life—so long, in fact, that there could only be one word for what she was promising. Lifelong marriage. There was no other man whom she could love, whom she could honor, whom she could cherish and whom she would stand by...in sickness and in health, in good times and bad.

  She would be his bride forever, though he would think it would end with a divorce. And it would end, for everyone but herself.

  Sam stood stiffly at Patricia’s side. He’d never been to a wedding where he paid attention to the ceremony. Usually he was the guy outside, tying cans to the back of the limousine or baby-sitting impatient flower girls and restless ring bearers.

  The sacred words were direct and pointed.

  Love. Honor. Cherish.

  In sickness and in health. For richer for poorer. Good times and bad.

  ’Til death do us part.

  Sam’s parents had never married. His father hadn’t bothered giving his son his name. And his mother was too meek to protest the many other women of Sam’s father’s life. Sam had decided early on that he would marry, but this was not a romantic decision, it was a mark of his determination to live by the rules of the haves so that he would never be mistaken for a have-not.

  But this wasn’t marriage.

  Was it?

  He glanced back at Rex, who had a smile on his face as wide as the Rio Grande. He winked at Sam and Sam smiled in return. He noticed Mildred threading her arm under Rex’s elbow. And Mike the mail room guy standing on the other side of Rex. Sam didn’t know the full story of Rex’s hiring of Mike, but he figured that Mike was like him—a hard-luck case plucked off the streets and given a chance at Barrington Corporation. When Patricia had asked him about why Rex had hired Mike, Sam had been forced to confess he had no idea.

  Sam had done well with his chance—adding hard work, persistence and rock-solid fear of failure to the opportunity Rex had given him.

  He squeezed Patricia’s small hand. She was doing him such a favor. Saving him when he needed saving most. A good friend does that, he thought, but the words of the marriage ceremony went beyond friendship.

  She was promising before God that she would be his...forever. And he was doing the same. It was wrong to play with the sacred ceremony this way.

  He should stop it now.

  Tell everyone gathered here that this was a sham marriage, that he was a fraud, a fake, an outsider to their kind.

  That he was nothing more than a street-tough barrio boy who had made it to the executive suites. But perhaps he didn’t belong here and now was the time to admit it.

  When Rex wanted the stability of Sam married, he wanted the wrong-side-of-the-tracks part of Sam tamed. And try as Sam might, perhaps it wasn’t tamed.

  Because he couldn’t love a woman. Couldn’t give everything to her. Couldn’t give it to Melissa. And here he was playacting at giving his love to the best friend he’d ever had.

  And yet, now that he was here, there was no graceful exit, no way that wouldn’t humiliate Patricia.

  He admired her. Stood in awe of her willingness to give everything to a friend. She was a beauty and would make a man a wonderful wife someday. She deserved the very best....

  What does she want? a street-smart voice inside him demanded. A quick promotion? A salary boost? A better job? A good reference? Or simply the promise that she would always follow his star as it rose into the corporate stratosphere?

  No, she’s doing this because she...thinks of me as a friend, he thought.

  He wondered if he deserved a friend as good as Patricia, but he never had the time to explore the answer to that self-query. The minister had told him, for the second time, that he could kiss the bride.

  She looked up at him with such radiant innocence that he nearly blurted out that he was a jerk, a first-rate jerk who had taken this woman’s offer of friendship and turned it inside out.

  But her smile, so Mona Lisa, so filled with mystery and beauty, gave him pause. She laid a hand on the lapel of his white dinner jacket.

  With that touch, as powerful as a magician’s wand, he forgot everything about himself.

  He kissed her. And promised with the touch of his lips upon hers that he was her man. Forever. And all the other words the minister had asked him to repeat.

  Her mouth opened, surrendering to him.

  Her head leaned back. He felt the unsteadiness of her posture and steadied her with his hand at the small of her back. He tasted the lips, now somewhat familiar because of the very public kisses they had exchanged. But something new happened when he touched his tongue to her smooth teeth—she opened to him. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, taking her rich velvety flesh for his own.

  When he came up for air, they were both shell-shocked.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present Mr. and Mrs. Sam Wainwright,” the minister announced with a grin.

  The guests erupted with applause that nearly, but not quite, drowned out Mrs. Peel blowing her nose.

  Sam walked down the aisle with Patricia, and the caterer met them with two glasses of champagne.

  “Every time they give a toast, you have to kiss the bride,” he warned Sam.

  “Sure,” Sam said, feeling such happiness that he didn’t even second-guess himself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was a toast and then another. Kisses and then more. Sam felt as heady as if he had gotten the chance to finish his glass of champagne, which of course he didn’t because just as he would kiss Patricia to satisfy the clamor of well-wishers, he would be asked to kiss her again.

  He wanted to take her and repeat every kiss in private.

  How he suffered through a dinner of chicken mole and balsamic rice he could never say. Or cutting the cake and licking the icing from Patricia’s mouth but going no further. Shaking hands with a hundred people whose faces blurred in the light of the sinking sun.

  Question: How did he manage to tap his heels at the side of the flagstone patio as Rex danced the very first dance with Patricia? Answer: Impatiently.

  And when the mountain air grew cool and sweet—well, as cool as Arizona in August allows—how did he stop himself from just hoisting her up over his shoulder like a caveman and taking her home?

  Just weeks ago, he would have considered the notion of kissing the assistant personnel director of Barrington Corporation perfectly silly. Just weeks ago, dancing with her would have carried as much spark as the mandatory sixth grade square dance lessons he suffered through. Just weeks ago, Patricia Peel figured in his daydream—to the extent that he had them—as a minor figure with whom he shared some business accolade.

  Now her kisses were as irresistible as chocolate, her laughter as precious as diamonds and her skin as touchable as silk.

  He liked her. Always had. Thought she was a good sport, a team player, a fun gal to be around.

  Now he lusted after her.

  At midnight, he told her they were going, as they danced to the string quartet’s medley of Harry Connick, Jr. songs.

  “Home?” she asked, blinking twice.

  “Yes, home. Patricia, I want you,” he murmured, feeling his groin tighten as he confessed. “I think you want me, too.”

  She stared at him, the dark brown of her dark pupils expanding so that all that remained of the Irish in her was a slim line of jade. Then she blinked, dropped her head and
looked away.

  “Yes, I do,” she said softly. “I do.”

  The next few minutes were chaotic. Rex shook Patricia’s hand, joyful tears streaming down his face, and then kissed Sam on the cheek—and promptly apologized for being so confused that he reversed his course and kissed Patricia’s cheek and gave a jolly handshake to his vice president. Mildred gave Patricia the bouquet to throw and Sophia, the new assistant to the Third, caught it. Sam glanced over at Mike and gave him a thumbs-up, though he knew that Sophia at least claimed not to be interested in the mail room guy.

  As the couple walked out to the courtyard where his car awaited, Mildred handed each guest a pyramid-shaped box, and at her direction, the hundred boxes were opened. A delicate canopy of butterflies flittered first toward the spotlights that illuminated Rex’s hacienda and then toward the dark mountain peaks.

  A hundred shouted goodbyes followed Sam and Patricia all the way down the drive to the wroughtiron gates of Hacienda Barrington.

  They didn’t speak in the car. Sam didn’t want to spoil the moment. But when they pulled into his driveway, he jumped out of the car and got to the passenger’s-side door before she could open it.

  “Allow me,” he said, and he picked her up in his arms and carried her into the house.

  When he flipped on the hallway light, he noticed her face was flushed, upturned to him as if she had made herself into a gift for him. The kisses of a hundred wedding toasts had done their magic.

  “I want you,” he said huskily, feeling thick in his throat. “I want you, Patricia.”

  He put his arms out to embrace her, but she backed away. He felt a sudden quickening of his nerves, as if the two glasses of champagne were swept out of his system and replaced with highvoltage java.

  “Sam, there’s two things I should tell you.”

  He glanced up.

  “If it’s about birth control, I already...”

  “No, it’s not,” she said. Her face was stricken with sadness.