“I’m waiting for them to call me back.”
After a moment of silence and uncertainty, Nick said, “I should go to the house.”
“Let’s just wait and see what the limo people say. Maybe they were late picking her up. You don’t want to head over there if she’s on her way here.” The words came out of Dean’s mouth, but he didn’t look like he believed them. He looked like the kind of guy who was about to claim the right to say, I told you so.
“I just can’t sit here and do nothing.” Nick paced the center of the room, stopped and looked at Dean. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it. If she were able to call, she would.” Wouldn’t she?
Dean’s cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket and glanced at the display. “That’s gotta be them now,” he said to Nick. He tapped on the screen, accepting the call, and raised the phone to his ear. He listened intently, for what seemed like forever.
Nick perched his hands on his hips. At this point, the only thing he’d gotten out of the conversation was a few groans and a headshake or two on Dean’s part. Nick wanted to know what the limo company had to say. And he wanted to know now.
“Are you sure?” Dean said into the phone, then looked at Nick and shrugged.
“What?” Nick mouthed the word. Dean shook his head and closed his eyes. His head dropped and then laid his forehead against his palm.
With the phone still at his ear, Dean cleared his throat and said, “Thank you.” He brought both hands down to his sides, opened his eyes and looked up at Nick. “She canceled the limo this morning.”
Canceled? “What?” Nick stood there dumbfounded for a minute. He’d heard the words but he couldn’t quite reconcile them in his head. If Ginny canceled the limo, that could mean only one thing.
Nick had to find her. Make her explain why she’d canceled the limo—and not only that, why was he starting to get the feeling that he’d been stood up at the altar?
Nick’s heart sank to the floor.
This couldn’t be real. Could it? Surely not. It had to be a joke. That’s what it was. A joke. And Dean was in on it.
Nick tried to move, to put one foot in front of the other, but it was like his fallen heart had wrapped itself around his feet, cementing him in place. He looked at Dean. “Maybe she changed limo companies.” he said, grabbing at the last fleeting straw his mind could come up with.
“Maybe she did.” Dean shrugged. “Still doesn’t explain why she’s not here.” He looked at his watch. “The ceremony was scheduled to start half an hour ago.” He glanced back at Nick with a look that said, accept it, man.
Nick managed to get as far as the chair near the door. He sat, then surveyed his hands. Front then back. “I suppose I should go out there and say something.”
“You want me to do it?” Dean offered.
“It’s my responsibility.” Nick pushed himself up from the chair. “Besides, I don’t ever want to forget this moment…in case I ever think about doing something this stupid again.”
Nick opened the door and moved into the hallway. He wasn’t sure where he’d find the sanctuary—the place where he’d have to face hundreds of people, people who’d come to see a wedding, and tell them there wasn’t going to be one. Not today, anyway.
After a few turns that got Nick nowhere, a kind lady, probably a volunteer of the church, offered to lead him and Dean to the sanctuary.
She paused at the only door on the left side of a long corridor. “It’s right on the other side of this door.” She smiled. “Hurry now. You don’t want to be late.” She nodded, and was off.
You don’t want to be late. That almost made Nick laugh out loud. Why should he worry about being late? Ginny hadn’t had the decency to show up at all.
Nick grabbed onto the cool metal doorknob and turned. Panic swarmed through him as he peered into the sanctuary, seeing hundreds of people, all their guests, waiting to witness his and Ginny’s wedding.
Dean gave him a gentle nudge. Nick sucked in a breath of courage and stepped through the door.
Gazing out over the crowd, Nick stalled, trying to find the words. He paused a little longer on the faces of the people he knew by name. Like Angela Davies. They’d worked together years ago, over at Martini’s, back when he was a cook and she was the hostess. They’d dated once or twice. She was married now, with two kids. Gary Larsen, an old college buddy, looked bored beyond words. Julia Mason, his mother’s longtime friend—when their eyes met, her hopeful expression turned to one of sadness. He hadn’t seen that look on her face since the day his mother died, nearly ten years ago.
The crowd started to stir. They were getting restless, antsy, wanting to know what was going on. Well, he’d better say something before they all turned on him.
Nick cleared his throat. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” was the only thing he could come up with. Too bad his mother wasn’t here. She’d know what to say. His older brother Kevin would dazzle them with his charm—if he were here. Let’s face it, everybody’s gone off and left you, boy. Even Ginny. “I thank you for your time in coming out today. I’m not entirely clear about what’s going on right now, but I can tell you there’s not going to be a wedding. At least not today.”
Hushed whispers turned into louder grumbles as people began to rise from their seats and make their way toward the front door. Some paused in the aisle, looking briefly at Nick. It was as if they were thinking about coming to offer him condolences, but then deciding against it. Some shook their heads before turning away, but most simply headed for the door.
Dean nudged Nick’s elbow, leading him back toward the rear hallway that they’d come in through.
“You think she’s at the house?” Nick asked Dean once they were in the corridor.
“It’s beyond me,” Dean said in a kind, soothing tone. “If she didn’t want to get married, why didn’t she just tell you?” He squeezed Nick’s shoulder lightly. “Instead of this.”
“I’m gonna go see if she’s at the house,” Nick said. “Shit!” He tossed his hands in the air. “My truck’s at the Hang Ten. Will you drop me by there?”
“Of course,” Dean said, with an understanding nod. “Let’s go.”
The drive passed by mostly in silence. It wasn’t until Dean rolled into the parking lot at Hang Ten, where there were several cars in addition to Nick’s truck, that the conversation picked up again.
“Jesus!” Nick swore. “I forgot about the stupid reception.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Dean said. “I’ll go in and tell the staff that there won’t be any reception here today, and they can all go home.”
“Thanks, man.” Nick sighed. That was one weight lifted off his shoulders.
“What about all the food?”
Nick let the possibilities rolled through his mind until a good one stuck. “Call St. Dom’s,” he said of the local homeless shelter. “Tell them you’ve got a boatload of food for them.”
“Good idea.” Finally, the hint of a smile from Dean. “They’ll be eating well tonight.”
Nick climbed out and stood beside the car long enough to fish his keys from his pocket. Dean was already halfway to the restaurant’s front door when he glanced over his shoulder. “You sure you don’t want me to go to the house with you?”
Nick shook his head. “No. It won’t be a scene that you, or anyone else I call a friend, should witness.”
“Remember…” Dean pointed at Nick. “It’s illegal to kill her.” He held his serious expression for a few seconds, then chuckled. He shook off the laughter, then added, “Call me later.” He pointed at Nick again. “If you don’t, I’ll coming looking for you.”
Nick knew what he meant. Dean had always wondered how Nick had managed to stay so strong after his brother had succumbed to drugs and his mother to cancer.
Nick had often wondered that too. But each day he kept getting up and living life. He’d always been a survivor. But now the real test would come. And Nick Matthews had no idea how he was going to get thr
ough this.
Nick figured the best place to start looking for Ginny was the house. She had, after all, banned him from coming around for the last week. Now he was really wondering why?
He pulled into the driveway, hit the garage door opener that was clasped to the visor and waited for the door to open. Instead of rolling on into the garage, he shifted into park, jumped out of the truck and trotted into the house through the garage.
Inside the laundry room, the washer and dryer were gone. What the…? crossed Nick’s mind as he passed through and on into the kitchen. The only appliances left in there were the stove and the dishwasher, and they belonged to the landlord. All the little knickknacks Ginny had on the counters were gone. He opened one cabinet, then two. Both were empty.
He wasn’t surprised to find the dining and living rooms stripped of everything but a few pieces of trash on the floor.
Standing in the middle of the living room, he did a slow one-eighty. Even the walls were bare.
What the hell?
After a quick inspection of the house, the only room that hadn’t been completely emptied out was the bedroom. But there wasn’t much left in there. Nick’s clothes from the dresser had been dumped onto the middle of the floor. The closet doors were slid open. Only his clothes remained inside. All of Ginny’s were gone.
Nick thought about the few pieces of furniture he’d inherited from his mother a few years ago. Ginny hadn’t wanted those hand-me-downs in the house. He was glad now that he’d stored his mother’s things in the loft over the restaurant, along with all of his stuff. Ginny hadn’t wanted any of it in the house. Not his Dodgers memorabilia. Not his mother’s collection of depression glass. And not his brother’s surfing regalia.
She’d made him go out and buy all new furnishings, and now she’d taken every single bit of it. Truth be told, he wasn’t going to miss those hideous drapes that she’d hung over the windows in their bedroom. Each panel was a damn different color. Brown, blue, green…and together it was ugly. The cold, hard fact was that Ginny didn’t have a lick of fashion sense, not when it came to home décor.
Nick trudged back into the living room and parked himself on the stone bench in front of the fireplace. The only other alternative was the floor, and he really needed to sit down.
A sudden coldness hit Nick at the core of his heart. Good riddance to her and all that crap she took with her.
Now Ginny’s odd idiosyncrasies during the past few months, and especially the last couple of weeks, were starting to make sense. No wonder she’d wanted him out of the house last week. And to think she’d said it was because she wanted their wedding night to feel like they were real newlyweds.
He sucked in a gallon of courage, enough to give him the mental strength to sustain him in case she came crawling back.
Yeah, right! Nick laughed at himself for being such a fool. He tried to shake away his stupidity, although doubting that he could accomplish it.
He pushed himself up to head for the garage. He was going to go see Dean. Maybe he could get him to help move some of his things over from the loft above Hang Ten.
Nick Matthews was going to move on if it killed him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marseilles, France
JULIAN DE LAURENT, BRIEFCASE IN HAND, puttered along the hallway toward the second floor entry of Pacifique de Lumière. He checked his watch. 7:30 AM. Good, he had plenty of time to get to the office if he left now.
“Julian…?” Claudette’s sweet voice—the one she always used to lull people in when she wanted something—drifted up behind him.
He stopped, sucked in a breath, then turned to greet his stepmother. “Claudette.” He smiled. “How nice to see you before I leave for work.”
“Oh, never mind all that, Julian.” She shook her head and paused at his side. “We have to talk.”
“About?”
“Your father.”
Uh oh. What’s he done now? Julian glanced at his watch again. “All right.” He guided her toward the small salon just down the hall. “I have a few minutes to spare.”
They went into the room, but Claudette didn’t speak until Julian closed the door.
“What’s Papa gotten you so excited over?” Julian asked. He could’ve used a more appropriate term, like angry, but why invite trouble?
“He wants Lecie to come home.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Julian chuckled. “Did you remind him that she’s just as immovable as he is?”
Claudette nodded. “He’s an obstinate man, though.”
“Well…” Julian was enjoying this far too much. “It’s not as if he can cut her off.” He’d learned that one from Camille. He’d have to remember to say it directly to Papa. That’d drive him nuts. “And Papa has no one to blame but himself.”
“You know your father well enough to know…” Claudette shook her head. “He will not relent so easily.”
Julian agreed with an expressive nod. It’d take a lot more than Papa’s inability to cut Lecie off financially to keep him from meddling in her life. “Any idea what he’s planning?”
“I think he’s going to try to have her deported.” Claudette signed heavily. “He thinks that will force her to come home. But let’s face it…if he angers her, she will do anything but.”
Damn it, Papa! Why must you? Julian had a feeling that this could turn out much worse than Papa could ever imagine. “I thought he would’ve have learned by now,” Julian said with a slow, disbelieving shake of the head. “But as you well know, once Papa gets started, there’s not much anyone can do to stop him.”
“I was thinking…” Claudette glanced down at the floor, then slowly lifted her gaze back to meet Julian’s. “More along the lines of talking to your sister. See if it’s possible to stop her from making a bad situation worse.”
Julian moved to the door, wrapped his hand around the knob, and before opening it, he said, “I’ll do my best.”
But how he was going to stop Lecie from overreacting was anybody’s guess, since she was in America and he was here in France.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFTER SPENDING THREE DAYS BROODING on Dean’s couch, Nick decided it was time to move his things from the loft above Hang Ten over to the house. It was clear that Ginny wasn’t coming back.
Nick backed his truck, the bed crammed full of his mother’s furniture, into the driveway and hit the garage door opener.
Dean opened the passenger door, but didn’t get out. “Where do you want to put the stuff?” he asked. “In the garage or inside the house?”
While the garage would be the easier thing to do, Nick knew full well that if he wanted help getting the furniture inside the house, he’d better do it now. “Let’s take it inside. It’s better not to clog up the garage.”
They bailed out of the truck, Nick went to the rear and dropped the tailgate. The piece closest to them was an old dresser that Nick’s mother had said belonged to her mother. Well, at least Nick would have a place to store his clothes that Ginny had seen fit to dump onto the middle of the bedroom floor.
Dean hopped up on the tailgate and grabbed the bottom of one side. “Get that end,” he said of the one nearest Nick.
Piece by piece, bit by bit, they unloaded the truck. The dresser, a matching headboard and two nightstands, a coffee table, and small bureau were all that would fit in Nick’s truck on this trip.
Nick stalled in the living room, sitting down on the coffee table, the last item they’d hauled in and deposited it in the middle of the living room.
“Well…” Dean laughed, leaning against the wall near the front door. “A few more trips like this one, and you’ll have a place to eat, sleep and watch TV,” Dean said, poking fun at Nick’s small short-bed truck.
Nick gazed around the living room, then peered into the dining room and kitchen off to his right. Every inch of this house, even though she’d completely emptied it, reminded him of Ginny.
Just looking at the place where the couch used
to sit in the living room—that girly-looking flowery couch where Ginny used to snuggle up to Nick—left a bad taste in his mouth.
The memory of Ginny sitting at the dining table while he cooked, smiling up at him and waiting for him to serve her, wrapped around his chest like strapping vines, with thorns, tightening and squeezing until he could hardly breathe.
Dean stepped toward Nick. “You ready to go grab another load?”
“I hate this house.” Nick’s voice was flat.
“Yeah…” Dean shrugged and nodded. “It’s not exactly you. But then…what is?”
“I mean it.” Nick kicked his tone up a notch on the serious meter. “I really hate this house.”
“You sure this isn’t your anger at Ginny talking?”
Nick snorted a laugh. “Probably.” He glanced up at Dean. “But I still hate this house.” He paused, letting that notion sink into his own thoughts. “I…can’t live here.” His voice serrated the words. His fury at Ginny swirled with the disgust he was feeling over what she’d done to him. “She was the one who wanted to live here. Not me.” Heat flushed through his body. He wished Ginny would’ve left something behind so he could break it. He looked around for something. Anything. But everything here now was his mother’s belongings. He couldn’t harm any of those. “I was perfectly fine and happy living over the restaurant when she invaded my life.”
Dean started doing that little fidgeting dance he does when he wants to say, I told you so. Nick didn’t want to hear that right now, no matter how true it might be. Dean hadn’t liked Ginny from the get-go, but Nick had been too blind to see that she was a gold-digger—obviously—of minimal proportions. Seriously. There were tons of guys out there with access to way more money than Nick could scrounge up. So why him?
“She set her sights pretty low, didn’t she?” Nick laughed at himself. “I can’t believe she spent three years with me, just to get some second-rate furniture.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Dean offered, “she’s a second-rate gold-digger.”
They both knew Ginny liked to put on airs, Dean more so than Nick, but Nick was beginning to see the light. Funny thing was, the so-called second-hand furniture he’d inherited from his mother, that Ginny had made him store above the restaurant, was far more valuable, monetarily, than the furnishings she’d cleaned out from the house.
Billionaire Games Boxed Set (The Marriage Bargain, The Marriage Caper, The Marriage Fix) Page 39