“Oh my God,” I said.
“Is that a yes?” he asked.
“Are you serious?”
He nodded. “I can’t live without you, Alice. Will you marry me?”
I glanced back and forth between Michael and the diamond ring.
I shook my head. “Michael, there’s something I have to tell you.”
He held up a hand in his typical arrogant way. “Allow me to say something first,” he said. “If you’re worried about the whole F.B.I. thing, well, I’ve got the best lawyers in the country. And if the courts turn against me and I have to leave the country to avoid being made a scapegoat, then I have the means for us to live well.”
The prospect of bringing up a child on the run didn’t appeal.
“Us?” I said. “You mean I’d have to abandon my dreams of a real education here at Kimberley?”
“There are other great universities around the world,” he said.
“In countries without an extradition treaty with the US?” I asked.
His face flushed hot.
“Alice, I’m trying to explain myself. More important than my liberty was the notion that I had to stop a devastating act of terrorism. For that I’m not ashamed. I want my freedom yes, but I thought that for the greater good then liberty has to be sacrificed.”
I shook my head. “Without our freedom, terrorism has already won, Michael.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Now that I realize I can’t live without you, I accept that we need to be together. That our freedom to share together is the one thing I cherish.”
“Michael, how do I know you won’t go looking for another crusade to hide yourself away inside?”
It was then I realized there was no point in telling him I was pregnant and I couldn’t imagine changing my mind.
“I’ve given up everything for you,” he said.
“You don’t seem to realize what you’re asking of me,” I said.
“I realize you may need a moment to think it through, but...”
“A moment? It’s my whole damn life you’re asking me to give up. My every dream. Everything I am! Freedom from anyone controlling me.”
“There are no guarantees in life, Alice,” he said. “We can only promise to endeavor to do the best we can.”
He glanced away and stared at the sun glinting off Kimberley Lake.
He hit the intercom button. “Driver, pull up here.”
The car stopped by the old jetty. Michael opened the door and stepped out. I climbed out across the seat after him.
He turned on me and held the door so I couldn’t step out. “No, Alice. Stay. My driver will take you home.”
“What about you?”
He placed the ring back inside the pocket of his jeans.
“You made your decision,” he said.
“I haven’t made any decision,” I said. “I’m still discussing it.”
He shook his head. “In your eyes I see the fire I love diminishing when I speak of lost freedom. Whether you know it or not, your destiny lies elsewhere. At least for now.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes. “That’s it?” I asked. “We’re over?”
“I won’t pretend I don’t hate your decision,” he said. “But I respect it. Yes, I want to spend my life with you. Raise our children together. But now I realize the greatest thing I can give you is your freedom. You deserve happiness, Alice. That’s all I want for you.”
Our children? But did he really understand the implications of children?
He gently pushed at the car door and shut me in. He nodded to the driver and the limousine gently pulled away.
I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I watched as he turned his back on me and walked to the end of the old wooden jetty. He doubled over and clutched his stomach.
“For my happiness?” I murmured.
The truth was I knew I couldn’t trap Michael by telling him about our child. If I did, he’d stay in Kimberley with me and thanks to the F.B.I. he’s soon lose his freedom. I couldn’t do that to him.
Freedom was his air. Freedom to love a ghost who looked like me. I couldn’t take that freedom from him.
But he’d be prepared to give away his freedom if I asked him to do it for me, I reminded myself.
We can only promise to endeavor to do the best we can...
It was then I knew he loved me and not some ghost of love.
I hit the intercom button, “Stop the car!”
The car slowed gently and stopped. I opened the door and ran back to the jetty.
Michael seemed lost in thought as I ran up to him.
“That’s love isn’t it?” I asked.
He turned to me with a look of surprise growing across his face. “What?”
“When two people love each other too much to trap the other.”
“I guess so, Alice.”
I stroked my stomach. “At least that’s what I’ll tell our first child.”
He blinked. “You mean you’re...”
“Yes.”
He grabbed me tight, lifted me off the jetty and spun me around.
“Careful,” I said.
He set me down and apologized and then we kissed. For how long I don’t remember. And it felt like the first time, all over again.
When we came up for air he got down on one knee. “So if I do it properly this time?”
“Then maybe I’ll say yes,” I said. “But only if you promise me one thing.”
“Anything!”
“Exchange the ring for a smaller stone,” I said. “It’s really too much for me.”
He smiled. “Nothing’s too much for you.”
He slipped the ring onto my finger. “See,” he said. “Perfect.”
I stared at the sunshine glinting off the diamond. “I guess I could get used to it.”
We kissed again. Eventually I pulled away for air. “So what now?” I asked.
“Now we have a child on the way,” he said seriously. “I have to find a way through all this that means we can all be together and have what we need.”
“But how?”
FIFTY ONE
Alice’s Journal
The limo ride was the longest kiss of my life. By the time Michael and I made it to my apartment building, things were so amorous I was afraid we wouldn’t make it up the staircase. By the time we made it to my door I was so hot and bothered by Michael’s lips on my neck that my mind was screaming for release. Leaning against the apartment door, trapped by Michael’s lingering, teasing lips with no hope of escape, I suddenly felt the door open inward.
I fell to the floor with Michael on top of me. I looked up at Mai as she rolled her eyes.
“Need a pillow?” Mai asked.
“We’re good,” Michael said. I punched him playfully.
Mai took my hand to help me up. When she saw the ring on my finger her eyes popped wide.
“Oh my God,” she screamed. “For real?”
“It’s too bling,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
“You’d prefer he gave away all his money on lawyers?” Mai asked.
“Where’s your bedroom?” Michael whispered in my ear with what seemed a self-assurance that he was now validated for buying the most ridiculously expensive ring on the planet.
It was then I had a revelation. My arm shot out and blocked his entrance.
“Hey, what gives?” he said.
“We don’t know how little time we have to get married, right?”
He nodded. “Right, so?”
“So get a marriage license.”
“Now?” he asked. “Or after the wedding night rehearsal?”
That was the lust speaking. I needed Michael to take me seriously.
“No more sex until the wedding night,” I said.
Now it was his turn for his eyes to pop wide.
“You’re serious?”
He knew I was.
“You’re banned until I see you at the altar, Mister,” I said kno
wing my words would haunt me in a matter of minutes.
I pushed him out of the apartment and shut the door. I locked it just in case my resolve floundered.
I turned to Mai Ling.
“What kind of relationship does Robyn have with the F.B.I?” I asked.
FIFTY TWO
Alice’s Journal
The next day, Robyn visited.
“Good news,” she said. “Special agent-in-charge Jackson has agreed if the wedding goes ahead within forty eight hours then the F.B.I. will allow the ceremony to proceed without interference.”
“Forty eight hours?”
She nodded.
“Is that enough time?” I asked.
“It will have to be,” Robyn said. “That’s the best deal I could broker. And then Michael will have to hand himself over at the F.B.I. field office in Kimberley Falls.”
“I haven’t even got a dress,” I said.
Mai smiled. “That’s my department,” she said and dialed her phone.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“During emergency times like these, there is only one solution,” Mai Ling said.
“And that is?”
“The Wilson sisters.”
I swallowed hard at the memory of the treatment nightmare I received at the hands of the Wilsons.
I called Michael and explained the F.B.I’s offer. He agreed, though I swear the reluctance in his voice was palpable.
“I know,” I said understanding his anguish. “Remember you can always sell the ring to pay for an army of lawyers.”
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s yours for life. Besides I’ve got a plan.”
My stomach back flipped. “What exactly?”
“Trust me,” he said. “See you at the altar tomorrow at twelve.”
“Tomorrow?” I said.
He hung up.
I turned to Mai. “Forget forty eight hours. We have less than half that.”
Mai hit speed dial. “Drop everything. Emergency,” she whispered into her cell phone and hung up.
Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang and Charity and Virtue came in carrying a multitude of silver boxes.
“Where’s the patient?” Charity asked.
For the rest of the day I was technically pampered to excess. If by excess you mean scrubbed and exfoliated to the bone and subjected to every beauty treatment currently registered under the United Nations torture and mistreatment agenda. I slept in micro bursts throughout the night during brief pain free moments.
When I was allowed to use my fingers I searched frantically across the Internet for any emergency wedding dress distributors until Charity and Virtue banned me from using my hands.
At seven the next morning Charity and Virtue declared I was ready. I had to admit they had transformed plain me and I looked amazing. The only problem was I didn’t have a wedding dress.
Mai found me staring at the stranger in the mirror.
“Follow me,” she said with a glint in her eyes.
By now I was so used to the role of compliant beauty treatment zombie I would have jumped out of the window if she’d suggested it would make me look better for the ceremony.
Mai led me to the living room where Charity and Virtue stood in awe around a tailor’s dummy. The dummy wore a dress. But not just any dress.
The A-line cap sleeve lace and silk ball gown dress was so exquisite I felt tears well up. Charity and Virtue leapt at me with tissues and held them under my eyes. Refusing to take them away.
“Just arrived from Paris,” Mai said. “It should be a perfect fit.”
“But how?”
Charity rolled her eyes. “You’ve not quite got the hang of the fact your fiancée is a billionaire have you?” Charity asked.
I felt faint and swooned.
Mai caught me.
“Not eaten for a day have you?”
“It’s not just that,” I said.
Mai’s eyes widened. “You’re not?”
“Of course she is,” Charity said. “Why else the rush to get hitched?”
“That’s not the reason,” I said. “But yes... I am.”
Mai hugged me tight. Or as tight as Charity and Virtue would allow her without smudging my makeup.
They proceeded to choose my underwear. White lace and silk. And made me stand like a shop dummy as they rolled white silk stockings up my legs and hooked them to a garter belt along my waist.
Robyn arrived. “You’re missing something,” she said. She presented me with two flat velvet boxes.
The first contained a tiny silver hand gun. When I saw it I shot her a questioning look.
“I’ve heard of shotgun weddings,” I said, “but this?”
“Michael sent it,” she said. “It fits inside a leg garter against your thigh.”
I opened the other box. A platinum necklace with twenty four deep blue sapphires. Each nestled in a bed of diamonds.
Charity almost fainted. Virtue caught her. They both drooled and stuck tissues under their tear-filled eyes.
Charity looked at me in awe. “Does he have a brother?”
I laughed. “Not that I know of.”
Then it hit me. How much did I know about the man I was going to marry? I ran out of the room and back to my bedroom.
Mai followed. “Last minute panic attack?”
“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”
“Depends who you’re asking,” she said. “The Wilsons think you’re some kind of secret sex goddess slash sorceress to land Michael.”
I laughed.
“Just plain, stupid, stubborn me.” I said. “Who am I to force Michael to marry me?”
“I get the feeling he knows what he’s doing?”
“But that dress is fit for a princess,” I said. “Not a farm girl.”
“What’s really bothering you?”
“Mai, after the wedding they’ll come for him,” I cried. “I may not see him again for years. Our child might never know his father.”
She stroked my shoulders gently.
“Have faith,” she said. “Now lucky lady, it’s time to get you in that amazing dress.”
The doorbell rang. Emily had arrived. She seemed more like her breezy self. Her eyes were free of the drugs her kidnappers had forced her to take.
She joined me in my bedroom. Her bridesmaid dress was exquisite. I would have been happy to have worn it as a wedding dress.
Emily cleared her throat. “Before we set off I just want to say you look amazing and that I’m sure Mom would approve of Michael. She’s proud of everything you’ve done, Alice.”
I grabbed more tissues. “Don’t make me cry or the Wilsons will pounce.”
We laughed.
“So what’s next for you, Emily?” I asked.
She sighed, “I just want some excitement.”
“I would have thought you had enough of that to last a lifetime.”
“That’s just it,” she said wistfully. “The kidnap was terrible of course. But in its way it opened my eyes to a whole way of life I couldn’t ever have dreamed of. Romance. Intrigue. Thrills. More romance. Danger. And not forgetting endless hot sex.”
“Oh no...”
“What?”
“I know that look and just no. No. And if that’s not clear. No.”
“You haven’t even heard what I want.”
“I’m telling Robyn not to hire you under any circumstances.”
“Of course you’re right,” she said with that way of avoiding my eyes I knew all too well.
She helped me into the dress.
“Ready?” she asked.
“No way,” I said. “I’m terrified.”
“Me too and I’m not the one getting married. But it’s the right thing you’re doing.”
“I know.”
We hugged.
Robyn, Charity, Virtue and Mai were all identically dressed as I joined them in the living room.
Charity opened a bottle of champagne and poured five glas
ses.
“I can’t,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s alcohol free champagne. Apparently your fiancée owns the company and flew a crate of it in overnight from France. It’s actually illegal in France.”
We all laughed and drank.
“Before we go,” Robyn said. “I just want to say congratulations to the best agent Sorority Eyes has ever had. Alice, you deserve all the happiness.”
That was all I needed. Charity and Virtue leapt at me with a box of tissues.
FIFTY THREE
Alice’s Journal
A limousine awaited us and took us to the Kimberley university church. A five minute journey across campus.
The driver pulled up to make way for a hearse as it left the church.
“What’s going on?” Emily asked.
“There’s a funeral due to take place after your wedding, ma’am,” he said.
In more ways than one.
Once inside and I saw Michael looking dashing in his suit as he stood at the end of the aisle. The entire ceremony rushed by in a blur.
I remember Michael looking at me as if I was an angel from heaven.
The hymns were sung by a choir consisting of the cast of Michael’s favorite opera company. The vows were exchanged as Michael held my trembling hand.
All I could think of was that agents of the F.B.I. were stationed at key exits throughout the church. Ready to escort my new husband away.
It was the happiest and saddest day of my life.
We kissed as man and wife and it was the most glorious, bittersweet kiss of my life.
Before I knew what was happening the priest declared we were man and wife. Everyone applauded.
The priest led us to a small alcove at the back of the church where we had to sign the marriage registry.
A pair of wooden coffins lay on a table.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The only way I could get the church today was to except a double booking with a funeral,” Michael said.
I blinked hard. “Really?” I asked. “How romantic of you.”
He laughed. “No, not really.”
Then he shocked me by flipping up the lid of one of the coffins.
“What the Hell, Michael?”
The first coffin was empty. “Get in.”
I shot him a look that clearly said he was crazy.
“Explain now, Mister,” I hissed, “or I’ll file for the world record in quickie divorces.”
Sorority Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 2) Page 15