She grinned at me and said, “Are you ready to see it?”
I cast a nervous glance at Deja then frowned. “Where’s Holli?”
“She’s waiting back here,” Pia said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “Come on, I can’t wait to show you this.”
The studio was as open plan as it could get, with each designer taking a third of the warehouse floor. Long, rectangular windows lit the bright white space with natural sunlight. In Pia’s corner, an old doctor’s office privacy screen was wheeled center stage, and in front of it sat Holli, in menacing guard mode.
“Nobody peeked, then?” Pia asked, startling her.
Holli jumped up and slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Not a soul. I protected your dress, Sophie. You’re going to be the first to see it. Even if I had to tackle Deja to the floor.”
“Tackle? You make it sound so dramatic. Restrain is the word I would have chosen.” She stood beside my mom and me in front of the screen, and Holli flanked me on the other side.
“Okay, Sophie,” Pia warned. “Here it is.”
I gripped Holli and Deja’s hands and squeezed my eyes shut as Pia rolled the screen away. I heard Deja’s indrawn gasp and blinked my eyes open again. My heart jerked in my chest; I felt my pulse in my eyes.
There it was. The gown I was going to walk down the aisle in. The dress that I would be wearing in the very first moments of my marriage to Neil.
It was unbelievably gorgeous.
Beside me, my mom whispered, “Sophie…is it supposed to be black?”
“Well, she sure as hell can’t wear white, I’ll tell you that for free,” Holli reminded her quietly, and Mom made a disgusted noise and rolled her eyes.
I couldn’t speak. The dress was so beautiful. The bodice was sleek, close fitting tan silk that shimmered like liquid pearl beneath an elaborate black lace overlay that would accentuate my slim waist and give the illusion of a much more generous bust than I actually have. The princess neckline rose into a delicate caplet strap at one shoulder, and the full skirt dripped with layers of scalloped black lace. I walked slowly around it, afraid to touch.
“Let’s try it on?” Pia asked, a note of hope in her tone.
I realized I hadn’t been reacting at all, and that to the outside observer, I might look like I was in the wrong kind of shock. I managed to nod enthusiastically. “This is… It’s…”
I burst out crying, and four sympathetic women rushed to comfort me.
“It’s early days still,” Pia tried to soothe me. “We can make changes.”
“No, no, I’m not crying because—” A hiccup interrupted me. “I’m crying because it’s perfect.”
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to have done the big dress reveal the week I was ovulating. Because hormones.
“Oh my god, she’s going to make me cry,” Pia said quietly.
Holli laughed. “I’ve only ever seen her get this emotional over clothes.”
“Hey, Soph? Maybe you want to try it on, before the designer has a heart attack?” Deja suggested, and I stepped back, carefully wiping my eyes and silently thanking Urban Decay for their astonishingly waterproof makeup.
“Yes, of course.” I laughed through my tears at how absurd it was to cry over a freaking dress.
Pia pulled the screen back in place so I could wriggle out of my jeans and sweater and put on the strapless bra I’d brought.
“Is this the one you’re going to be wearing on the day?” Pia asked.
Huh. I should have thought of that. “No… Can I bring the actual one to the final fitting?”
“Yeah, it should be no problem,” she assured me. She took the dress off the form and helped me into it. Holli had to come around and help, and then, my mom did, too. Between four pairs of hands—because Deja got in on the frantic dressing, too—I somehow ended up buttoned into the most gorgeous gown I would ever wear.
Pia turned me toward a trifold mirror in the corner, and helped me step onto a short platform. It was a little tricky. Oh god. The steps in the Terrace Room.
That fear fled once everyone stood back and I saw myself. I’d tried to fool myself every step of the way that I hadn’t really succumbed to wedding culture. I wasn’t taking Neil’s name, I wasn’t wearing white, no one was walking me down the aisle. That was surely radical enough, right? But it had been getting harder to convince myself that I wasn’t into tradition. Seeing myself in the dress, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I was thrilled as hell that I was going to be a bride.
But I didn’t regret deviating from the traditional color choice, even when Mom said, “I just don’t understand what’s wrong with white.”
“White buys into a purity culture myth that I’d rather not perpetuate,” I said, tilting my head and carefully smoothing my hand over the incredible beadwork on the bodice. “And it washes me out.”
“How does a wedding dress perpetuate anything?” Mom grumbled.
“Your daughter is going to have her pictures in a lot of society pages,” Pia said, frowning and tucking something at the back of the dress. “I need some pins.”
“Society pages?” Mom’s brow furrowed. “Your grandma put an engagement announcement in the Mining Gazette, did you want a copy to use in New York?”
“That’s not what she means, Ms. Scaife.” Deja grabbed a copy of Vanity Fair from atop a low shelf near Pia’s drawing desk. She flipped it open to show her an example. “People in New York society are pretty gossipy. So, stuff like a billionaire’s wedding gets reported on.”
“Emma’s wedding was,” I told her, not that it made the idea any better.
“Really?” Mom made a “huh” face. “I didn’t realize Neil was famous enough that anyone would be interested.”
“He’s not a household name, but people who follow business, publishing, that kind of thing, know who he is. And his ex-wife was really involved in a lot of high profile stuff in the city.” It made me a little sick to my stomach to use the word “ex-wife” while I was standing there in my wedding dress.
Pia knelt at my feet, sticking pins in the hem, and I was looking down at her when Holli said, “And, with that book coming out, people will definitely be interested.”
It’s good that bionic laser eyes aren’t a thing yet. Because I would have fucking incinerated her.
“What book?” Mom asked.
I hoped it wasn’t the weight of the dress that was making the room spin, because that would be inconvenient on the day. “Um, I’ll tell you about it in the car.”
When Pia was done with a few minor tweaks, she helped me out of the dress. I was reluctant to take it off; I wanted my wedding to be today.
Holli snuck behind the screen while I was getting dressed. I heard Deja and my mom talking somewhere else in the studio. Holli’s eyes were more huge than usual. “I. Am. So. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I lied. I didn’t know what I was going to do now. I couldn’t out Neil to my mom, and I wasn’t sure he wanted anyone to know about the book, anyway. I’d just have to do what I could to isolate the damage.
“No, seriously, I feel like such a piece of shit friend, right now.” She stopped herself. “Sorry. I was making that all about me.”
I waved her off. “I’ll just give her a Cliff’s Notes version and tell her to forget about it. She won’t say anything to him.”
Still, my stomach was pitching when we got into the car.
“Thank you, Tony,” Mom said as she slipped into her seat. When he closed the door, she turned to me. “So, what’s this about a book?” Her eyes glittered with excitement. “Are you going to write another one?”
“Uh, no. It’s this other book.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “It’s this really, really shitty thing someone is doing to Neil. One of his exes is writing a book and included some personal details about Neil that are really sensitive.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom clucked her tongue. “That’s just terrible. Is Neil okay?”
“Not at
all. So, please, don’t let him know that you know. We had intended to keep it private for now.”
“Yeah, no trouble.” The concern etched into her face deepened. “It’s not the ex I met at the party, is it?”
“Valerie? No.” I pretended to look at something outside, rather than meet her eyes. “It’s just someone he knew when he was in college.”
“Well, that’s just stupid. Who cares what someone did in college?” Mom’s bracelets clinked, so I knew without looking that she was talking with her hands. “Kids hook up in college, they party—”
“They pick up forty-two-year-old men in airports,” I said, just to get a rise out of her.
She wasn’t having it. “Sophie Anne.”
“No regrets!” I punched the air over my head, but ended up punching the roof of the car instead. I whimpered and shook my hand out.
“Serves you right,” Mom grumbled.
“So,” I began, smoothly moving past the subject of the book. “What do you think of the dress?”
“I think it probably costs as much as a house back home,” she said then followed immediately with, “And I think you’ll look gorgeous.”
I sighed happily and settled back against the seat.
“I just hope Neil doesn’t think you’re planning to repurpose it for his funeral,” she said, and snorted.
“Are you cracking on Neil for being old?” That was a sign of affection in my family. It warmed my heart now. I grabbed my phone and opened my notes app.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked, leaning toward me with a suspicious arch of her brow.
“I’m writing it down,” I said, my tongue darting to the corner of my mouth. “Because I can’t wait to tell Neil that you made a snark out of love, but I have to save it until after he’s seen the dress.”
* * * *
When we got home, Neil wasn’t around. Granted, our house is big enough that he might have been around somewhere and I just hadn’t run into him yet, but he wasn’t in any of his usual hangouts. I called Tony’s phone.
“Try the garage,” he suggested. “Do you want a ride out there?”
“No, I think I’ve got it.” It would be a tad spoiled of me to have our driver ferry me around the property. I bundled back up in my coat and hurried down the driveway, turning where it forked, trying not to slip and bust my ass in my form-over-function leather boots.
Neil’s garage is really more like an airplane hangar. Inside, rows of cars with names that were familiar to me—Maserati, Lamborghini, Ferrari—and names that weren’t—Pagoni, Bugatti, Zenvo—shined, their paint like wet candy under the glaring lights. My footsteps echoed off the polished concrete. The sensitive acoustics of the room helped me locate Neil by the sound of a socket wrench turning. I found him kneeling, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, beside one of his Aston Martins. He didn’t look up when I leaned against the car and looked down at him.
“Hey, I was looking for you. You weren’t answering your phone.” I lifted my gaze and saw that phone lying on the floor, not fifteen feet from him. “Do you have your ringer turned off?”
He didn’t answer. Maybe he was really concentrating, or something?
“I’m sorry, am I bothering you?” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Something wasn’t right. Neil never just stopped speaking to me. I didn’t think he had ever been that angry with me.
He dropped the wrench and sat back on his heels. His throat moved as he swallowed before he said, “I read it.”
My heart plummeted. “Is that why you wanted to be alone today?”
“No. I had therapy. That wasn’t a lie.” He still hadn’t met my eyes, and the uncharacteristic timid note in his voice alarmed me far more than any smashed wine bottle ever could.
I didn’t know what to ask him that wouldn’t be massively intrusive, so I settled for, “Is there anything you’d like to tell me about it?”
“No!” he barked emphatically, whipping his gaze to me finally. “Sophie, I need you to do something for me.”
His expression was so desperate and pleading that a chill crawled up my spine. I just barely nodded, frozen in my shock. “Sure.”
“I need you to tell Emma.”
I swallowed. When had my throat gotten so dry? “Um, tell her…”
“Tell her what happened. No details, please.” He hung his head in misplaced shame that only intensified my anger at the bastard who’d done this to him. “Please. Just tell her the truth, without being descriptive, and tell her not to read the book.”
“Don’t you think Valerie should tell her? It might be better coming from her mother.”
“I don’t want Valerie to talk about this with her. I don’t want Valerie to talk about it at all.” He picked up the socket wrench again and weighed it against his palm then leaned forward as though he would go back to work. He didn’t, though. He just sat there. “She told Elizabeth, only a few weeks after I proposed to her, about what had happened between Stephen and me.”
I’d already known that; Emma had mentioned it once before. As far as Neil and I were aware, Emma thought her dad was straight. Though Neil was a liberal guy, he was incongruously conservative when it came to his daughter, and he’d been careful to hide his sexuality from her. So, Emma just believed that her mother had done something really awful to try to sabotage her father’s relationship.
That wasn’t why she told. That wasn’t why, at all. An uncomfortably bright light bulb went off in my head. It had been disgusting of Valerie to out Neil to his fiancée. There was no excuse for her actions. But evil intentions didn’t ring true, even with everything I knew about Valerie, and what she’d done to try to split Neil and I up.
But that wasn’t the fire that needed putting out, right now. Neil wanted me to speak to Emma about this? I was so much more comfortable around her than I had been in the past, but she was still Neil’s daughter. How was she going to take the news that her uncle had done something so vile to her father?
“Yeah. I’ll tell her, no problem,” I said, because I had to. Neil needed me. It was as simple as that.
“There’s something else.” He visibly struggled to contain his emotion. He managed, but just barely. “This… Do you think it will change me, in Emma’s eyes?”
“No.” I said it without hesitation. “You raised your daughter to be a kind, empathetic human being. If I know Emma, she’s going to be beyond pissed off when I tell her, but not at you.”
“I wish there were some way that I could tell her without telling her. It doesn’t make sense, but…if there were a way for her to know, without ever having to hear it.” Neil had never looked so utterly broken in the entire time I’d known him. If this was the low point, I hoped nothing ever took him lower.
I noticed the bottle from the corner of my eye. It was tucked beside the back wheel of the car, and I wouldn’t have seen it if Neil hadn’t gotten to his feet. Something sharp twisted in my chest. “What’s that?”
The color drained from his face.
“I’m not…” I couldn’t say, “I’m not mad,” without lying. I was mad. Just not at him. “Can I put that away?”
“Yes, please.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his elbow tucked to his side. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just—”
His shoulders slumped and shook, and I went to him. I couldn’t help the tears that sprang to my eyes as I held him. “You’re all right, Neil. This doesn’t mean you’re failing. You messed up one time. Do you know how many burger wrappers I had to hide in the kitchen trash when I was supposedly going vegan with you? You’ve clearly quit doing worse things in your past. You told me about all the coke you did in your twenties and thirties.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a bump, right now,” he said with a little laugh that did not reassure me.
I decided to steer the topic away from drug addiction, into safer territory. “Baby, you made it through leukemia. You can make it through this. There’s definitely going to be less puking
.”
He lifted his face and gave me a weak smile. “Do you realize that you often give me credit for always saying the right thing to you when you’re emotionally down, but you never give yourself credit for providing the same support to me?”
“That’s what makes me the humblest person in all of humanity, worldwide.” I responded to his quizzical pause with, “Also on the space station.”
He went to the bottle and picked it up then brought it to me. He covered my hands with his as I held it. “You’re right. I can get through this.”
As bold and positive a statement as that was, I still had to ask, “Do you have any other bottles stashed around?”
He shook his head. “Not a one.”
I mentally sighed in relief. “Okay. What do you say we go back to the house and snuggle up in front of the fire while it’s still the right season to do so? You can read, and I can waste an hour on Tumblr.”
“All you look at on Tumblr is pornography of men in suits forcing their fingers into the mouths of hot brunettes,” he observed with an arched brow. “I would hardly call that a waste of time.”
“Well, you’re not wrong.” I tilted my head to the side. “I want to make you feel better, but I don’t know exactly how. So, if you need me to do something for you or say something or stop saying things, tell me.”
His expression contorted into one of mock horror. “If you’re going to be the person giving me advice on how to communicate my feelings, I’m clearly worse off than I thought.”
I scowled at him. “Looks like someone doesn’t want to be forcing his fingers into a hot brunette’s mouth tonight.”
Growling playfully, he pulled me to his side, and we tripped over each other on our way down the row of gleaming carbon-fiber machines. There was more I could have said to him, and more that I’d eventually need to say. But, for now, this moment was enough.
The Ex Page 20