“Married up until just a few weeks ago,” I mutter. “I’m not obligated to keep her dirty secrets for her.”
“No, but you don’t need to bring them up and cause problems right before the couple’s very expensive wedding while she’s six months pregnant.”
“Again, not my problem,” I seethe. “In fact, I didn’t want to be invited, much less made a ‘substitute bridesmaid’! It’s insulting and embarrassing, which is exactly what Ellie intended to prove she’s better than me!” Even as kids she always had to get her way and was constantly trying to one-up me on everything.
“Then why did you come, sweetheart?”
“Because I couldn’t not come!” I exclaim.
“Calm down,” my mother hisses. “You’re here now, and you need to apologize to Ellie and Barry to try and make things right. Assure them that you aren’t going to air any of their dirty laundry this weekend and you’re not trying to wreck the wedding.”
“I think their dirty laundry went public when he cheated on his girlfriend while she was in the hospital, having surgery and battling cancer.”
“It’s time for you to forgive them,” my mom tells me. “If you ask me, and you better not repeat this to anyone, but Ellie did you a favor by ridding you of that chubby, cheating bastard.”
“I know that now,” I agree. “At the time when it all happened, not so much.”
“What about her ex? Is he going to cause problems?”
“No,” I assure her. “I’m almost certain he doesn’t want anything to do with her.”
“Let’s hope not,” Mom mutters. “Now, go find Ellie and say how sorry you are before this causes an even bigger rift in the family. Lorraine is all the family I have left, and I don’t want to lose her. Ellie should still be in the ballroom getting everything set up for tonight.”
“Okay,” I sullenly agree, even though facing Ellie is the last thing I want to do.
I trudge down the winding hallway, checking every ballroom as I go until I find the one with a dozen uniformed workers, sweating, looking grumpy yet still buzzing around, carrying chairs, pushing tables, etcetera, like worker bees for their queen.
When I finally spot her across the room, she’s not yelling out directions but talking to Nash, the two going toe to toe as they argue. And I would have to be blind to not see how good they look together and not have a heart to feel jealous of the fact that he was once married to her.
What are they talking about so heatedly? Is Nash telling Ellie he wants her back? Is he saying he still loves her even though he also hates her?
Whatever it is, neither of them look very happy. When Nash runs his fingers through his hair in aggravation, he glances around at the people working and his gaze lands on me.
Without breaking eye contact, I watch as his lips barely move like he’s muttering something to Ellie before he starts walking over toward me.
“Hey,” he says when he’s only a few feet away.
“Hey,” I reply. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just coming to apologize to Ellie.”
“For what?” Nash asks when he’s close enough to touch. “You don’t owe her or anyone else an apology.”
“My mother disagrees,” I grumble. “Give me a few minutes, and then I’ll go pack up my things so we can leave.”
“Leave?” he repeats.
“Yeah. Isn’t that what you wanted to do?”
“It was,” he agrees. “But I’ve changed my mind. I think we should stay.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” he says. “And now I’m going to kiss you again, okay?”
“Ah, what?” I ask, but then Nash’s big, warm hands are cupping either side of my face and his lips are meeting mine for one soft, sweet kiss that somehow manages to nearly make me melt into a puddle of goo.
I blink my eyes up at Nash when he pulls away and then removes his hands from me. “I’m going to get breakfast. See you there in a few?”
“Um, yeah. Okay,” I reply even though I only heard every other word he said over my galloping heart. Something about breakfast?
Long after Nash is gone, I’m still standing there frozen, wondering what the hell just happened. I thought he would still be pissed at me. I’m sure he is, but I guess he’s sticking with the story that we’re an actual couple and not just two broken-hearted fools here to watch their exes marry each other.
The kiss may have been brief, but I’m sure it’s a moment I’ll replay over and over again later like our hot kiss the other day. First things first, I need to suck it up and do what I came to do.
Taking a deep breath, I make my feet get moving, marching over to Ellie, who is staring in my direction, and probably just witnessed Nash kissing me. She’s always been tall, even when we were kids thanks to her father’s genetics that I missed out on. With perfectly smoothed, natural blonde hair flowing down her back and big blue eyes, she’s never anything less than beautiful.
Instead of thinking about it too long, I just blurt out, “I’m sorry if I caused you any additional stress this weekend by bringing Nash. He didn’t know we were coming to your wedding. If he had, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have come with me. But you invited me, and made me your substitute bridesmaid, and he’s my date, so it is what it is.”
Okay, so that wasn’t the greatest apology ever, but it’s the best I could stomach.
“I was just being nice, trying to include you since you’re family. If I had known you were so vindictive, I wouldn’t have invited you or made you a backup anything,” Ellie grits out.
“If I had known you were a snake who screws guys with girlfriends, I would’ve told you to go fuck yourself. Turns out, you did me a huge favor, showing me Barry’s true colors. Cheaters never stop cheating, so good luck with that. Nash, on the other hand, is sweet and gorgeous. He’s the most loyal man I’ve ever met. He would never do anything to hurt me.”
I tried at first to be nice, but there’s no taking the high road with this bitch.
“Nash will never love anyone more than his stupid MC,” Ellie argues, bringing up the club out of the blue. “They’ll always come first.”
God, she is such an oblivious twat.
“The MC is his family. Those men are his brothers. They’ve never let him down or abandoned him, unlike some people. That’s why they’ll always come first for him no matter what. I’ve never had a problem with the club. I get along just fine with Malcolm and the others.”
“Whatever,” she huffs. “Just stay out of my way this weekend and keep your mouth shut, especially when the reverend asks if anyone objects. Do you think you can do that?”
“Absolutely,” I agree. “Barry is all yours and yours alone for the rest of your long, long life.”
She looks a little shocked at that statement, like she’s never considered what marrying him means for the long term. All she’s been thinking about is probably the size of the rock on her hand and the pool full of his gold she can go swimming in.