Leo stood and tugged at her elbow to help her up—and to get her away from Jack. “You heard her, Mayor. Let’s do this.”
A minute later, Leo was standing next to Tessa in front of the big palladium window that overlooked their hometown. As Jack dug up the words to the ceremony on his phone, Leo looked down on Main Street. The candle factory. The florist. The hardware store. The year-round Christmas shop. The art gallery, the antique stores, and the craft brewery. The green fields and rolling hills and the steeple in the distance. The sights of his growing up.
He really hadn’t spent much time imagining himself marrying. Maybe in New York, at a big venue. But even then, he never dwelled on it, figuring that, if it ever happened, it would occur at least a decade down the line.
Never in a million years had he imagined that he’d be here, in Jack’s office, in his tiny hometown, with a woman he barely knew. Who, despite her expert use of biting sarcasm, was trembling at his side.
“Do you have a ring?” Jack asked with a heavy sigh. “You’d better have a ring.”
“I have a ring,” Leo said calmly. He hadn’t thought of flowers, but he wasn’t a total newb.
Tessa’s gaze darted over to his. He forced himself to give her an I-got-this-covered kind of smile. Because one look in her eyes told him his Ice Princess was freaking the heck out. He’d never seen her like this before—pale, clammy, sweating. Vulnerable.
Suddenly, she disengaged her elbow from his. One glance revealed her suddenly puce complexion. “Excuse me, I—” Covering her mouth, she bolted from the room.
Leo moved to follow her, but Jack held him back. “Give her a minute.” Being the new mayor was making him entirely too bossy. Jack still hadn’t let go of his arm. “Tell me what’s going on right now, or I’m not doing this.”
Leo sighed and met his friend’s concerned gaze. “This is the only way we can save our businesses.”
Jack shook his head. “Leo, this is diabolical, even for you.”
“Look, I—I know you want a better explanation, but I just need you to trust me on this.” He looked his friend in the eye. “It’s a marriage in name only. And you know me well enough that I wouldn’t do something like this lightly, right?”
“Right, but there’s got to be a better—”
“There is no other way.” He shook himself free. “I’d like you to marry us, but if you won’t, we’ll just go someplace else.”
Then Leo ran down the hall to the ladies’ room.
…
Tessa hugged the porcelain bowl, her stomach churning violently. She unwound a long tail of toilet paper and wiped her tearing eyes as she knelt on the old-fashioned pink and white tile on the ladies’ room floor.
At least I have a few minutes to be alone, she thought as she took in deep gulps of air to steady her spinning head.
This is no big deal, she told herself.
This wasn’t really a marriage. It would all be worth it in the end. It was just for a couple of months.
As soon as she ran out of positive affirmations, she heard the door squeak open.
“Are you all right?” Leo’s voice was full of concern.
Yes, he was tenacious, if she didn’t know that already, but he’d followed her here? If the women’s restroom wasn’t safe, what was?
“I’m…okay,” she managed, blowing her nose and rocking back on her shoes. “I’ll be out in a second.”
Except she wasn’t okay. She was freaking the hell out.
What had she been thinking, dressing up for this, like it was a real wedding? She should have worn that biker chick T-shirt Juliet had brought her from Daytona a few years back that said Make Love on a Harley. Something badass. Because she was feeling anything but.
She realized Leo was still there, as evidenced by the heavy sigh he’d just expelled. A sigh of impatience? Or one of discomfort at being trapped in the ladies’ room, full of tiny pink and white tiles, little baskets of feminine supplies, and a purple plastic flower arrangement between the sinks?
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, trying not to let her voice shake. “I’m fine. Just go.”
Where was Juliet? She was the worst maid of honor ever. And no, she hadn’t told Leo Juliet was coming. But too bad. She wasn’t going to get married without her sister, even if this was a sham marriage. She needed someone on her side who would support her no matter what. Whose presence would calm her enough that she could go through with this.
Despite all their differences, that was her sister.
“Come out here,” he said insistently but not unkindly. “I have water.”
“I’m fine. Really.” She was not going out there with puffy eyes and streaking mascara looking like Frankenstein’s bride. No. Way.
“Tessa?” he said. She heard him pace back and forth in front of the stall. She wanted to answer him, except for some reason she started to cry. Silently, of course. But she couldn’t seem to stop.
Then Leo said, “I’m coming in.” She heard the thud of his hands hitting the stall door. At the same time, the bathroom door squeaked open again.
“Excuse me, young man,” a woman’s voice said, “but what do you think you’re doing?”
Oh no. Who…?
“Oh, hi,” Leo said. “I’m just talking to my…fiancée.”
“Well, I’m in charge of this restroom, and you need to leave right now.” It was a woman with a gravelly voice, like maybe from smoking cigarettes. “Are you okay in there, honey? If you aren’t, just say the word. The police headquarters is right down the hall.”
“No, ma’am, you don’t understand,” Leo said. “It’s just—hey!”
A scuffling ensued. Was that the sound of Leo being dragged away?
The woman’s voice was more distant now, echoing in the nearly empty restroom. “You can wait for her down the hall on the bench where all the couples sit, if and when she decides to come out and marry you. But until then, you need to get your butt out of here, pretty boy.”
What on earth was going on out there? Pretty boy?
Tessa scrambled up and opened the door to see a middle-aged woman in a cleaning uniform, holding a large mop like a gun and aiming the head at Leo. Leo—big, tall, broad-shouldered Leo—was cornered between the wall and the sinks, hands up in surrender, a water bottle in one hand.
Being held hostage by a mop. On their wedding day.
Oh dear.
“It’s all right,” Tessa said. “He was…helping me. He’s not dangerous.”