“You need to listen to me. You need to know who I am before you marry me tomorrow. You need to know so you can make the right decision and whatever that is, I’ll –”
“I know who you are, Nate. You showed me Monday night, remember?”
He closed his eyes but not before (she could swear) she saw that familiar aching pain slice through them. He dropped his forehead to hers then opened them again and he admitted, his voice harsh but not with anger, with emotion, “I was trying to push you away. I thought it was the right thing to do but when you heard Georgia, your voice, Christ, Lily, your voice. I can’t get it out of my head. I was out with her parents, they’ve been family friends for years. She wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Lily shook her head and tried to pull free of his hands. This didn’t work so she stood her ground and glared at him, now it was her shields that were impenetrable or, at least, she told herself that, she’d clean these particular wounds later.
“Lily, my mother was –” he started.
“Stop it!” she shouted and with superhuman effort yanked her face from his hands and took a step back. She was beyond caring who was in the house. She had to get out of there. She had to get out of there and away from Nate as soon as she could. She never thought she would feel she needed to be away from Nate but at that moment she needed it more than breath.
“I don’t care anymore, Nate,” she lied, caring more than anything but getting very good at lying with all the practice she’d had recently.
His eyes narrowed. Of course, he saw through her and she knew he didn’t believe her but he kept his distance though the distance between them wasn’t much, she was thankful for it.
“The time to tell me was eight years ago,” she informed him. “I don’t care anymore. I get it Nate. I understand. I’m just the plain, silly, hillbilly girl who got infatuated with who she thought was her romantic hero.” At that, Lily laughed, the acid resentment in the sound causing Nate’s controlled features to wince and he moved toward her again but she quickly retreated, lifting her hand to keep him at bay. His eyes dropped to her hand and he halted.
He opened his mouth to speak but Lily got there first.
“I was so stupid to think you’d want me.” She pointed at the both of them in turn. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. You, the dashing, brilliant, wealthy, impossibly handsome, unbearably handsome hero wanting silly old me. The nobody Lily Jacobs. Fat, stupid, ugly Lily Jacobs.” She swallowed her laughter this time on a tear clogged gulp, not even knowing what she was saying anymore, her eyes shimmering with tears she refused to shed and therefore she missed Nate’s stunned look of disbelief and she continued. “Who you are now is the father of my daughter. That’s it. The end. You need to keep up the pretence and find somewhere to stay tonight and you’re taking Tash and Fazire with you. This is so you don’t see me before the wedding. Bad luck.” She did chuckle at that, again completely without humour. Then she finished with, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she said this with finality, this time her tone brooked no response.
She turned her back on him, opened the door and fled as fast as her feet would carry her (which wasn’t very fast seeing as, for confidence-building purposes, she’d put on a pair of fancy, strappy, hot pink, high-heeled sandals with a big flower at the toe to go with her fancy, body-skimming, hot pink sundress).
Nate did not follow.
It was her turn to leave a note to Tash, saying she had to get to work early.
Then she got in her fancy new Mercedes and drove. She didn’t go to work, not until it was time, she simply drove and drove. Blanking her mind and installing armour around her already frozen heart.
* * * * *
Now she was back at home, waiting for Nate to come and pick up Tash and Fazire. Steeling herself to spend a jolly night with Laura and Maxie, celebrating her last night of freedom before the big day. They’d planned champagne and an orgy of food and Maxine had brought CDs to which later they would dance drunkenly as Lily and Maxine and often Fazire had done in the past.
Lily was so far beyond celebrations with champagne and dancing, it wasn’t funny.
In fact, she wasn’t certain she’d ever laugh again.
The door flew open and Fazire crashed their not-yet-started party.
“Lily-child, I must speak to you now,” he commanded grandly.
Lily’s eyes went to the window and she saw Nate angling out of his Aston Martin and she immediately understood Fazire’s imperious and slightly panicked demand.
She felt the familiar thrill race through her at the sight of Nate as she watched him move gracefully toward the house but she tamped it down and looked back to Fazire.
“Not now, Fazire, we’re in the middle of a bachelorette party.” This, too, was a lie.
Fazire looked from Lily, to Laura, to Maxine, to the champagne that lay in its ice bucket unopened, the glasses unfilled sitting around it. Then his eyes went back to Lily.
“I will not be denied. My room. Now.” Then he stomped out and she knew he very much wanted to float and a little bit of her deep down inside felt badly for him.
Lily got up and followed him then at the door, she closed it and turned back to Maxine and Laura.
Maxine knew the consequences of disobeying Fazire and her mouth dropped open in horror. Laura, who didn’t know, still looked a little frightened.
“Sweetling, you should go with him,” Maxie urged.
“No,” Lily answered.
Maxine and Laura looked at each other again.
“Daddeeeee.” They heard Tash’s joyful shout in the hall.
Lily went straight to the champagne and started preparations to open it, deciding that getting drunk, very drunk and soon, was the best possible course of action at this juncture.
Again, Maxine and Laura looked horrified as Lily ignored her imminent and supposedly beloved beyond reason husband’s arrival to the beautiful abode one that he’d provided for her, doing five years of work at Lily’s pace in two months and far better than Lily could have managed or afforded.
“Aren’t you, erm…” Laura said hesitantly, “going to greet Nathaniel?”
“He knows where to find me,” Lily stated with deep and false unconcern and then popped the cork just as the door flew open again.
“Yipeeeeeeeee!” Natasha shouted and ran across the room. “Can I have some champagne, Mummy? Please, please, please!”
Nate entered the room behind his daughter and Lily ignored him too.
Mrs. Gunderson sauntered in, jumped up next to Maxine and settled in for the show.
“Ask your father, doll baby, he might have something special planned for you tonight.” Finally, Lily’s eyes met Nate’s. “And he wouldn’t want to be delayed,” she finished with ill-concealed meaning that Nate was expected to come and quickly go.
Maxine and Laura’s heads swung to look at Nate as did Mrs. Gunderson’s, tale twitching expectantly. He was standing in his expensive, superbly cut, dark grey suit looking impossibly, unbearably handsome.
Tash ran to him and threw her arms around his hips, tilting half her body back and she cried, “Can I Daddy? Please, please, please!”
Lily watched as Nate’s hand settled on the crown of his daughter’s head and then slid down to stroke her cheek gently, all the while he looked down at her with a soft expression on his face. She steeled herself, too, against the warm rush that the sight made her feel.
She hadn’t seen him since she ran out on her tirade this morning. She also hadn’t heard from him and she didn’t care. This, also, was a lie, now she was lying to herself and she didn’t mind one whit (that, too, was a lie).
His head lifted and his eyes locked on Lily’s, or more to the point, skewered her to the spot.
“Of course you can have some champagne,” he said to Tash and Lily noted the intensity of his eyes but also that they were impossible to read. All she saw was that they weren’t blank or detached but burning.
Laura and Maxine (and Mrs. Gunderson) swu
ng their gazes back to Lily.
“Of course!” Lily exclaimed, too loudly. “We’ll all have champagne. What a splendid, idea, Nate. You of all people know we have so much to celebrate,” she finished cattily and the ugliness felt foreign on her tongue.
Laura, Maxine and Gunny swung their eyes back to Nate but before he could respond, Fazire stormed in. He glanced at Nate, gave him a nod then he looked back to Lily.
“I thought I told you we were speaking in my room,” he snapped.
“Fazire, just in time,” Lily said, clapping with mock-delight, “we’re all having champagne before you and Nate and Tash go to Bath. It’s Nate’s idea. Isn’t he the bomb?”
Fazire blinked at her and Tash giggled, her daughter failing to read her mother’s sarcasm although everyone else certainly didn’t. Fazire’s gaze, too, went back to Nate.
Lily ignored everyone and extended her hand to her daughter. “Come on, Tash. Let’s get extra glasses.”
Tash skipped to her and her small hand closed around Lily’s and for the first time that day, Lily felt a modicum of comfort.
No matter what her life would bring, no matter what new horrors, she’d always have Tash and now Tash would have everything – a family, grandparents, a stable home (in a way) that was plush and posh, trust funds, horseback riding lessons.
Everything.
Yes, Lily decided, she would live for that.
And on that thought, her face softened and she gave her daughter one of her genuine, quirky smiles and she was so wrapped up in her misery, she had absolutely no idea the effect her smile had on the room particularly one of its inhabitants, the impossibly handsome one.
“Just a sip, my baby girl,” she warned as she and her daughter made to leave the room.
“Okay.” Tash was thrilled to have the decadent treat and was smart enough not to push it.
They met Victor on their way to the kitchen, he was on the ascent from the study. His eyes on Lily were kind and very, very worried.
“We’re having champagne in the sitting room before you all go to Bath,” Lily announced breezily as she walked right by him.
“Lily, can we have a quiet moment?”
“Nope. Champagne then you’re off. Not much time for chats,” Lily answered with a dazzling, false smile thrown over her shoulder.
Then she nearly ran to the kitchen and tried to pretend she didn’t see Victor’s face fall.
They had champagne and Lily felt acutely, even though, thankfully, it appeared Tash did not, the tension in the room. Everyone toasted Nate and Lily’s future. They all tried to be cheerful. Then, champagne drunk, Nate and Victor loaded the cars, Tash going to the Aston Martin and Fazire to Victor’s Jaguar.
Lily trailed behind Tash and Nate. She gave her daughter a hug and kiss and settled her into the car. Slamming the door with a wave and a blown kiss, she turned and nearly collided with Nate. Before she knew what he was about, his arm was around her, he stepped back, dragging her with him, one step, two, three until they were away from the car but still in eyesight of everyone and everyone was watching. Then his other arm went around her, he positioned them so his back was to their audience and Lily was shielded, shielded from everyone but Tash.
Then he kissed her.
It was a real kiss, not false, not fake, not demanding and greedy, a real Nate Kiss that took her breath away.
When he lifted his head, his eyes bore into hers, their intensity rooting her to the spot.
“You’ll be there tomorrow?” It was a question.
“Of course,” she answered automatically.
“No matter what, you’ll be there tomorrow?”
She was still trying to recover from the kiss but she thought she could hear fear in his tone. This, she told herself, had to be the champagne even though she’d only had one glass. She had no idea where he was going with this. His mood swings were enough to make her dizzy if his kiss hadn’t already done that.
“Yes, Nate,” she replied, digging deep and finding her shields, she threw them up, she did it on purpose and with grave determination. “I would never, ever, disappoint my daughter.”
His eyes flashed but instead of letting her go, getting angry or speaking, he kissed her again. This was a real, real Nate kiss, open-mouthed and branding, a kiss the like he’d barely ever given her in front of Tash, much less when their daughter was only three feet away and likely watching, avidly.
When his head came up this time, Lily was leaning into him for support.
“Lily –” he started, but he stopped.
She blinked at him, her recovery from the last kiss taking a wee, bit longer.
“What?” she breathed when he didn’t go on.
“Tomorrow we begin…” he said and Lily stared, not knowing what he was on about, then he finished, “again.”
With that, he let her go. She almost staggered at the loss of his strong support but caught herself. She turned and watched him get in the car and she waved dazedly as he drove her daughter away, Victor and the scowling Fazire following them.
Maxine and Laura came up on either side of her.
“Lily, I think it’s time that I –” Laura said.
“Party! It’s time to party!” Lily cried and then, without caring what they thought, she ran into the house.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nate
They had rooms at the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath.
Nate had taken them out to dinner and then walked his exuberant, excited daughter through the opulent Georgian city with a quiet Fazire and Victor following them. Back in their rooms, Nate let Tash read to him before she went to sleep in one of the two bedrooms in their suite. This was not an easy task, considering her anticipation for the festivities of the next day.
Through this all, he’d kept tight control on his thoughts and put up with Fazire, who he knew was barely containing his desire to make some grand statement, and his father, who was also barely containing his desire to have a heartfelt talk with his son.
Nate was coasting on pure, adrenalin-fuelled fear.
He hadn’t felt fear since he was a young boy. But he remembered what it felt like, though fear of a pummelling from one of his mother’s drug-addled lovers was nothing to the gut-twisting fear he had of losing Lily.
Again.
His insane, misguided, absurd decision to show her who he was in his unique, obscene way, to hold her guarded against her own loving heart, had been the most extraordinary mistake he’d made in his life.
And he remembered each one he’d ever made.
Vividly.
And he’d thought the last one, not following Lily to Indiana when her neighbour had told him she’d gone home, was bad enough.
This one had been worse. This time he didn’t have Danielle and Jeffrey to blame. This time he’d broken her all on his own.
The glass of vodka he was holding snapped in his hand, he felt the shards tear through his flesh and watched, removed, as the blood formed, dripping mingled with vodka, to the carpet.
As he was watching, detached, as he bled there came a knock at the door. This was a strong knock but it was quickly followed by an overbearing one or, more aptly described, an overbearing succession of knocks.
His father and Fazire.
Nate took out his handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand. Ignoring the glass, vodka and blood on the floor, he went to answer the door. Both men stood outside. Victor’s face was grave. Fazire’s, Nate registered in a distracted way, was the same. Fazire was also holding a photo album.
“We need to talk,” Victor announced.
Without hesitation, Nate nodded and stepped aside. Fazire and Victor shared a surprised glance, clearly thinking they’d meet resistance.
Nate was beyond resistance, he didn’t have the energy for it. He left them at the door, walked into the sitting room and lowered himself onto a settee.
“What have you done to your hand?” Victor asked in alarm and Nate watched as his father checked hi
mself from rushing forward.
“Broken glass.” Nate calmly motioned to the glass on the floor and didn’t explain further. He didn’t need to.
Both Fazire and Victor stared at the glass then stared at each other again. Victor closed the door; they walked forward in unison and sat opposite him.
“Is everything all right between you and Lily?” Victor asked and at his question, Nate threw back his head and laughed. It was much like Lily’s laugh that morning, stronger but just as mirthless and bitter.
When he was done, he levelled his dark gaze on his father and saw Victor had gone pale.
“No,” he replied honestly.
“I didn’t think so,” Victor murmured, showing, to Nate’s surprise, that he didn’t know what to do next.
Fazire wasn’t so uncertain. Lily’s bizarre friend slammed the album on the table between them.
“It’s time,” he announced.
“Fazire –” Victor put in.
Fazire’s gaze swung haughtily to his compatriot. “It’s time,” Fazire insisted.
Victor leaned back and looked at Nate. “Son, steel yourself,” he warned in a dire tone.
Nothing, Nate thought, could penetrate the fear of what tomorrow would bring, not even Fazire.
Again, Nate was wrong.
Fazire started talking and Nate turned his eyes to the outlandish man. “Many years ago, a man bought my bottle –”
“Your bottle?” Nate interrupted.
Fazire’s hand came up. “Do not interrupt me, Nathaniel.”
Nate looked at Victor then shrugged. Best to get this over with so he could make himself another drink, then another, then another until he was drunk enough to sleep and so that he could be hungover enough for tomorrow, when Lily came to her senses, he would have something else to think about when she left him at the proverbial altar.
“As I was saying,” Fazire continued, “a man bought my bottle and sent it to a woman, his wife. She lived in Indiana and she became my friend. Her name was Sarah…”
Then, for half an hour, Fazire talked. He told Nate he was a genie. He told Nate about Lily’s parents, Becky and Will. He told Nate about baseball games and lying in innertubes, floating hot summer days away on a pond. He told Nate he’d actually created Lily. Then he’d opened the photo album and showed Nate what Fazire called his “greatest mistake”.