“I sure hope so, seeing as we’re getting married.”
“He will never love you. He is incapable of it.”
“If I wanted some fatherly advice from a deadbeat dad, I’d call my own father.” My dig is meant for him and all the shit he put his children through.
His jaw clenches. “This isn’t over.”
I offer him a beaming smile as a few guests walk past. “I sure hope not. I thoroughly enjoy watching you make a fool of yourself.”
I leave Declan’s father behind, stewing in the shitstorm he created.
“Your father knows,” is the first thing I say as Declan enters the car.
Harrison, Declan’s chauffeur, shuts the door before entering the private driver’s cabin.
His head tilts. “What do you mean ‘he knows’？”
“Let’s just say he and I had a heart-to-heart after he cornered me near the bathroom.”
His look of disgust mirrors mine. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
I break down the entire conversation, from the assumptions his father made to the way he offered to pay me double to call off the engagement.
Declan remains tight-lipped throughout the whole thing until I finish.
“He has no evidence.”
I twist my hands on my lap. “Doesn’t mean he won’t stop until he finds some.”
“Then we will give everyone a show they so desperately want.”
“But aren’t you worried he might do something irrational?”
His eyes light up with challenge. “I’d like to see him try. There is nothing I’d like more than to tear him down once and for all.”
A shiver skates down my spine. “So what’s our plan then?”
“Our plan?”
I flash my ring finger at him. “This automatically makes you a team player.”
The muscles in his jaw clench. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into with this one.”
“If Cal’s stories are anything to go off of, I think I have a good idea.”
“Whatever Cal told you is a watered-down version of the truth.”
My brows tug together. “What do you mean?”
Declan’s lips smash together, and the silence grows between us as he remains tight-lipped on the matter.
I roll my eyes. “Well, then. While I appreciate your concern, your father doesn’t scare me, so your cautionary tales are a wasted effort.”
“You must have a death wish. There’s no explanation for your irrational behavior.”
I laugh. “Obviously, or else I would have never agreed to marry you.”
4
IRIS
“Y ou’re what?!” Mom’s dark eyes go wide. She clasps her hands together to prevent herself from running them through her spiral curls.
“She said she’s engaged,” Nana replies loudly before slurping on her coffee. Her graying Senegalese twists shift as she readjusts her position on the wicker chair across from me.
“How? Where? To whom? Last time I checked, you said you were single!” The brown skin around my mother’s eyes wrinkles.
“It’s complicated.” Well, that’s one way to put it.
Maybe I wasn’t prepared after all for this kind of conversation the day after my engagement party from hell.
“Well don’t leave us waiting here. I don’t know how long I’ll have on this earth, and with the way you’re stammering, you’ll be hosting a funeral before a wedding,” Nana adds with a serious face. She’s probably the reason I could fake an engagement in front of a room full of strangers for as long as I did.
“There’s not much to plan since I’m eloping.”
“Excuse me?!” Mom’s ragged breathing has my smile falling. “No, you are not. You’re my one and only baby and I will not let you have some wedding in a back room of a courthouse.”
“What’s wrong with that? That’s the way I got married.” Nana actually sounds offended.
“Exactly my point, Mother,” Mom says.
“The location was convenient. I took my newlywed ass to Bourbon Street, and your father and I made a night of it.”
“I’m well aware of the day I was conceived. No need to rehash that story.”
I’m not sure how these two live under the same roof without me mediating anymore. “Do you both want to hear my story or are you more interested in scarring me for life?”
“Story,” they both reply.
I go off, telling them about how Declan and I realized our true feelings during a dangerously turbulent flight to Tokyo. Of how I was crying about dying in a plane crash and how Declan kissed me to make it stop. The hardest part of my lie was saying how I kept our relationship a secret for a year because I wasn’t sure how things would turn out.