Page 109 of Pretend for Me

I puff out a breath. “Okay, so what you’re saying is she has feelings for me and knows I have feelings for her, but she doesn’t know if they’re enough for us to last?”

“Precisely.”

I reel back, annoyed. “Well, this has been fucking enlightening. Thanks for the tarot card reading, asshole. I’d like my money back.”

“Before you have a full-blown billionaire hissy fit,” Hudson says, unruffled. “Let me ask you something. What’s really eating at you?”

What kind of question is that? Has this guy not heard anything I’ve said?

Hudson must see the frustrated look on my face because he clarifies. “What I mean is, at the heart of it, is it the worry that she’ll be a no-show at the wedding? Is it the promise you made your mom to fulfill her wish? Or is it something else?”

I ponder his questions for a long moment. “Look, it would suck to be left at the altar and to see my dying mom’s heart break,” I respond, chest tightening at the thought. “But . . . that’s not really what I’m afraid of anymore. What’s killing me is the thought of losing her. Of not spending the rest of my life with a woman I’m crazy about. I love her more than anyone in the world, and the idea of not being able to show her that every day. . . it’s fucking crushing me.”

Hudson nods. “Then, my friend, I think there’s only one thing for you to do.” He tips his bottle back, draining the last of his beer. “You wait.”

My brows pinch. “That’s your sage advice? To wait?”

“I’m not saying you twiddle your thumbs while you do it,” he clarifies. “I’m saying, give her the space she needs, but show her that your love won’t vanish like she expects. For as long as it takes.”

“And what if she never comes around to it?”

“Then you know you did everything.” He turns to me. “But given that you’ve been the only one to scale her high walls and break her rules, I have a feeling she knows she’s fighting a losing battle. The question is, will she find the courage to surrender?”

thirty-seven

dev

Cue The Record Scratch

“Piper hasn’t arrived yet, sweetheart. Don’t you think you should call her and make sure everything is okay?”

Mom’s anxious voice has my eyes flicking from the cufflinks I’m fumbling with to her. She’s sitting in her wheelchair, wearing a soft pink lace dress that compliments her short and sparse silver hair. A tan-colored shawl is draped over her shoulders, hiding the frailty of her small frame.

I force a smile, even as my chest burns at the sight of hope and concern intermingling on my mother’s face. “I’m sure she’ll be here any minute now, Mom. Don’t worry.”

But the words sit heavy on my tongue because, the truth is, I don’t know if she will.

It’s been an entire week since I’ve heard from my wife-to-be. Radio silence has never been more deafening. And though I was practically crawling out of my skin, I’ve done my best to give her the space she needed.

But was the past week enough time for her to work through her fears? Was it enough time for her to decide she wants something real with me, too?

I suppose the next thirty minutes will be quite telling since I’ll be at the end of the aisle, waiting for her there. Unfortunately,my guess is as good as anyone else’s as to if she’ll actually show.

Dad nods to one of the nurses on standby in the room before looking at Mom. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go wait with the guests? I have a couple of things I’d like to speak to Dev about. I’ll meet you out there in a few minutes.”

Mom looks between the two of us before nodding, allowing the nurse to wheel her out of the room.

When the door shuts behind her, I watch as Dad closes the distance between us, taking the cufflink out of my hand and looping it through the hole at the end of my sleeve.

He keeps his head down, focused on his task, as he speaks. “I wanted to tell you . . .” He gazes up at me. “I thought about what you said to me the last time we spoke.”

I stiffen, expecting a rebuke. Apart from Piper, I haven’t spoken to my dad since that night, either.

“I have been rather one-dimensional—strict and calloused at times—when it came to you. And,” he swallows thickly, stepping back once my cufflinks are looped, “I want to apologize for that.”

I stare at him silently, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard my father apologize to anyone but my mother.

He takes a deep breath. “I fell into a lot of responsibility early on in my life after my dad died. Responsibility for my younger siblings and my mother. I put a lot on myself to make sure no one felt the loss of our dad, at least not financially. And somehow, the continuous pursuit of success got ingrained in my personality. Somewhere between the pressure I placed on myself and the hard-fought success of the company, I lost sight of what was important.”

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