Page 25 of Paper Roses

His gaze whips to mine. His earlier control has gone, and in his eyes is pure pain.

I swallow hard. “Oh, Jed,” I whisper. “I?—”

“I can’t do this.”

“You can’t do what?”

“This.” He gestures at the table and the empty glasses. “I need to go.”

“Go where?” We’re supposed to go to a hotel. I’d booked us a suite at his insistence in case anyone ever checks up on us. He’d joked that it was like being the James Bond of the fake marriage market, but he is not in a joking mood anymore.

“Tell me,” I urge.

He blurts, “I can’t be here with you like this. You’re not Mick and this feels sowrong.”

I abruptly wish he hadn’t told me anything. And that I hadn’t insisted on an explanation. I desperately try to keep the dismay from my face, but I don’t need to worry. He’s looking anywhere but at me, running shaking hands through his hair.

“I need to be somewhere else,” he says.

I tamp down my hurt. I have no right to feel it, after all. “I know,” I whisper. “It’s fine, Jed.” He finally looks at me, his eyes fever bright with pain. “Go,” I say more forcefully.

“I’ll pay for the meal.”

“Never mind that,” I say steadily. “It’s on me.”

He stands quickly, and I watch as he leaves the restaurant in long strides as if he’s running away. Running away from me. And then he’s gone, and I’m left alone with the detritus of our wedding breakfast around me.

My eyes are hot, but I swallow any rising tears and take a deep breath. I finger the paper flower on my lapel. Jed always looks after me, and I need to do the same for him.

I take a sip of my champagne and grimace. It’s flat and warm now, the bubbles long gone. Rather appropriate.

four

. . .

jed

I come down the stairs and then hesitate by the door leading into the agency. I run my hand through my hair and eye the door as if it were a portal to another world. In some ways I wish it were.

I think of yesterday and wince. I was an absolute fucking arsehole to Artie. He’d been so sweet and kind about it, but the fact remains that I left him alone on our wedding day.

Wedding day.

My first wedding was a sun-filled day full of laughter and love fizzing in my veins. I never imagined I’d have another wedding, let alone one so different. I look reluctantly down at the shiny new ring on my finger. I want to take it off and throw it away and pretend none of this is happening.

But I can’t. I’m here because of my own decisions. I conceived the ridiculous plan to marry Artie, and I still don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’m a level-headed man who spent a large portion of his working life upholding the law. And now look at me. Racing around getting fake married so my assistant can cheat his dead stepmother and get his house back.

An image of Artie’s face crosses my mind—the stunned expression he wore when I’d outlined my plot. It had made me smile then, and it makes me smile now. Because I’d felt shocked to hear the words leave my mouth, too. The idea to marry him had erupted forcefully, similar to my desire to make things right in his world.

He’d been so sad and yet valiant when he’d explained the situation to me. I’d wanted to scream at his stepmother, because how could she have had such a wonderful young man in her care and then treated him so badly? How can she not have loved Artie? He’s sweet and so kind and always the first to help anyone.

Yesterday had been his wedding day. It might have been fake, but he deserved better than my behaviour.

Resolved to apologise profusely and make it up to him, I put my hand out to open the door and then freeze as another thought occurs.

The whole agency knows we’re married, and they think we’re in love. I’d expected them to find out, even if I hoped they wouldn’t. They’re a gossipy, clever bunch whose business is weddings, and banns are public information. So, I’d made plans to accommodate them if they turned up, knowing how much they love Artie. But the fact that I’d then have to pretend to be in love had somehow escaped me.

My brain seems to have oozed out of my skull. I don’t recognise myself, with my wild decisions and lack of forward thinking.

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