Page 2 of Accidentally Marrying the Best Man
Okay, fine, so maybe I wanted one particular person to be jealous. Patricia, a paralegal at the firm, is my nemesis. In high school, she was the mean girl who took great delight in making sure I didn’t measure up to her and her friends’ status. They were the cool girls. Invited to all the parties. Dated all the popular guys.
Patricia dated Nick throughout his entire senior year.
Even now, married and supposedly grown up, she enjoys pointing out my inadequacies. The main one apparently being that I’m still single. So yeah, I wanted her to covet my blingy engagement ring.
This entire wedding is pretend, I know that, but I wanted—needed—the story to include that someone wanted to be mine. Wanted to fully be my person, my family.
Suddenly, pressure builds behind my eyes, and my nose itches. I flatten my lips and blink furiously to keep from crying.
Charlotte Rose does not cry when there are problems. She figures out a solution, and fights to make it happen.
Nick crouches in front of me. He touches my knee, and his hand scorches my skin through the wedding dress material. The other pushes up my chin until I meet his eyes. “Hey,” he whispers. “Talk to me.”
The concern I hear in his voice completely undoes me, and I can’t stop the tears from escaping.
Fuck.
This is not happening. I haven’t cried since I was ten and my dad slapped me so hard I fell down the stairs and broke my collarbone. I scrambled to the boys’ grandmother, and she took me to the hospital, holding me tight as I cried out my pain and frustration over the horrible parents I’d been given. She wanted to report my dad, but I knew social services would take me away,and I couldn’t face leaving her—and the boys—so I swore her to secrecy.
Now, I’m mortified for blubbering in front of Nick. Being strong and independent is so ingrained in who I’ve made myself into that it feels like I’m losing my personality.
A handkerchief appears in my field of vision. I grab onto it as if it’s a life jacket and press it against my eyes until the tears stop. And then I have to blow my nose.
The pristine white square of cloth he handed me is now filled with snot and stained by makeup. I stare at the mess and can’t help but think it’s a metaphor for my life.
Looking up to meet Nick’s gaze, I say, “I’m going to have to buy you a new one. Where did you get this one?” I finger the one corner that’s still relatively clean. The material is thick and soft. “Do handkerchiefs have thread count?”
Nick chuckles and stands. I immediately miss the warmth of his hand on my knee. “I have no idea,” he says and drags a chair over so he can sit across from me. “Okay, tell me what’s going on with this wedding. Why did Jay have to beg you and what does it have to do with your job?”
Silence blooms between us as I gather my thoughts. I fiddle with the disgusting handkerchief until Nick takes it from me and throws it across the small room. “Charlotte,” he growls, his voice vibrating inside my chest. My nipples bud into hard knots, and I’m grateful for the thick corset material.
Taking a deep breath, I look up and meet his gaze. “Okay, you know Jay wants to keep the bar and to do so, he has to get married before he turns thirty.”
“I don’t know what grandmother was thinking, trying to rule his life from the grave.”
I smile. “It would be you standing at the altar, if you weren’t five minutes younger.”
The hot emotion I glimpsed before flashes in his eyes, but again, he looks away before I can identify it. “That’s me,” he says. “The young irresponsible brother who never has to do anything hard.” He says it sarcastically, but there’s a bit of an edge to his voice.
I snort. Nick doesn’t have one irresponsible bone in his body. He’s always been the serious brother who takes care of everyone. The one who joined the army as soon as they’d let him enlist, so he could send home money to his grandmother. Jay did the same, but only not to be shown up by his brother. And he couldn’t stand being apart from his twin.
Taking a deep breath, I tell him how Jay and I made a deal that we’d get married but keep it platonic. His grandmother’s will also stipulates that Jay must intend to have children within two years of the wedding. We figured we’d do that via IVF.
When I pause for breath, Nick stares at me for a long moment. “Why the fuck would you get married and not have sex?” he finally asks.
My nose scrunches up automatically. “Gross. Neither of us wants to sleep with the other.”Ugh.
Nick looks out the window, or more like, at the window, clenching his jaw. “But it’s always been him and you. You’ve been together since you were kids.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve never been together. Okay, yeah, we hang out, but we’ve never been together,together.”
His gaze snaps to my face. “Friends only? Always?” he snaps. “Never dated? Never slept together?”
I make a scrunched-up face again. I can’t help it. “Never even kissed.” Why is he harping on about Jay and me having sex together? It’s so gross.
Nick rubs his face with both hands, and then sighs. “Okay, explain what this has to do with your job?”
This is harder to talk about. It’s one thing to get married as a favor to a friend. It’s another, very embarrassing, thing to admit I’m getting hitched for a promotion. “The managing partners at the firm are old school and think married lawyers are better partnership material. They’re voting on who’ll get the one partner seat that is up for grabs in a few weeks and my boss basically told me I had no chance because I’m single.”
