Page 3 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
Fear coils around my heart and squeezes.
The priest says something I can’t hear over the crashing of my heartbeat. It’s all words, words, words, a nonsensical soundtrack underscoring my choking sense of doom as I stare in rising horror at my intended, who so clearly is a breath away from vomiting or fainting.
Or both.
The priest finishes whatever he was saying, then turns to Brad. “Bradley Hamilton Wingate, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
A cavernous silence follows in which Brad stares at me with all the whites of his eyes showing. A vein throbs frantically in his neck. It’s so quiet the clicking and clacking of camera shutters sound like gunfire.
When the silence stretches uncomfortably long, the priest clears his throat. “Son?”
Brad’s mouth works, but no words are forthcoming.
The air goes electric. Whispers and rustling make their way through the guests. A cold bead of sweat trickles down between my shoulder blades. I throw a desperate glance over my shoulder at Jenner, who’s giving Brad a hard, dangerous stare.
Stout and red-faced in his tuxedo, Senator Wingate leans forward from the front row and hisses, “Bradley!”
It seems to break whatever spell Brad is under, because he finally speaks. “I . . . I . . .”
I nod frantically, my head bobbing like a doll’s. Desperation lends my voice a hysterical pitch. “Yes, honey?”
He drags in a huge breath, lets it out in a gust, and—like a dam bursting—starts to babble incoherently. “I can’t do it I just can’t I’m sorry this isn’t happening, Dad . . .” He
turns to his father, who is already rising from the pew. “I can’t do it there’s no way I can marry her!”
With the bellow of an enraged bull, his father charges. He crashes on top of Brad. They go down in a tangle of arms and legs, hitting the marble floor of the altar with a boom that topples a brass candelabrum and draws gasps of astonishment from the crowd.
Three hundred people leap to their feet.
Brad’s mother lets out a pitiful wail.
Cameras click and whirr in glee.
Someone snickers and says under his breath, “So much for Brad’s inheritance.”
Then a piercing, anguished scream that seems to come from everywhere echoes painfully off the walls. It splinters into a thousand smaller screams as it bounces over hard marble surfaces, over and over again, conducted high into the rafters like a flock of shrieking birds startled into flight.
It’s an awful sound. I’ve never heard anything so terrible in my life.
It isn’t until Jenner grabs me and drags me off the altar steps that I realize that horrible scream is coming from me.
TWO
The pictures are catastrophic.
“Well, look on the bright side,” says Jenner from my sofa, where he’s reclining on a pile of pillows and snacking on low-fat chips. “That nose of Satan’s will never be straight again.”
I take little satisfaction that I shattered Brad’s nose with one well-placed punch after I broke away from Jenner’s arms. Blood sprayed from the squealing weasel’s face like a fountain. Even his father looked impressed by my aim.
“Yeah,” I say bitterly. “His nose, my heart. Same mush.”
In the three days since the wedding that wasn’t, I’ve cried constantly, gorged myself on ice cream, smashed all the wedding china, and gone almost hoarse screaming at the walls. What I haven’t done is left my apartment or answered the phone. I’m going to add a ban on the internet, too, because photos of my public humiliation have made their way online.
The pic of me breaking Brad’s nose is a keeper, though. I printed it out and taped it up on the fridge.
I flop over onto my stomach, adjusting the pillow under my chin. I’m lying on the floor in the middle of my living room, where I’ve spent most of the past three days. I can’t stand to be near the bedroom because the bed Brad and I shared leers at me every time I walk by.
It’ll be gone soon, anyway. I can’t afford this place on my own. When the first of the month rolls around, I won’t be moving into the charming Victorian in Ashbury Heights that Brad bought for us. I’ll be moving into the back room of my shop until I can find a studio. Somewhere cheap, out of the city. Preferably underground, so I don’t have to face people.
