“Liv, I have a secret,” I whispered.
Liv lifted her brow. “Oh, yeah? Spill it now, while the alcohol lets you.”
I swallowed hard, trying to stave off the nausea. I slapped my hand on her shoulder, getting very close to her face. “I’m a terrible person.”
Liv rolled her eyes. “Stop it. You are the best person I know.”
I wildly shook my head. “No, no. Seriously. I do not want to marry Keith. Seriously, I don’t want to do it. I’ve never wanted to marry him. I have been trying to save up the courage to tell my father for months…but I couldn’t. Now…it’s too late. I’m destined for boring, rich, asshole handsome guy forever.”
Liv took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of the bed, pushing me back until my head hit the pillow. “I know. I’ve always known, but I don’t know how to help you. Keith doesn’t seem like a bad guy. I think you need to sleep off the alcohol, rethink when you’re sober. It might not be anywhere as bad as you think it's going to be. Who knows? Maybe he really can be your happy place.”
Even in my drunken stupor I knew that her words were because she knew I was in a bad spot but had no real options. I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning, my mind immediately rehashing the same thing I had been rehashing over and over again for eight years. My breakup with Gabriel never left me, but remembering the painful details of that rainy night had worsened as the wedding grew closer.
I gripped Liv’s hand as the alcohol and exhaustion began to take over. I mumbled as I drifted off to sleep, unsure if I was mumbling out loud or in my head. “I’ll…never…. find another Gabriel…”
Gabriel broke me. He broke me eight years before on a rainy summer night. He broke me, and I never recovered from it. The truth was, no matter how great Keith was, or turned out to be, I knew I’d never have a second chance for love, not like I did with Gabriel. I was doomed for a life filled with everything but true love.
Chapter 2
Gabriel
Walking out of the hotel room bathroom, my towel wrapped around my waist, I let the cold air from the air conditioner wash over my post shower body. Steam rolled out into the room behind me. I was thankful that the hotel I was staying at during my wait for the next day’s flights actually had good hot water. During my last experience, the airline had booked me a room at a hotel that was undergoing construction, and somewhere in the short span of my stay, the hot water heater went out.
Lifting my arms up over my head, I stretched, feeling the ache in my back from the long flight I had piloted the day before. I loved flying, but I had been on duty for two weeks straight and needed my own bed, in my own home. Grabbing my sweatpants and hoodie, I threw on some clothes and walked over to the chair in front of the window, sitting down. Breakfast had been brought up to the room right before my shower, and I was more than excited for a break from plane coffee for once. Not that hotel coffee was that much better, but I didn’t have to focus on controls while I was leisurely sipping.
I opened up the lid of the breakfast plate and grabbed a piece of toast, taking a bite. Before I could reach for the paper, neatly folded on the side of the tray, my phone buzzed. I picked it up with a smile, seeing my five-year-old daughter’s name and toothy, smiling face on the screen.
“Well, hello there, Princess Mia,” I said in a soft tone. “How is my sweet girl today?”
“Hi, Daddy,” she replied enthusiastically. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Well, I was just sitting down to eat my breakfast and read the Chicago Tribune. You?”
“Daddy, how are you reading the Chicago newspaper when you’re in California?” she asked with a sassy tone.
I chuckled. “Because this hotel has papers from all over the world. That way, no matter who stays here, they can always know what’s going on at home. Speaking of, it’s about eleven-thirty there. Why aren’t you in school?”
“Oh,” she said as if she had a list of things to tell me. “Well, today was mommy breakfast day at school. We had a little party. Grandma went with me for it.”
“Awesome,” I replied, sipping my coffee. “Did you have fun?”
“I dunno,” she said, her tone changing a bit. “Grandma is so much fun, but kids were asking me where my mom was.”
My heart stuttered in my chest, feeling a pang of pain for Mia. “And what did you tell them?”
“The truth,” she chirped, her voice rising in peppiness again. “That my mommy is in heaven, so my grandma came to be there in her place.”
I smiled, thankful for my daughter’s quick thinking, even being as young as she was. “Good answer.”
“Daddy?”
“Yeeeesss?” I replied with a chuckle.
Mia sighed dramatically. “When are you coming home?”
Another pang of the heart. “Well, today I don’t have any flights. Tomorrow, though, I fly back to Chicago. I’ll be there by the evening or hopefully before bedtime.”
“Oh, good!” Mia exclaimed. “I miss you.”
I leaned forward, staring out at the water. “I miss you too. But the good news is, once I’m home, I have five whole days off. I don’t have to even keep my phone on me.”
“Yesss,” Mia hissed. “We can go to the park, and to the store, and I can show you the paintings I did, and we can watch movies…”
With a chuckle, I sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “It sounds like you have planned out my five days just perfectly.”
“Okay, Daddy, I have to go. They didn’t make us stay today. I left with Grandma, but she says she has errands to run. I love you.”
“And I you! Tell Grandma hi for me. I’ll see you really soon!”
With a smile, I hung up the phone and tossed it on the table. I grabbed another bite of my breakfast and picked up my coffee, opening up the paper. As always, I skimmed through the articles, not really finding anything too interesting. There was a lot of stuff about recent events in Chicago, sports, and whatever politician got the spotlight that week. Setting my coffee down, I flipped the page, my hands immediately clutching the thin paper.
“Heiress Emma Harrison to Marry Bachelor Millionaire Keith Cramer in Lavish Ceremony” was the headline that struck my nerve.
The picture of her posed happily next to the playboy pretty boy was what made me stop in my tracks. A lot had happened over the last eight years, marriage, a child, becoming a widower, but I had never stopped thinking about Emma. What I had not done was see her face at all in that time period. In fact, I avoided it at all costs. Seeing her in the paper, though, brought back a whole lot of memories.
There she was, with her big, beautiful smile, her long, shimmering blonde hair, and that dimple on her right cheek. She didn’t look a bit different than the last time I remembered seeing her before the whole breakup happened. I couldn’t help but notice the addition of a diamond ring that would sink a ship and a look in her eye that was all too familiar to me. It was the fake robot Emma smile. The one she put on without even realizing it whenever she was in a situation where society demanded to see her smile.
It struck me as kind of odd, though. She was getting married, and to exactly the kind of man I suspected her parents wanted her to marry. In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if the two of them had been set up from the start. Still, marriage was a big deal, and I would have thought she would have at least been genuinely happy about taking the plunge. Thinking back to the other women in her family, I realized I hadn’t ever met one that genuinely looked happy. That wasn’t the job of a Harrison woman. Her job was to look beautiful, polite, be helpful, and basically accent the men in the family.