Otherwise Engaged (20 page)

It was hard to sit mere inches away from a man she was trying her damnedest not to love. She needed to be farther than six inches from him if she wanted to forget about his smile, his laughter, his incredible, electricity-filled touch.

Instead, she’d spent the past few days in constant contact with Pres. And when she wasn’t with him, she was being fitted for a wedding gown.

Tomorrow she was pretending to marry a man
whom she would have married for real in a heartbeat, if he only would tell her that he loved her.

“So are you guys going on a honeymoon?” Zander asked, oblivious to the strained silence.

“Zander, it’s just a pretend wedding. …”

“But you want people to
think
it’s real,” he said. “How are you going to make people think it’s real if you don’t go on a honeymoon?”

Molly glanced up to find Pres watching her. He smiled very slightly, sadly, and her heart felt squeezed.

“Maybe we should take a short trip.” He took a sip of his coffee. “We could take Zander with us. Where would you want to go, Z?”

Her son’s eyes lit up. “I’d want to go to see your shipwreck.” He concentrated hard to pronounce all of the
s
’s. “To that place where your friend’s salvage company is digging it back out of the sand.”

“St. John,” Pres said. He looked at Molly. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. I could do some diving, and you and Zander could hang out on the beach, or take a boat over to St. Thomas for shopping.” He lowered his voice even further.
“You wouldn’t have to spend much time with me at all.”

Zander was radiating excitement. “Pres showed me pictures of St. John, Mom. It’s
so
pretty. And the water’s so clear, you can see all kinds of tropical fish. Hey! Pres can start teaching me to snorkel while we’re there! Remember, Pres, you promised you’d teach me to snorkel.”

Molly turned to Pres in amazement. “You
promised
him …?”

Pres dug some money out of his pocket. “Hey, Z, do me a favor, and go ask the bandleader to play ‘Stardust’ for your mom, okay? You need to go over there and wait until they finish playing, all right?” He handed the boy several dollar bills. “Put that in that giant glass on top of the piano. That’s their tip.”

“What about
my
tip?”

“Zander!” Molly hissed.

“I was kidding! It was a joke!”

“Go.” Both Pres and Molly spoke in unison.

Zander was barely away from the table before they turned to face each other like a pair of wary boxers.

Pres spoke first. “There’s nothing dangerous about learning to snorkel.”

“But if he learns to snorkel, he’ll expect to be able to learn to dive when he’s old enough.” Molly shook her head. “And that
is
too dangerous. I’m not going to let him do it.”

Pres was silent for a moment. “You don’t know why he wants to learn to dive, do you?”

“He wants to dive because you do, because you’re his hero.”

“No, that’s not why.” Pres looked across the room, to where Zander was standing off to the one side, watching the band. “He wants to dive because underwater, he won’t be any different from anyone else. Nobody can hear underwater. It’s virtually silent down there.”

Pres looked back at Molly, watching her emotions play across her face.

“Think about it,” he continued. “His hearing loss, his deafness, it won’t matter at all when he’s underwater. That’s why the kid wants to dive. For the first time in his life he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. He has the right to experience that, don’t you think?”

Molly was silent, her blue eyes filled with realization and tears.

Pres went on. “And divers communicate through a very basic, very rough form of sign language. Knowing ASL would put Zander at a tremendous advantage.”

Across the room, the band had stopped playing. “Excuse me.” A small voice spoke into the bandleader’s microphone. It was Zander. He was actually up on the stage, looking out at them. “I want to tell my mom happy birthday. She doesn’t like cake, and there’s no candle for her to blow out, but I hope she gets her wish anyway.”

Behind him the band began to play, and Zander began to sing the old familiar birthday song.

Pres had never really heard the boy sing before.

“He’s amazing,” he murmured, glancing at Molly. Zander’s voice was pure and clear, a sweet boy soprano that faltered only slightly on the high notes.

Molly covered her mouth with one hand and laughed as Zander signed “I love you” to her then took an exaggerated bow. He turned to talk to the bandleader again.

“He
is
amazing,” she said.

“Let him learn to scuba-dive.”

“Oh, Lord, it’s so dangerous! How could I let him?”

“How could you not?” Pres covered her hand with his. “You know, some things are worth the risk. For Zander, this is definitely worth it.”

Molly leaned toward him. “Did he actually say all this to you?”

“More or less.” He smiled. “Less, actually. I mean, the kid’s ten, right? All he really knows is that he wants to learn to dive really bad. I figured out the why part from listening to him talk—the things he said, how he said it.”

“You’re very perceptive, aren’t you?”

He gazed at her levelly. “Not all of communicating is talking. Knowing how to listen is important too.”

Molly was caught in the ocean depths of his eyes.

“Come on. Let Zander learn to dive,” he murmured.

Molly hesitated only briefly before she nodded, turning her hand over so that their fingers were laced together. “Promise you’ll be the one to teach him?”

He nodded. “I promise.”

“And you’ll make sure he’s safe?”

Pres nodded. “Molly, you know that I’ll take care of your son.” He paused, looking down at their hands. “If you can trust me to keep Zander safe, you can trust me enough to know that I’d never intentionally hurt you. I don’t want to stay away from you. I want to be your lover.”

She tried to pull her hand away. “Pres—”

He leaned forward, refusing to let her go. “Come on, Molly. Take a risk. I know I’m not exactly what you’re looking for, but you can spend your entire life looking for perfection, afraid to make a mistake and—”

He broke off, a strange expression on his face, hardly noticing when her hand slipped free. “Afraid to make a mistake.” He frowned. “Maybe even afraid to make the same mistake twice …”

And then Zander came bounding back to the table.

Molly hugged her son and thanked him for his song, aware that Pres was watching her, aware of a strange light in his eyes.

She gathered her purse up from the table. “I
think it’s time to go. We all have to be up early in the morning. …”

Pres stood up, still oddly preoccupied. “I’ll drive you home.”

Molly paced.

It was two o’clock in the morning, and she couldn’t sleep.

It was remarkable. She was more nervous about tomorrow’s make-believe wedding than she’d been about her real wedding more than ten years ago.

Of course, she’d had the advantage of being young and foolish back then.

Ten years later she was only foolish. How could she have even considered taking part in this sham? How on earth was she going to be able to walk down that aisle and repeat those wedding vows while gazing into Preston’s eyes?

Take a risk
. Pres’s words echoed over and over in her mind.
Take a risk
.

Life was full of risks. Every time she got behind the steering wheel of her car, she was taking a risk. Heck, every time she got out of bed in the
morning, every time she drew in another breath of air, she was taking a risk.

Talk about risks. She’d read in the paper about a woman who was so cautious, she refused to leave her house. And an airplane crashed into it.

She was a lot like that woman. She’d been content to stay in her own little isolated world, carefully distanced from romance, and then,
wham-o
, Pres Seaholm had crashed into her life.

The truth was, she loved him and wanted to be with him.

The truth was, she
could
wind up in exactly the same situation she’d been in with Chuck.

That was indeed a risk.

But if she simply did nothing, if she continued to turn her back on her emotions, if she let Pres slip away, well, that was a risk of an entirely different kind. She was risking what could very well turn out to be her one chance at finding happiness.

Pres wanted to be with her. He’d made that more than clear. And maybe, just maybe, with a little time, he might fall in love with her too.

But that wasn’t going to happen unless she took a risk.

———

Preston paced.

It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning, and the small room off the front of the Congregational church was airless and much too warm. He could feel sweat starting to drip down the back of his tuxedo shirt.

He could hear the sounds of helicopters circling overhead, poised and ready to get aerial footage of the Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year and his bride leaving the church, newly married.

Or so the world would think.

The door opened and Dominic stuck his head inside.

“Molly’s arrived,” he said. “She’s in the back of the church. You should go out to the altar soon and get this show on the road, or she’s going to be blinded from all those flashbulbs going off in her face.”

Pres nodded. Get this show on the road. He ran a comb through his hair one last time, adjusted his bow tie in the mirror, and taking a deep breath, stepped out into the church.

It wasn’t a big church, and it was jammed full
of news cameras and reporters, curious spectators, and even some friends. And right now they were all staring directly at him.

“It’s not real,” Dominic murmured into Pres’s ear. “Just keep telling yourself that it’s not real.”

But that was the problem. It wasn’t real. “I can’t do this.” Pres turned to look at Dom.

“Whoa.” Dom put a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Just take a couple of nice, deep breaths and—”

The organist began to play the notes of the bridal processional. There was a flurry of movement at the back of the church as the doors opened. Then Molly appeared in the doorway, dressed in an ornate white gown, a light veil over her face. She looked incredible, and Pres felt his heart turn a slow somersault in his chest. But this wasn’t real. This was only make-believe. And that wasn’t good enough.

“I can’t do this,” he said again, and breaking free from Dom’s grasp, he headed quickly down the aisle, toward Molly.

There was a murmur of surprise from the crowd, mirrored by the look on Molly’s face.

“Excuse us for a minute,” Pres said to the cameras, and shut the doors tightly behind him.

“Pres, what are you doing …?”

He grabbed Molly’s hand and tugged her toward the stairs that led down to the church vestry. It wasn’t until they were in the tiled room with the door shut behind them that Pres spoke.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t do this.”

She pushed the veil back, off of her face. “But if your friend from that New York PR agency is right, once we do this, we’ll be left alone.”

“I can’t pretend to marry you,” he told her. “I can’t stand there and say those words.”

“It’s just a role we have to play. An act. That’s what you told me, remember? You said it’s just something that we have to do. It’s not real.”

“But that’s just it.” He started to pace again, but stopped himself. “Molly, I want it to be real.”

She was staring at him as if he were spouting gibberish.

“I can’t pretend to marry you, because I
want
to marry you.”

Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted in an expression of sheer astonishment. Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t this.

“I’ve wanted to marry you nearly from the start,” he continued, “but I was so busy trying not to make the same damned mistake with you that I made with Merrilee that I nearly blew it. I was trying to take my time, trying not to be impulsive, trying to keep history from repeating itself. But the fact is, you’re not Merrilee. You’re not Merrilee, and I’m not Chuck, and we could really make this thing between us work. I know there are no guarantees, but just the same, it has to be worth the risk.”

It had come to him like a lightning bolt the night before. He had been urging Molly to take a risk, not to be weighed down by mistakes she’d made in the past, when it suddenly occurred to him that he could use a healthy dose of his own advice.

So much of his relationship with Molly had reminded him of his first marriage. So many things were similar, including his desire to establish a permanent relationship after only a very short amount of time. But at the same time so much was different. Molly wasn’t Merrilee.

“I wanted to ask you to marry me the night we
made love,” he told her. “And I should have. I should have trusted myself. Instead I got spooked and tried to figure it all out. And of course, I couldn’t. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I’d tell you that I loved you and I’d beg you to marry me. I thought that was the wrong thing to do, but I know now it wasn’t. It was right. It
is
right.”

Molly was still silent, just watching him, so Pres took a deep breath and kept going. “I know I’m … less than adequate when it comes to opening up about the way I feel, but if you’ll give me a chance, and maybe a little help, I swear to God above, I’ll try. …”

She laughed, a short, sharp sound, rather like a hiccup. “You seem to be doing just fine today.”

He took her hand. “Marry me, Molly. For real.”

“You love me?” There were tears in her eyes. “You really love me?”

“More than I’ll ever be able to tell you.”

Molly couldn’t speak. She turned away, and Pres felt a wave of panic. She’d turned away even though he’d told her everything he possibly could and—

“I didn’t tell you the truth about that dream of mine,” he said. “You know, the really hokey one?”

She turned back to look at him. “I know.”

This time Pres didn’t hesitate. “I want kids. I want to be a dad. A real, round-the-clock, hands-on dad.”

Molly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She laughed, but he held up his hand.