Paranormal Erotic Romance Box Set (6 page)

“Percy,” I said and giggled. “Percy Posselwaite from
Perth.”

“Yes,” Katt said. “Percy Posselwaite from Perth. Anyway, I
abhorred Manhattan and felt so alone and I ran into the lobby bathroom to have
a quick cry and there you were.”

“Having a cry too,” I said.

“Yes, you were,” Katt said. “And I looked at you and you
looked at me. And you were the first person in this horrid business who smiled
at me. Really smiled.”

“And you smiled at me too,” I said.

“I did,” she said and closed her eyes.

“Why are you thinking of this now? And why do you look so
damned maudlin?”

“Because, now you are to be married on this day and I feel
like I’m losing you,” Katt said.

“Oh, Katt,” I said and sat next to her on the couch, “you
are not losing me! After Brandt and I return from our honeymoon, we will move
to Manhattan, but I’ll be back often. And this place will still be mine and of
course, yours.”

Katt shook her head and wept.

“And hey,” I said, “you could come with us. Wouldn’t that
be terrific? I know you have things about Brandt you don’t like, but there is
good stuff there, I promise.”

“Didn’t last night scare you at all?” Katt said.

“What, with Nellie? No.”

“Oh, come on, Sophia. That girl absolutely froze my
blood.”

“Look, yes, she was hysterical, but she was upset. However
pathological Nellie’s obsession with Brandt is, she believes her feelings for
him are real. Even though Brandt certainly did not reciprocate, Nellie believes
she is in love.”

“But you cannot be saying that scene was justified.
Please, tell me that isn’t what you’re saying.”

“It was extreme, yes. But I would be upset too. Besides,
her reaction is a testament to how incredible Brandt is. Look how much Nellie
feels for him even though he doesn’t feel the same.”

Katt shook her head and lit another cigarette as soon as
she put the first one out.

“You sound like those women,” she said and took a long
drag on her cigarette. “Those women we saw on the television interview who were
hit by their husbands.”

“What are you talking about?” I said as I touched my neck.
“Brandt never laid a hand on me.”

“The justification, Sophia,” Katt said and blew a stream
of smoke into the air. “You justify away everything to do with Brandt. And I am
concerned that one day you won’t have the chance to excuse his behavior.”

When Katt threw every anxious thought back at me, I lost
my mind.

“That is it,” I said and jumped up from the couch. “You
are no different from the others. You refuse to be happy for me and Brandt and
I will not listen to it any longer!”

“Oh, what others are you referring to, Sophia?” Katt said
and chuckled. “Who else even knows about you and Brandt? Your parents? They met
him, what, one fucking time? And then there’s nasty Nellie. The whole of
fucking Boston knows how happy she is for you and Brandt now, don’t they?”

“I never once judged you or your life. In fact, I’ve been
nothing but a supportive friend, despite what I thought of your choices.”

“What choices, Sophia?”

“Are you serious?” I said and laughed. “How about the
endless stream of men for starts? My God, Katt, you may as well set up a
conveyor belt and replace your bedroom door with a revolving door.”

Katt’s face turned red and she stood from the couch and
balled her hands into fists.

“Number one, that fucking well sounded like judgment to
me, Sophia Pearson. Oh, excuse me, Sophia Therrault. And number two, perhaps if
you got on your bloody back and spread your fucking legs at the end of my
conveyor belt, you wouldn’t be so keen to lose your virginity to the first
creep who comes down the pike.”

“You are not welcome at my wedding, Katt Lawson!”

“That suits me just fucking fine! I may be a lot of things
you find disgusting but the one thing I am not is a liar which is a hell of a
lot more than I can say for you.”

“I am not a liar!” I said, lying.

“The fuck you’re not,” Katt said. “You know this whole
thing with Brandt is desperate and wrong. You are giving up modeling at the
height of your career because he says. You are resigned to being a
nineteen-year-old homemaker and baby maker because he says. You’ve given up
your whole fucking identity before you’ve even found it, why? That’s right, all
because he says. You’ve lost me, you will surely lose your family when they
find out the stunt you pulled and I know, as sure as I’m standing here, he will
isolate you from all your other friends! What have you got left?”

“I have Brandt,” I said. “And that’s all I need.”

“You reckon?” Katt said and stared into my eyes. “Well,
that ain’t fucking much.”

And then, there was nothing but the silence between two
people who each just spit insults at each other out of raw anger and
self-justifying despair.

Katt’s breath came out in fits and heaves and I was dizzy.
I took a deep breath in and turned to go into my bedroom.

“If you’ll excuse me, I now have thirty minutes to get
ready for my wedding.”

I ran into my bedroom and slammed the door. I picked up
the beautiful porcelain jewelry box that sat on my vanity, a gift from Katt
when she went to Morocco. I looked at my face in my mirror. It was ruddy and
rough and bloated. Just like Nellie.

“Fuck you,” I said and hurled the jewelry box into the
glass.

The mirror shattered and jagged shards of glass flew
around my room. The jewelry box, once one of my most prized possessions, was
obliterated and all that was left were pearly pink and iridescent cobalt chunks
and fragments.

I threw my wedding dress on and did my makeup in the last
hunk of glass that survived the impact and remained in the mirror’s frame. I
grabbed my suitcase and opened the bedroom door and peeked into my living room.
Katt was gone. I slammed my bedroom door and headed out of my apartment as the
final piece of glass broke free from the frame and shattered on my bedroom
floor.

I hailed a cab and the driver, after I explained that I
was late to my own wedding, sped toward City Hall. I was ill with anxiety. But
when I looked out the passenger window of the cab as we stopped in front of
City Hall, I saw Brandt pacing the courtyard, looking like an absolute prince
in his Hardy Amies suit.

“He showed,” I said as I looked out the window.

“Course he showed,” the cabbie said and turned around and
looked at me. “You are a most beautiful bride. Too beautiful for the City
Hall.”

Disapproval was contagious in Boston.

“Thank you,” I said and handed the driver my money. “Keep
the change.”

“Thanks, lady. Hey, make sure you make a wish before you
say I do. Everything is different after that.”

I opened the door to the cab and waved at Brandt. He
spotted me and smiled and ran through the courtyard toward the street.

“My wish already came true,” I said to the driver as I got
out of the cab.

“Whatever you say,” the driver said. “Have a nice life, lady.”

I slammed the door to the cab and turned around to face
Brandt.

“Sophia! I thought you weren’t coming,” he said and hugged
me.

“Why wouldn’t I come?” I said.

Brandt pulled away from me and held my hands in his. He
stepped back and held my arms out while he stared at me.

“Because not a lot works out for me,” he said and looked
at his watch. “Shall we go?”

Brandt took my hand and pulled me through the courtyard
and up the steps to the front entrance of the building.

“Hey, where’s your friend? Wasn’t she supposed to be
here?” Brandt said as we blended in with the crowd trying to get into City
Hall.

“Um, I just wanted it to be us,” I said. “That’s all we
need, right? Just us?”

Brandt looked down at me and smiled as he grabbed the
door.

“Interesting tidbit about this place,” he said as he held
the heavy front door open and pushed me inside the building, “they’re building
a new one, in case you weren’t aware.”

“A new what?” I said and waited for him to join me in the
great foyer.

“A new City Hall,” he shouted from the doorway as he held
the door for others who filed into the building. “Should be ready in a few
years. If you weren’t in such a rush to marry me, we could have had the
ceremony in the new building.”

An older woman who Brandt helped inside the building
looked at me with disapproval as she passed. I looked at Brandt, now inside and
joining me in the foyer and shook my head.

“I’m sorry, but did you say that I’m rushing you into
this?”

“No, I don’t think that’s what I said,” Brandt said and
took my arm. “Come on, we need to go to room 124A.”

“Wait a minute,” I said and dug my kitten heels into the
hexagonal tiles, “that is what you said, Brandt. You said that if I weren’t in
such a rush to marry you, we could have been married in the new City Hall
building.”

Brandt turned and looked at me and then at my hand still
gripping his arm. He put his hand over mine and removed my hand.

“No, Sophia,” he said and sighed, “I most certainly did
not say that. You heard me wrong, plain and simple.”

“I’m sorry, but I did not.”

“And you’re positive? You are absolutely one thousand
percent positive that I said what you think I said?”

“What I know you said. Yes, I am.”

“Ah, but you did not say you were absolutely positive,”
Brandt said and chuckled. “You didn’t say positive so you cannot be positive.
You have to say the words to be in the right.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Exactly, you don’t know what I’m talking about. You are
confused and talking, as they say down the Bowery, out your ass,” Brandt said
loud enough for more than a few passerby’s to give us a second glance.

And I remember this strange unraveling feeling in my head
as if the gyrus detached itself from my cerebral cortex and began to unwind. I
tried to think back to exactly what he said, but as if he never said it at all,
I could not remember a thing.

“Tick-tock, Sophia,” Brandt said and tapped on the face of
his watch. ‘Tick-tock.”

“I don’t know wha--”

“Yes, I know you don’t know,” Brandt said and laughed and
stroked the side of my face. “Look, this is silly. Don’t you think this is
silly?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Terrific,” Brandt said and grabbed my hands. “Now, who
wants to get married? Let’s see a show of hands.”

Brandt raised his hand, lifting my hand in his, and
stretched my arm until it strained in my shoulder socket.

“Looks like two people right here who want to get
married,” Brandt said and pulled me into his body. “I love you. I want us to go
into 124A, say those vows and get on with our lives. Don’t you want that?”

“Yes, that’s what I want too,” I said and buried my face
into his jacket.

He smelled of strength and validation.

“Good, my girl. And then we’ll be on to the best part,
won’t we?” Brandt said and lifted my face up and brushed his full, cushiony
lips against mine. “The honeymoon.”

He pulled me into Room 124A of City Hall. I heard not a
word he said to the Clerk announcing our arrival. I spent the entire six
minutes it took me to repeat the stock statements that hundreds before us
spoke, wondering if he did or did not say what I thought I heard him say. And
not until Brandt was told that he could kiss the bride and he lowered his face
toward mine, did I realize the bride the Clerk referred to was me.

“Snap out of it, baby,” Brandt said as he leaned toward me
for the kiss, “you’re my wife now.”

And that was it. Six minutes of mimicry that was to begin
my end and I was his wife. There were no witnesses or photographs. The only
thing I can remember about that wedding now, was the thought.

As if I stood at the mouth of a dark, menacing ally. All I
had to do was turn left and circumvent the danger. But I went straight ahead
into it. My pride was such that I’d do anything to avoid what I knew: that
something was not right.

Brandt pulled me out of City Hall much the way he pulled
me in. He threw my suitcase in the trunk of his car and off we went on the two
hour drive toward Cape Cod.

After drove for a bit, Brandt put his hand on my knee and
gave it a squeeze.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” he said. “What are you
thinking about?”

What was I thinking about?

I wondered what would happen after I had to face Katt and
my parents, both prospects I was not looking forward to. I wondered if Brandt
would take me straight to Manhattan after we left Cape Cod. I had money. I
didn’t really need to go back to Boston. I could just arrive in New York with
my suitcase and the clothes on my back. I was sure Brandt arranged for an
apartment. He mentioned the week before that he had a job lined up. Surely I
didn’t need to go back to awful Boston. Surely I could just run away with my
husband and start a new life.

“Hello?” Brandt said and tapped on my head with his
finger. “You in there?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I said and turned to him and smiled.

He was so incredibly handsome.

“Well, why the long face and mute tongue, little girl?”
Brandt said and reached over and tugged on my earlobe.

“I’m just thinking,” I said and smiled.

“Of?”

“Of,” I said and sighed, “our new life. What do you think
it will be like?”

“Our life? Our life, will be incredible, Sophia.”

I snuggled next to Brandt as we drove through the quaint
town of Kingston. As he went down a small side street, I saw modest houses and
lots of land with lush green grass and cute little ponds. I tried to picture
myself in one of those houses as we neared what he told me was Faunce Memorial
Forest. I felt so far removed from the concrete and steel of Boston and felt
homesick for the familiarity.

Brandt pulled into a shady area under a large oak tree and
turned off the car. I looked out onto a large green space and watched children
whacking balls back and forth and flying kites. I tried to picture myself
running around with children, perhaps bringing them there with Brandt and
having a picnic.