Overnight Wife(31)

Forget the rest of them. They don’t matter. Only she does.

People are whispering now, pointing. Most are thankfully too distracted eating and drinking their fill. Wringing every last drop of free anything they can from this party.

Screw them all.

This was a mistake, whispers that little voice ins my head, louder now, more insistent. I try to ignore it, scanning the party for Mara. But she’s not in the living room or the dining room anymore. The gift table sits ignored, the presents unopened.

I finally find her in the backyard. There’s a big tree, one of the few that survived the droughts, with a patch of scrub grass under it. Mara’s sitting cross-legged there, facing away from the house, face buried in both hands.

I step up behind her, hesitate for a second, and then kneel next to her. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“How could you do this to me?” She looks up at me, her jaw clenched, wiping harder at the tears that keep falling.

“I didn’t know she would lay into you like that,” I murmur. “I knew my mother wanted me to have kids, but… I didn’t think she’d be this insane about it.”

Mara’s throat works with a tight swallow. “You can’t just drop shit like this on me without warning, John. Your parents honestly think I’m some kind of—”

“Fuck what they think,” I interrupt. “You and I both know why we got married. It doesn’t matter what anyone else expects from this marriage. Only what we do.”

“Yeah?” Mara lifts her face, jaw set tightly. “Well, after this, I’m starting to think I want that annulment.”

My stomach sinks. My eyebrows shoot upward. “Mara—”

“No. You keep insisting this is a real marriage, or at least that you want it to be. But no real marriage would have situations like this.” She flings a hand behind her, toward the house. “In a real marriage, you’d communicate with me. You’d have told me about your family. Hell, in a real marriage, I’d have had a few years to get used to your baby-crazy parents before I had to meet them for the first time, with them acting like I’m some gold-digger you married off the street.”

“Do not call yourself that,” I reply, the words harsher than I mean them.

She shoves to her feet. “Why not? It’s what everyone thinks, isn’t it? That, or they think you knocked me up and we got married in some kind of shotgun wedding.” She tugs at the ring on her left finger. “What’s everyone going to think when this gets out into the media?” She gestures at the house. “You really think every single person in there is going to keep your new marriage a secret?”

“They know better than to discuss my business with paparazzi—”

“So you think.” She shakes her head, scowling. “This was a bad idea. All of it. I should have gotten this marriage annulled the moment I woke up in Vegas. Pretending we had any other options, that was a mistake.”

“Mara, don’t just give up on this.”

“Give up on what? We’ve known each other for a couple of weeks. You’ll be over me in no time.” She sets her jaw hard.

I stand next to her, reach for her. But she pulls away. “I’m not giving up on you,” I say.

“You should,” she replies. “Clearly I’m not the right woman for you. You should marry someone who wants kids and a family, the white picket fence life.”

“Why? I don’t want that,” I reply.

“You don’t want kids?” She raises an eyebrow, doubt written all over her face.

“I do someday, but not right now, not if it will stand in the way of your career—of either of our careers.”

But she’s shaking her head, already reaching into a hidden pocket of her dress to produce her phone. “Find yourself another baby mama, John, because it’s not me.” She taps on the screen. “I’m taking an Uber home.”

“Let me drive you.” But she’s already walking away.

“Don’t follow me,” she says, as if she’s reading my mind. Because that’s exactly what I want to do. Chase her until she sees that this is the wrong move. Make her understand. We belong together.

She stops and turns to me, and I hold my breath because I think maybe she’s changed her mind. “If you value me at all, John, give me space right now,” she says.

Hope dashed, but what can I do?

I stand there, fists balled at my sides, and watch her walk away. Just like she asked. Even if it’s the last thing in the world I want to do.





10





Mara





Called it, I think miserably, rolling over in bed, the article open on my phone screen. Lea texted it to me first thing this morning. It’s all over the gossip rags. Big splashy headlines about John Walloway’s mysterious new wife.

There’s even a photo. Grainy, taken at a distance, of me and John underneath the tree in his parents’ backyard. It’s far enough away that you can’t tell that we’re arguing with our heads bent together.

But you can tell it’s me, if you’ve met me. There’s no way everyone at work won’t see this and know who I’m married to now. Know about John and me, everything.

God damn it. I knew someone in that shady family of his would spill this secret.