My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella(23)
More people from the lobby hovered near the door. Kona’s uncles and cousins tried to withhold their laughter as Keira, eyes round and worried, answered Micah’s continual questions mechanically, without any personality at all.
Keira’s heart began to pound and she felt the breath in her chest growing weaker, shallower, as though something was preventing her from getting enough air into her lungs.
“One last question, Keira. You and Kona plan on living in New Orleans, but with your work centered in Nashville and Kona’s new job with Sports Center in Los Angeles, how do you plan to maintain a successful marriage?”
The words didn’t make any sense, but they stuck in her mind. Kona’s new job and Los Angeles. Anything spoken after that, like the very intrusive question Micah had asked, didn’t penetrate. That rapid beat of her heart suddenly hammered up a notch and her breath faltered until Keira lowered her head, dizzy, gasping, reaching out for Micah’s arm when he grabbed at her.
“Keira. You okay?” She felt him twist away, voice directed to someone she couldn’t see. “Get her a chair, now.”
But Keira didn’t want to sit. Even though she felt breathless, she didn’t want to be coddled and treated like a delicate glass trinket. She wanted answers. She wanted that ripping burn in her heart—the one that felt eerily too similar to the day she walked away from Kona in the prison—to ease, to melt away like the heavy make-up she was wearing.
Keira shook her head when Micah tried to make her sit and she took him by the arms, demanding his attention, needing at least a small thread of understanding. “Did you say Kona got a job in California?” The sportscaster didn’t need to answer her. She saw the realization in his rounding eyes, in the small curse that whispered under his breath. “Right. Okay,” she said, nodding once, pulling the mic from her gown, dropping it to the floor before she stepped away from Micah.
“Keira, wait. Please. I’m so sorry. I thought you knew!”
But she didn’t want the sportscaster’s apology. She didn’t want anything but Kona and his explanation, the truth she knew would break her heart all over again. He’d been with her the night before. He took her, he told her he loved her, told her she was his world. But if that were true, why wouldn’t he tell her he’d be leaving? Why would he want to marry her and then turn his back on their plans, the plans they had discussed and agreed upon, and instead take a job in California? How could he say he loved her and then go ahead and make such a huge decision without even talking to her first?
By the time Keira shouldered through the crowd of relatives bottlenecking the door, a line had formed in the lobby, a cluster of guests waiting to be seated. Micah was still calling after her and Keira tried to ignore him, ignore the soft touches to her back, arms and worried queries about her from Kona’s cousins as she weaved through the crowd.
Head down, her veil falling in front of her face, Keira tried to stay the tears that were building in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. It would ruin her make-up. It was her wedding day. What bride cries out of misery on her wedding day?
“Keira, there you are!” Only Mark’s voice could have brought Keira’s gaze up as he met her just outside the aisle, near the waiting guests. The second he caught her gaze, he walked faster, took her hand and lifted her face up. “Sweetie, what is it? You’re as white as those flowers in your hand.”
“I—Kona…”
“Mom! Oh, thank God.” Behind Mark, Ransom jogged toward them, looking so beautiful, so much like his father, far too much like a man, in his black tux. He stopped short when he registered the expression on Keira’s face and how tightly Mark held onto her. “You found out.”
If Ransom would have shot her, right in the chest, she doubted her breath would have left faster. Keira pushed away from Mark, standing in front of her son, hurt, pain, mixing with the dormant rage she’d kept buried for sixteen years.
“You knew?”
“Mom, we’ve been looking for you for hours. Everything’s so crazy and with the media and all the family and guests,” Ransom took a breath, moved his fingers through his hair. “Anyway, Dad and I wanted to talk to you about something before the wedding, so you wouldn’t be upset.”
“Luka Ransom Riley, shut up.”
Her son jerked back, took a step and let an expression of utter amazement freeze on his face. Keira had never shouted at Ransom. She’d never spanked him and she’d never told him to shut up. She tended to favor a gentler approach. It was necessary when you’re raising a child with anger issues. But at that moment, Keira wasn’t thinking about being gentle with her son or his father.
“Mom?”
Keira straightened her shoulders, took two steps and tried desperately not to scream at Ransom. That thin grip on her control was a tattered wisp by now. “You knew? Kona told you before he told me?”
“No, Mom, it wasn’t like that. I told him.”
“Wh… What are you talking about?”
Again Ransom scratched his fingers through his hair, pulled Keira away from the curious eyes staring over them. “Mom, Malaine told me about everything that happened to her. Why she was the way she was.” He shrugged, moved his hands into his pockets. “I’m not saying we should give her universal forgiveness, but damn, Mom, she’s dying.”