He came around the desk. I stood up. He smiled at me and then hugged me. “Whatever you decide, I know it’ll be right,” he added, and started out.
I watched him leave the office and then sat hard on the chair again, stunned.
If anything, I felt trapped. It was worse than confronting Ava on some dark street and hearing her berate and threaten me. It wasn’t Daddy’s style to come at me violently. He would glide into Quincy, surfing on his wonderful, attractive smile, and charm everyone around him. I could just imagine him talking to Mrs. Winston. He would discuss her beloved Colonial history as if he had been there, because it was very likely he had.
“Oh, forgive him,” they would all tell me. “He’s a man. He has weaknesses, but it’s wonderful that his love for you is too strong for him to ignore forever.”
What would he do then? What did he want? Was this really his way of stopping my marriage and getting me back?
I felt drained of energy. Just the walk back to my desk exhausted me. I sat there staring at the computer and at the work I was doing. What was once so easy looked formidable. A strong part of me wanted me to get up and, as quickly and as quietly as I could, slip out of the building and do what I had done when I had left Buddy, hitch a ride out of there and continue my flight. It didn’t matter where. Just keep going.
After an hour of moving through the paces without getting all that much done, I was actually on the verge of running off when Liam came into the office, practically bouncing with excitement.
“We got them!” he cried.
“Who?”
“Remember that band I wanted for the wedding? We played their CDs for you and you loved the way they mixed the old with the new. Remember?”
“Yes, Johnny and the Classics, but you found out they were previously booked.”
“They were, sorta. Well, Dad made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, and I don’t mean like the God-father. He’s acting like money’s no object when it comes to what we want. He just did it, and they accepted. They would have been crazy not to. He practically doubled their fee.”
Maybe that was because he was expecting that I would agree to permitting my father to pay for the wedding. He had so much of it covered that he could afford to offer more for the band, I thought.
“Well? Aren’t you pleased? I think he was doing it more for you than for me.”
“Yes, of course. You just surprised me, that’s all. And I was in the middle of something.”
“Sure.” He started to turn around and then stopped. “Oh, I decided to ask Clifford to be my best man. He agreed. Julia is very happy about it.”
“That’s nice, Liam.”
“We’ve got to do what we can to help that romance along,” he said, lowering his voice as if we were planning something secret.
“Okay,” I said.
He looked at me for a long moment.
“What?”
“I just can’t believe that in a matter of weeks now, you’ll be mine. And I’ll be yours, of course,” he quickly added.
“I have trouble believing it, too,” I said, maybe a little too seriously. His smile didn’t fade, but it looked like something frozen on a computer monitor.
“Not too much trouble, I hope.”
I shook my head.
He drew closer. “You look a little shaken up, Lorelei. Is something wrong?”
It was only a matter of time, maybe only a matter of hours, before he would find out anyway, I thought.
“A while ago, I learned that my father called your father to offer to pay for the wedding.”
“What?”
“He wants to attend, too.”