The Wedding Fling

She stared at herself in the mirror that ran behind the marble bar, at this stranger with her face, draped in a beautiful dress. Thoughts flashed and jabbed, but the numbness reduced them to abstract concepts. There was an Allie, who’d stolen Leigh’s pet name. Who’d kept Dan from taking Leigh’s call for four rings, on their wedding day.

The shock lifted, and behind the numbness was pure pain, so sharp it seemed her heart must be coming apart, cell by cell. Strange white sequins danced before her eyes and she leaned against the bar, feeling heavy and awkward, as though suspended on strings. The dress was shrinking, an invisible corset binding her too tight to take a full breath. The room blurred, and for a moment she knew it was just a dream. She’d jerk awake and everything would be as it should be, spinning walls and strangling dress all vestiges of a nightmare.

The room did come back into focus. The dress relented enough for her to catch her breath, and the spots abandoned her vision. She pushed up from the bar to find the bride in the mirror peppered with red blotches, eyes wild. Leigh saw only a stranger staring back, a scared woman of twenty-seven as ignorant as she’d been at seventeen, playing dress-up in yet another glittering identity.

She clutched the phone and raised her hand, drew it back… but no. Her posture crumpled. Now wasn’t the time to start smashing up hotel rooms like some out-of-control celebutante. Actually, perhaps this was the perfect time for that, but Leigh wasn’t that girl, no matter what the tabloids yearned to report.

She pressed a palm over her thumping heart, scared by the sheer pain of feeling this angry, this hurt. The rage was like an animal trying to claw its way out of her chest, but she held it down, as she always did. She forced her mind to practical matters. Decisions that needed making.

She should confront Dan.

No, she couldn’t.

She had to call it off. But then the press would hound her mercilessly and the whole world would find out about this.

What was the alternative? Go through with the wedding and deal with the fallout later? Her heart twisted anew, her hands trembling as she thought of faking her way through the ceremony, her jaw clenching and lips quivering as she imagined uttering her vows, hearing Dan recite his and knowing he’d already violated them. More likely, she’d run off en route to the altar in front of two videographers and an audience of hundreds, as public as humiliation got.

She rubbed at her chest, begging her heartbeat to slow. The satin seemed to mock her fingers, cool and smooth against her heated skin.

Leigh couldn’t remember the last decision she’d made for herself, but all at once, and for the first time in ages, she knew what she had to do.

She had to run.

Now.

She didn’t have the first clue what she wanted from her life, but she damn well knew it wasn’t all this—a three-ring sham of a wedding to a man who didn’t love her, a career of other people’s making, a city where she couldn’t enjoy a moment’s anonymity.

Her suitcase waited by the door, packed with two weeks’ worth of clothes and toiletries, passport and ticket in her purse, ready to go. The trip she’d so been looking forward to, the one she’d hoped would reconnect her and Dan… the mere notion was a hand around her throat. The tabloids had been salivating for Leigh’s fall from grace forever, and if she was doomed to reward their persistence, she’d give them a doozy—a gen-u-ine wedding day no-show.

She switched off her phone and slipped it into her bag, with no intention of turning it back on anytime soon.

As she wheeled her case down the hall, all was quiet, the elevator empty, the lobby peaceful. No small mercy, the press not having discovered she was staying here. She hiked her dress up to her shins and marched barefoot past Reception, through the door the stony-faced porter held, and into the cool spring air. She knew which long black Town Car was hers by the driver leaning on the hood, flipping through Variety.

“Hector.”

His brows rose and he stood, taking in her getup. “Good morning, Leigh. You’re early. Very early.” His familiar deep voice with its musical Haitian accent calmed her. “And you forgot your shoes. And your mother. Change of plans?”

“Change of plans” usually meant Leigh was being harangued by a reporter and needed to end an evening earlier than expected.

“Change of plans,” she agreed, and climbed inside when Hector opened the door. He shut it in his firm, reassuring way and she heard a thump as he stowed her suitcase.

Once behind the wheel, he lowered the glass. He aimed the car toward the exit. “Has your mother got her own ride sorted out?”

“Don’t worry about my mother. If she calls you, tell her I asked to go home, to the apartment. I need some time to think about things.”

“Ah. She being a mother-of-the-bride-zilla?” Hector teased. “You need me to drive you around before we go to the estate? Dramatic entrance?” He squinted at her in the rearview mirror, possibly noticing she had no makeup on, no jewelry, that her hair was still a damp tangle and her face flushed and mottled.

“We’re not going to the estate,” she said, feeling strangely serene. “We’re going to the airport.”

“Oh?”

She nodded, steeled in her decision. “I’m going on my honeymoon. Alone.”

2

WHEN THEY ARRIVED at LAX, Hector brought Leigh her suitcase and she wrestled herself out of her gown and into jeans and a T in the backseat, protected by the tinted windows. She dug her slip-ons from her luggage and glanced at her dress. It looked like the shed skin of some beautiful, mythical creature. She left it in the car.

To camouflage her identity and the tears she could feel brewing, she found and donned her big aviator shades and Giants cap. She swallowed all the rage and sadness and confusion rising in her chest, and forced a smile.

“Thanks, Hector.”

“It’s no trouble. Just my job.”

“My mom’s going to tear you a new one.”

He grinned. “I know.”

“Would you do one more thing for me?”

He nodded, and Leigh slid off her engagement ring and handed it to him. In place of the sadness she’d anticipated, she felt her back straightening, as though fifty pounds of pure dread had fallen from her shoulders.

“Give that to my mom or dad or to Dan, whoever you see first. And the dress. But try to avoid all of them for at least a few hours. Until I’m on a plane.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. I just need some time away. Thank goodness I’m already booked someplace where nobody’ll recognize me.”

He nodded and slipped her solitaire into his breast pocket. On impulse, Leigh did something she never had before—she hugged her driver. He offered a quick squeeze in return, as warm as professionalism allowed.

“You take care of yourself. I’ll dodge your mother as long as I can.”

She yanked up the suitcase’s retractable handle. “Wish me luck that there’s an earlier flight with room for me on it.”

He held up two sets of crossed fingers. “Enjoy your getaway.”

With a wave, Leigh said goodbye to the last familiar face she’d see for two weeks. She said goodbye to L.A., to the girl she no longer recognized as herself, and strode through the airport’s sliding doors and into the unknown.

THE FLIGHT SHE CAUGHT to New York was insanely overpriced, yet well worth it to feel L.A. dropping away behind her. If any of Leigh’s first-class neighbors recognized her, they were kind enough not to let on. It was the calmest six hours she’d passed in weeks, nothing but blue sky and white clouds, totally unlike the storm swirling in her head.

She’d failed to change her second flight, a smaller carrier that had no planes leaving before the one she’d already booked, the following morning. The idea of being alone in another hotel room with only her thoughts for company scared her, so she napped fitfully through the night in the airport.

She arrived in Bridgetown at lunchtime, though, sadly, her luggage did not. No clothes, no cell charger, no toiletries. Abandoned by her own belongings.

With a mighty sigh, she headed for the airport’s exit. As the doors slid open, the warm, scented air of the island enveloped her, the sun caressing her travel-weary body. By the cab stand, a group of three smiling men played steel drums. Just an extra touch to realize tourists’ stereotypical expectations, but it worked. Leigh’s panic faded with the song’s cheerful notes.

She’d be okay. There were plenty of clothes to be purchased here in Barbados, and her sleeping cell phone had enough juice to make a handful of calls.

Speaking of calls. She dug the device from her purse and turned it on with held breath. Alerts for voice and text messages multiplied as the phone roused. Though tempted to view Dan’s and find out if he’d caught on, she ignored them all, tapping out a text for her mom. I’m safe. Won’t be in touch for a while. Don’t worry, and please don’t follow. Sorry for the stress. See you in a couple of weeks. Leigh. As soon as the message was sent, she switched off her phone for good.