Page 56 of First Comes Marriage

“Mrs. Connolly, Mrs. Prindiville, so good of you to come,” Holly said as she came to a stop at the edge of their little group. She leaned across the circle to her mother, pressing her cheek against Maryann’s and making a kissing noise even though herlips had come nowhere near her mother’s skin. “Mom, was that Marty I saw talking Dad’s ear off?”

Maryann’s answering laugh bordered on shrill. “Yes, yes, it was.”

“I owe him a return call, but he cannot harass my assistant every time he wants to sue someone over their signage,” Holly sighed. “I’ve already told him he doesn’t have a case, and even if he did, I don’t practice property law.”

“I’ll make sure your father reminds him,” Maryann promised.

Holly finally turned her attention to Baz and Sabrina. Her eyes flitted over him and moved quickly to her sister, as if he hardly merited that fraction of a second of consideration. “Sabrina,” she said, her voice sharp. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

“Where else would I be?” Sabrina asked.

Again, Holly’s eyes flicked towards Baz, her nostrils flaring slightly. “On your honeymoon, perhaps.”

“We were just getting to know your sister’s new husband,” Mrs. Connolly said, oblivious to the tension between the two sisters. “Have you two met before?” She pointed a finger between Holly and Baz.

“Yes. Baz and I know each other quite well,” Holly said, sparing him a final withering glance before she turned her back to him and Sabrina. “Mom, I have to go rescue Sheldon before Marty corners him.”

With each step she took away from them, Sabrina seemed to relax. He swept his thumb back and forth over her spine. They’d come face to face with her sister and lived to tell the tale. Now all they had to do was survive the rest of the evening.

“You must be so proud,” Mrs. Connolly said to Maryann. “Both girls married and settled, and now Holly’s made partner.”

“She always was our overachiever. Set her a task and she’ll exceed expectations every time,” Maryann replied. “We never had to worry about her. Did you know she only clerked at herfirst firm for two months before she was promoted to junior associate? She worked countless late nights that year, so many holidays. It nearly destroyed—” Maryann cut herself off, shooting Baz a wide-eyed look, before moving on, “—well, she hardly had a personal life that year. But nothing can stop her once she’s made up her mind to go after something.”

Ahh, there’s the anger. Because now he knew exactlyhowHolly had become junior associate in record time. At the time, he’d been proud of her, the woman he was going to marry, climbing the ranks of one of Boston’s top rated law firms. Little did he knew she was screwing a partner.

Sabrina leaned into him, her arm sliding around his waist, and the tension in his back and shoulders began to melt away. She looked up at him, furrowed brow and earnest eyes, because sheknew. She’d known all along. And if it hadn’t been for her, he would have married Holly, would have legally bound himself to a woman who had been lying to him the whole time.

In that moment, he’d never been more grateful for Sabrina, for the loyalty she’d shown him long before he had any right to expect that of her. Warmth spread in his chest, making him just reckless enough to press a kiss to her temple and breathe in her wildflower scent.

Slowly the conversation around them came back into focus as Maryann loosed a wild laugh. “I should have known right then,” she guffawed, dabbing at tears in the corners of her eyes. “Holly sat at the counter, hands clean as could be, eating her peanut butter and jelly in prim little bites, an extra sandwich beside her—for me, she said—and there was Sabrina!” She laughed again, as though the story were too hilarious to recount.

“Mom, I was three. No one wants to hear about—”

“Covered!” Maryann cackled, as though her daughter hadn’t spoken. “It was like those mud baths at the spa on Boylston Street. Peanut butter everywhere! She was up to her elbows in the jar and it was streaked all over her face, in her hair!”

“Mom, please.” Sabrina stiffened in his arms, her jaw quivering despite the way she clenched it shut.

But still Maryann continued. “We had to get rid of the carpet, of course. No amount of cleaning could get the smell of peanut butter out of the wool. And I knew right then and there, I was destined to have two very different daughters: one who did what was expected of her, who could accomplish the task at hand with flying colors, and one who would cover herself in peanut butter!”

“Enough,” Baz barked.

Maryann and her laughing companions froze, casting startled glances his way. “I beg your pardon?” Maryann asked.

“Enough.” He slid his hand across Sabrina’s back, curling it over her hip and moving her slightly behind him.

“Sebastian,” Sabrina said softly, shaking her head, as though her embarrassment wasn’t a good enough reason to stop playing by this stupid society script.

But Sabrina was blinking back tears, and Baz had never been very good at fitting in with people like the Pages and their friends. He could not stand there and let these women talk about Sabrina as if what should have been a charming childhood story was somehow an omen of future failures.

He turned his attention to Maryann and, for the first time, he really saw her—the way she clamored for any scrap of approval from these people she called friends, how she was willing to sacrifice her own daughter for the sin of imperfection on the altar of her own social standing. And she’d never see it, never understand how much pain she caused. His heart ached for Sabrina, for the times he’d been cocooned in his own mother’s love as Sabrina had never been in hers.

“You’ve done nothing but insult Sabrina since we got here,” he said, eyes locked on Maryann, despite the anxious way she avoided his gaze. “My wife may be too polite to tell you off, but unfortunately for you, I wasn’t raised with her sense of decorum.”

“Honestly, this is all a bit much,” Maryann tittered anxiously.

“You’re right. The way you talk about your own daughter isa bit much. And it ends now.” He slid his hand into Sabrina’s and squeezed. When she squeezed back, he felt like a king. “No one speaks poorly of my wife. Not even you. Not anymore.” He pressed his lips to Sabrina’s templed and murmured, “It’s time to go.”

Without another glance at his mother-in-law, Baz led Sabrina across the lawn, away from these people who had never deserved her in the first place. They didn’t stop to acknowledge Richard, despite him pushing through a group of guests in an attempt to intercept them as they passed, and they definitely didn’t stop to say goodbye to her sister, standing off to the side with a look of annoyance pinching her features. Instead, Baz led her up the stairs to the guest room, realization dawning that he hadn’t thought past getting her away from her awful mother to figure out what happened next. Would Sabrina want to go back to the party? Would she be angry with him for making a scene?

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