Page 9 of Between Now and Always

He’s not mine.

And the only person who can put an end to my misery is me.

The veil of guilt I’d spent the last two years behind obstructed this simple truth. Thanks to Will and what he told me in the library, that’s gone.

With that certainty woven into the very lining of my heart, I slip my arm out of my father’s and stop where I am.

Whatever else he may be, slow on the uptake isn’t one of them.

It only takes him half a step to notice.

His shoulders draw back and he his ribcage expands with the breath he draws before he swivels on his heel to look at me.

His expression is calm, and unequivocally angry.

“You willnotdo this.” His wolf like, ice blue eyes blaze with remonstration and narrowed in warning.

Fear clogs my throat and I let it. I don’t pretend not to feel it. I don’t try to push it away. I make room for it, right behind my conviction. And just like that, fear is no longer in the lead.

“The only way I’ll make it to that altar is if you drag me. And I know you don’t want your friends to see you do that.” My voice doesn’t quiver, my determination doesn’t waver.

Instead, my courage grows.

He strides toward me, and then halts suddenly when he realizes the photographer is with us in this vestibule.

His cheeks puff out, and a flush sweeps across the rise of them. I’ve never seen from him rattled.

“How much do you want?” he asks hurriedly.

“How much what?” I feign confusion.

“Money.How much?” He asks stiffly.

I scoff and shake my head. “How small your world must be for you to believe with such certainty that entire lives can be bargained away for something as fungible asmoney.”

I stole that line from Will. I had to ask him what fungible meant, and when he said, “In essence it’s anything you could replace without anyone knowing the difference.”

I learned in the space of seconds it took him to explain it what I failed to understand properly all these months. – I was giving Duke invaluable, irreplaceable gifts — years of my life, legitimacy, financial security all in exchange for, something I could get anywhere.

But Will didn’t seek me out to give me relationship advice. He was seeking atonement.

I wasn’t sure that I’d been able to give him that. But he gave me my freedom in exchange. What he told me ensured that I will never marry Duke. Not now, that I know what he’s done.

“Stop talking in riddles and name your price,” my father growls, leaning toward me.

The church door opens and Phil sticks his head out. “Hey, is every—” he stops when he sees the tense standoff taking place.

“Get those fucking cameras out of here,” my father snarls at the crew that’s hovering nervously around us.

They don’t need to be told twice. They scurry outside.

“Liz?” Phil calls.

“Phillip, go and ask our guests to wait a few minutes. Your sister needs a few minutes,” my father snaps without looking back at him.

“I need alifetime. I’m not going in there. I’m leaving,” I tell my father.

He clenches his jaw, his expression that of someone whose chewing glass and trying to pretend it’s not cutting their mouth.

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