Page 5 of Wedding Season
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU’RENOTLEAVING.”
“No way.”
“You belong in Magnolia. Who is Alex Ralsten to suggest you don’t?”
Mariella tried to smile at Emma and Angi as they stood in the Wildflower Inn’s bright kitchen later that night but her face wouldn’t cooperate.
She appreciated the solidarity of her two best friends, even though it still surprised her that they would feel any loyalty.
Growing up on the south side of Philadelphia, the only daughter of a single mom who was rarely sober, Mariella hadn’t made friends easily. She learned early on not to trust anyone but herself, and eventually her demons had gotten bad enough that even she wasn’t reliable.
The one thing she’d had was an intense desire to get out of her life and the poverty that she knew. She’d spent hours in her local library poring over fashion and specifically bridal magazines. It was a different world than the one she knew. Clean and white and brimming with possibilities. That’s what she wanted.
One of the older women in the cramped apartment complex where she lived had given her a sewing machine and taught her how to use it. She’d put together a portfolio that, thanks to her socioeconomic situation, landed her a scholarship to Parsons School of Design once she got her GED.
Her mom hadn’t believed she had it in her to make something of herself or escape the nightmare of their life until Mariella had walked out the door and not returned.
For a while, it had been touch and go whether she would actually survive given where she came from and her riotous self-destructive streak. There had been some near misses thanks to her penchant for partying with the wrong crowd. Plus, a string of loser boyfriends and their callous treatment had almost convinced her to give up.
But she kept pushing forward with her eye on the prize and her heart locked up tight. She stopped partying and worked harder than anybody in her class and channeled her dream of a romantic fantasy into dresses that made women believe their perfect lives were attainable.
She was like some modern version of Rumpelstiltskin, spinning hay into gold. The blackness that had been planted in her soul and the shame she felt at what she’d had to do and give up to make her dreams come true had poisoned her from the inside out.
In some ways, she didn’t blame her former fiancé. Yes, he was a cheating jerk-wad, but she was at her core unlovable and it had been her folly to believe she could be anything else.
Her friends in Magnolia saw her as someone different. They didn’t seem to care about her rough edges but saw the person she desperately wanted to be without knowing how to embody it. They believed she was already that person and who was she to tell them any different?
“He didn’t specifically suggest it, more of an implication that this town isn’t big enough for the two of us. I just wish he would go away.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave Magnolia.”
“You’re. Not. Leaving.” Angi Guilardi wagged a finger in Mariella’s direction. “I’ll have words with hoity-toity Alex if I have to.”
Angi was an Italian spitfire, and she and Mariella had butted heads over and over when they’d first met. The two of them were like twin sides of the same coin, Emma would have said.
Emma was the glue that held their unlikely trio together. She came from a prominent, wealthy family, the kind of old-money people Mariella’s business had catered to for years. Old or new money hadn’t mattered when they were ordering a custom gown from Belle Vie.
But Emma had wanted something different, and she’d created a new life for herself in Magnolia. She’d taken a dilapidated mansion and with the help of her contractor fiancé, Cam Arlinghaus, she’d turned the Wildflower Inn into something amazing.
Mariella had practically forced Emma to partner with her. There was something about the restoration of the old house and the new life it was gaining that spoke to Mariella. She’d walked by late one night and immediately felt a deep desire to be a part of it.
She hadn’t actually wanted to work with Angi but now she couldn’t imagine her life without the creative chef. Without either of these women.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “I’m not leaving, but Alex is going to be a big part of this community. The Fit Collective has already brought dozens of new residents into town, and I know how it goes with corporations when they pick a headquarters. He’s going to sponsor events and add value in ways that I can’t. Besides, other than to me, he’s a really nice person.”
Emma inclined her head. “Are you worried that he’s going to be more popular than you?”
“I’m worried that he’s going to find a way to belong in Magnolia in a way I’m simply not capable of. People are bound to be reminded that I share a history with him. One where I ruined his life.”
“His fiancée was cheating on him,” Angi said. “She’s the one who ruined his life.”
“I publicly humiliated him.”
Mariella still couldn’t specifically call to mind the details of her tirade, although the images were stamped across her mind like a tattoo. One of the wedding guests had filmed the whole thing and uploaded it to YouTube. Alex’s ex-fiancée was an A-list Hollywood actress. America’s sweetheart, Amber Turner. Their wedding was to be the thing of fairy tales and probably would have made the cover ofPeoplemagazine. Instead, grainy photos of an angry Mariella had been splashed across both mainstream magazines and the seedier gossip sites.
Yes, Amber had been the villain, but she’d used her powerful PR machine and her public image to turn the tables and make Mariella the bad guy.
It had been a hard lesson. But Mariella understood she was never meant to be the heroine of anyone’s story, even her own.
