Page 397 of Now and Forever

Sighing deeply, I set the pen down after signing the last document, studying my penmanship. Rest in peace, Ava Westwood.

No more ghosts. I had everything I needed to have a loving, fulfilled life. Even without Reiss’s love, his company and the knowledge that I would be seeing him for the rest of my life was enough to sustain me. I had to remind myself what truly mattered.

Reiss’s life outside mine shouldn’t be held against him. He had been forthcoming with his intentions and hadn’t made any promises to me that suggested anything beyond what he could offer. The problem was me and the way I could easily deceive myself into believing I had the power to change his feelings for me. It was human nature to expect such things; however, my brain must function with lucidity, or I’d end up with nothing, nothing at all.

“Is there anything else you need from me?” I asked, looking up to him, bright-eyed and expectant.

He shook his head. “For now, no. If there are any changes that require you to sign a document, rest-assured, I’ll personally take care of it.”

“Okay. Thank you, I suppose.” My finger toyed with the ends of the cushion. I felt at odds with myself because, each time I gazed at him, I couldn’t help wondering when he’d plan to stay the night again. Or the important details of his vanishing act, the aftermath of it, anyway. Those two questions were something I could not possibly say out loud without repercussions. Both posed the threat that he could very well walk out of here without saying another word, and I did not want that to happen since he had taken his jolly time to visit me this time.

“Did Father tell you the timeframe of when the divorce will be finalized?”

“He and his team are working on it. He hopes that the decree nisi will be made absolute by the courts in a matter of days as long as Ashton doesn’t oppose anything in the contract.”

“In a matter of days?” Bloody Hell. I hadn’t seen that coming. When he had mentioned expediting the process the last time he had been here, I’d thought he meant weeks stretching to a few months. But in a matter of days? I was rendered speechless. Did he plan to marry the next day since he wanted me to be his dirty little secret? Fuck. I hadn’t thought that I’d be upset about it, but somehow I was. All those inner talks I had held with myself flew out the window the moment I realized I would be saying my vows much too soon. Could I mentally prepare myself in less than a week? In a few days perhaps?

“When do you plan to marry?” I cautiously asked him while the profound distance between us felt palpable.

“I applied for a special marriage license a few days ago, which should arrive in a day or two. Once your divorce is approved, we could get married as soon as arranged.” He pulled his phone from his breast pocket, his face expressionless when he said, “If your divorce is granted within five days, we could marry the day after.” He sounded monotonous, as though we weren’t talking about marriage at all. It was like a rehearsed speech, with no feelings involved.

Pressing down the bubbling hysteria that was about to erupt, I shook my head, not agreeing with him. “If it’s granted within five days, we’ll marry on the third day after.” I was standing my ground because there were things that were important to me, and I needed to learn how to tamper those down before signing my life away to be his somewhat kept secret.

“Very well. That’s not a tough request. I can easily accommodate that.”

I’m sure you can, I quietly mocked as I plastered on a saccharine smile. “Thank you.”

“And, as for the wedding, since we are pressed with time, do you have any reservations for it taking place at the registrar’s office in Westminster?”

“No.” This was a business transaction, nothing more. He was treating it as such, and thus, any fanciful notion about fairytales was absolutely crushed. “The registrar’s office is perfectly fine. I mean, I had the grand wedding with Ashton with all the frills and grandiosity one could manage. Something simple would be more fitting the second time around.”

“Yes, your wedding had all the trappings and embellishments. Your father didn’t spare any expense for his only daughter.” His comment weighed heavily with unmistakable sarcasm.

What an odd thing to say, especially coming from him.

Licking my lips, I frowned at him. “I suppose it was lavish compared to standard weddings, but it wasn’t—”

“It was,” he immediately interrupted. “You know it was. You don’t have to be ashamed to admit that the wedding of the year wouldn’t be dubbed as such if it didn’t cost an obscene amount of money. The flowers were specifically flown in from South America, weren’t they?”

“It was one of my mother’s ingenious ideas, as was the rest.” Sure, the wedding had been beyond costly, but my father had believed then that I was only going to marry once; therefore, he hadn’t imposed a budget. “The days leading up to the wedding were such a fiasco that I was almost willing to bet it’d be a complete disaster when the final day arrived,” I said out loud, my thoughts transporting me into the past. “Chaotic though it was, everything came out beautifully.”

“As did you,” he coarsely said, sounding strained. “You looked just like I pictured you would—breathtakingly enchanting, as if you just stepped out of my dream and came to life.”

Was that a compliment? Did he really used to dream of me that way … in a wedding dress? Yes. The old Reiss would have. It brought immeasurable sadness as I thought of the wasted love he had for me—his love that I could never get back.

Pasting on brave smile, I played his compliment coolly, like it didn’t affect me greatly. “The society magazine photos surely didn’t capture anything breathtakingly enchanting, not as far as I can remember.”

His eyes zeroed in on me, the emerald greens pulling me in. “Possibly, but I can’t attest to that since I never saw the magazine.”

“Oh.” I was beyond confused. “We only released those photos for the feature, but I wasn’t aware that there were more floating around.”

“Who said that I saw it from the media?”

There was a long pause while I stared at him hard, brows furrowing, as if I was trying to solve the solution to world hunger. “But, if you didn’t, then …”

The pin dropped.

I vehemently shook my head, scoffing in protest. “You can’t possibly mean … it’s just not…”

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