“You do know, Cami. You do.” Casey’s voice was kind, but it broke my heart all the same. “You have to accept what is. Stop trying to turn him into someone he’s already told you he isn’t.”
* * *
The morning of the wedding, Landon left after breakfast to meet up with the other groomsmen. Emma and I went to Lily’s room where she and the bridesmaids were gathered. Though the wedding wasn’t for another six hours, Lily was already in the makeup chair. The other women lounged around in pale pink robes and slippers, talking and laughing. I gleaned that they’d all been in a sorority together in college. Some had just graduated this past May.
I sat with Lily’s mom, making small talk and listening in on the other girls’ conversation. They weren’t much younger than me, but I could relate to their lives about as much as I could relate to Landon’s. I was somewhere in between these young women who were just starting out – childless save for Lily – and these men who had built their careers and settled into their success, letting it solidify around them like a shell.
Or at least, Landon had. Con had somehow managed to break out of it for Lily.
I thought about Landon’s face after Emma announced I could get married here. Blank, inscrutable, like the old days. And then when I’d asked him about it, he’d kissed me. Again, just like the old days. We’d always had a physical connection, but it looked like our communication was as stunted as it had ever been.
Two of the bridesmaids were talking to another, a girl with long, dark hair and high cheekbones. She was beautiful, like a model, and she looked familiar. It took me a minute to figure out why. I’d seen her picture on a mantle just the other night – she was Con’s daughter Halley. She was making a face while the other two laughed.
“That’s gross,” Halley said to them, trying not to laugh herself. “They’re like my uncles.”
“Yeah, and I could be your aunt,” a redhead said, her dark eyes sparkling.
Halley pretended to gag.
“I’ll take the silver fox,” one of the girls said. “What’s his name again, Hals?”
“That’s disgusting, but you probably mean Dominic.”
“Dominic,” the girl relished the name.
“What’s the dark-haired one’s story? The one with the green eyes.”
“Landon?” Halley snorted. “Fat chance. Women have been trying to lock him down my whole life. Models. Actresses. Heiresses. A different one every time I see him. He keeps them around for a couple of months, max. I don’t think he’s ever even had a serious girlfriend.”
“Is he gay?” one of them wondered.
“No, I think he just, like, really doesn’t want any attachments.” Halley shrugged blithely, completely unaware that my gaze had become riveted on her as she talked about Landon.
Models. Actresses.Heiresses. How many had there been exactly? Landon and I had never talked about our past relationships. I hadn’t had any worth talking about, and I’d assumed he was the married-to-his-work type. It had taken me weeks to break down his defenses and convince him to go to dinner with me. According to Halley, though, he’d had too many to count.
The orange juice I’d drank for breakfast curdled in my stomach. I tasted the citrus tang again, sour in the back of my throat. Emma was trying to get my attention, but I couldn’t hear her around the buzzing in my ears.
Landon’s silence.
Halley’s words.
Landon’s stony face.
Halley’s laugh.
I suddenly felt like the walls of the spacious, high-ceilinged room were closing in on me. I mumbled some excuse to Lily’s mom about why I had to go, grabbed Emma’s hand and escaped.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Emma asked as I pulled her along behind me, trying to remember how to get back to our rooms.
“Nothing, baby. I’m just…tired.”
It was true. I was so, so tired. Tired of fearing one man and tired of loving another one who could never love me back. I had more freedom than I’d had in weeks – Landon’s men kept an unobtrusive distance – but I still felt claustrophobic. Trapped.
Somehow, I managed to get Emma and I ready for the wedding. I hardly remembered curling my hair and stepping into the dress I’d chosen, but somehow, there we were in the mirror. Emma in her bright pink dress with a tulle skirt, me in the silky lavender sheath.
“I love dresses,” Emma said enthusiastically.
“Me too, baby.” I smiled at her in the mirror, coming back to myself a little. Yes, I was tired. Yes, I had put myself inexactlythe same bad position I had before – loving a man who might never want me the way I did him. All of him. But I had Emma, and no matter what happened with her father, she was the best thing that had ever happened to me.