Chapitre 8: Chapter 8

MARI

The next morning came too fast. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, asking myself questions on Pierce’s motive with the city and what he planned to do to the historic bed-and-breakfast. Just as I decided it was none of my business and he could do whatever he wanted, new questions came to mind.

Questions I had no business concerning myself with asking. Questions like where had Oliver been all day? Why hadn’t he joined us downtown? And would I get the opportunity to see him soon? When?

There were also concerns on what I would do for six months while pretending to be Pierce’s fiancée. Should I pretend to plan a wedding? Spend my days lounging around the mansion doing nothing? Would he expected me to accompany him to town every day and spend more of his money as we made friends with the locals? Pierce was a man with a plan. That was easy to see, but he hadn’t seen the need to tell me said plan. I didn’t enjoy being left out of the loop.

I wandered the first floor of Pierce’s home until I heard talking coming from the kitchen, and my steps found me wandering in that direction. Pierce had set up shop at the small breakfast table surrounded by bay windows off the back into the house. It had a breathtaking view of his private beach and the ocean beyond. My eyes followed the clouds lining the sky as seagulls swooshed in and out of the water catching their morning breakfast.

The same housekeeper who led me to my room on my first day in Pelican Bay fussed over Pierce’s cup of coffee until with a single wave of his hand he shooed her away.

With a crinkle he flipped the page of his paper, drawing my attention that direction. My mouth fell open when I saw the headline and the picture they’d plastered on the front page of the Pelican Bay newspaper.

Holy shit.

"What the fuck, Pierce?" I practically fell into the chair across from him to get a better view of the image.

Pierce flipped over the top and smiled across the pages. "Oh, you saw. Magnificent picture of us."

He distorted half the article to look at me, and I snatched the paper away from his hands, laying it flat on the table so I could read. "It’s the front page!"

The picture of us as we sat on the small bench downtown and ate our muffins graced the cover of the very front page of the local newspaper! A headline ran across the top that read, Pierce Kensington Introduces New Fiancée to Pelican Bay. They caught us at a great moment. I was sitting on the bench beside him clearly laughing at something he said. My smile was bright, but I couldn’t remember that point in our conversation.

"It’s a small town, Mari. What can I say. Our engagement is news?"

Holy fuck. I’d been in the local gossip pages more than once when I lived in San Francisco. I was even once responsible for a headline much more scandalous than this. The same article cost me everything of my life in the big city, but I’d never made the front fucking page. The. Front. Page.

Pierce at one point said he wanted the whole town to hear about our engagement, and it looked as if he’d received his wish. I wouldn’t be able to walk on the streets now without someone recognizing me.

I slumped further my chair and the housekeeper, Melissa, stood beside me, giving me a questioning expression as if she thought I should be excited with the press.

"Maybe breakfast and a few eggs will make you feel better, darling," Pierce said as she set a plate of scrambled egg whites in front of me and then a cup filled to the brim with milky brown coffee. I trusted Pierce already communicated my preferences.

My attention was elsewhere. I nodded with each of her movements and gave her a quick thank you as my eyes scanned over the article, which listed Pierce’s accomplishments in the town and a few choice bits about me. I had no idea where they came from. It was a heavily Pierce article, which made sense, until I reached the last sentence.

"They quoted you!" I yelled, accusing him even as I stared at it in black-and-white in front of me.

"Mari and I can’t wait to host our wedding right here in Pelican Bay and then make a permanent residence in this wonderful town," I read aloud.

Pierce’s smile grew. He was proud of his accomplishment. "I couldn’t help showing off my gal."

My eyes widened with a million questions. I understood how the media worked, at least in the city. I hadn’t expected there to be paparazzi in this small town, but a quick phone call to a local journalist where we’d be at a certain time and it wouldn’t be hard to manipulate exactly what pictures went into the paper. Did he plan this article in advance?

Pierce Kensington wasn’t only a billionaire but a mastermind. It should have been criminal.

"You alerted the paper?" I asked, curious how much of this town Pierce controlled. Maybe his jokes about being in charge weren’t that far from the truth.

He laughed. "Not exactly, freedom of the press is a strong belief here."

"What will people say when we split up in a few months?" I asked, wanting to hear the answer to another question he hadn’t provided me details on before I agreed to this idea.

Would my actions get my name smeared all over again? Would it be San Francisco again but on the East Coast? I would never be able to travel to the beach again. What was I thinking when I approved this crazy idea of his?

Pierce would end up looking like the poor jaded bachelor left alone, and I’d be the woman who left a trail of broken hearts behind me. I’d never live it down so I could return to America if I decided I wanted to one day.

Pierce didn’t answer with anything but an even shrug. He’d obviously considered the end but hadn’t given it much thought to how it would play out. "We will deal with that when the time comes. I’m sure something will come to us in the meantime. Your phone is ringing."

"Huh?"

"Your phone," he repeated.

I looked at the small device I’d set on the breakfast table after spotting the article. My mother’s name flashed on the screen. "It’s my mother." I didn’t mean for the words to sound so horror filled, but they were.

"Aren’t you going to answer?" Pierce asked, not understanding how loaded his question was.

My mother and I hadn’t spoken in almost two years. She didn’t answer when I called her, and she’d never taken the time to call me since telling me what a disgrace I turned out to be for the Chambers family. Oh, and that she never wanted to see me again. Wish granted.

My heart clenched in my chest as I ran through the list of reasons she’d be communicating with me now. Did someone die? Was my father injured? What about my favorite aunt? The one person in the family who hadn’t given up on me.

"You better get it unless you want it to go to voicemail," Pierce recommended, his eyes on my phone as if he couldn’t understand why a person wouldn’t answer a call from their mother.

He obviously had a different relationship with his parents than I had with mine.

The Kensington family had to have their own skeletons in closets, but more than likely none of them came close to what I dealt with regularly.

"Yeah." I slipped my finger across the phone and gave a hesitant hello to my mother.

She didn’t waste any time with surface chatter. "Honey, we heard the news about you and the Kensington boy." My mother acted as if this is a friendly convo we had every week. Her words were full of excitement and she continued on as if we hadn’t had a massive gulf in our relationship for years. "Finally you’ve met someone with an acceptable status. Your father and I thought you would stay in Central America forever. We’re both so glad you finally came to your senses and rejoined respectable society."

My tongue was thick and my throat dry as I swallowed twice, trying to find words to answer my mother. Part of me was so happy she called and my heart sang with excitement. Could it be my parents had forgiven me? But after hearing her words, my mood soured when I realized exactly why she was calling and what I had done to earn my way back into their good graces.

Money.

It wasn’t that I dedicated the last two years of my life to helping other people obtain a better life in another country. It was that I’d met a man who would marry me, as if marrying into the Kensington family would wash away my previous sins.

My mother and I had never been further apart, but if I told her the truth of my plans with Pierce, she would not be able to keep it to herself. Now I wouldn’t only be lying to the people of Pelican Bay but to my family as well.

The phone grew silent and Pierce looked at me expectantly as he sipped on his morning coffee. "Me too, Mother," I said my words shaky. "I can’t wait for you to meet Pierce."

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