High Heels in New York (23 page)

“Yeah.
You?”

“I’ll be just peachy if you take this back,” she said handing Melissa back the check she had written her.

“No. Angie, I can’t,” Melissa
said.

“Darling, you better take that because this is the last time that I am offering it to you.
Plus, it was either give it to you, so you can do something great with it, or
cooking
lessons.”

“Cooking lessons?”
Melissa
laughed.

“Apparently, men can’t marry a woman who doesn’t cook,” she said, exposing a ring on her left hand.

“What
the?”
Melissa screamed.
“Who?
Carlos?” Melissa asked incredulity.

“That little fucker grew on me.”

This caused more pearls of laughter.

#

Four hours. That’s how long it took for the judge to look over all the evidence that Claude had collected. Then it took the judge another two hours to clear Melissa as a suspect in Valerie’s murder.

“I’m so glad that’s over,
” Melissa said as they walked out of the courtroom.

Claude shook his head, “T
hank goodness.

“What are you going to do about Jonathan?”
Melissa asked. The authorities hadn’t been able to find him and all of Manhattan was still recovering from their financial loss.

“Unfortunately, it’s going to go into the cold case file until
new
information pops up. Why? Has he called you?”

“No. I haven’t heard from him at all,” Melissa said, feeling dizzy. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Oh My God.
Melissa, y
ou’re bleeding!” Claude exclaimed
just as Melissa collapsed on the floor.

17

A few months later…

The cold winter air brushed against Melissa’s face as she fixed her dress. She looked up at the stairs that led to the entrance of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and smiled. Everything was perfect, the flowers, the cake, even the horse drawn Cinderella carriage. She was happy that she hadn’t cancelled any of it. Though, she could’ve done without all the reporters and the cameras that had camped out all night to get the “money shot.” She really thought that by now the media would have forgotten about her and went back to chasing celebrities.

“You okay? Claude said as he grabbed her hand and helped her up the stairs. “The doctor said you needed to take it easy.”

“I’m fine,” Melissa said as she looked around. The blanket of snow covering the streets made everything look magical. “It’s more beautiful than I thought.”

“You know it’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing this,” Claude said.

“I would do anything for her,” Melissa said as she turned around to watch the Cinderella coach pull up to the front of the church.
Everyone had told her she went overboard with the coach but, seeing it in person she was delighted to have ordered it, even if she wasn’t the one inside of it.

Slowly the door opened and the only thing Melissa was staring at was
a
very beautiful and very familiar Vera Wang dress. Looking at it from this perspective made her feel certain that this was the way it was meant to be.

“She looks so beautiful,” Claude said, holding Melissa’s hand.

“She does,” Melissa agreed and walked toward the carriage. “You may not have had your beach wedding Ma, but I’m so happy that I was able to give you a fairytale wedding designed just for a princess.”

“
Mija
, I’m the queen. You are and al
ways will be my little princess,” h
er mother said, hugging her tightly. “And by the way, these shoes are fabulous!” She lifted the hem of the wedding dress and exposed a pair of decoupage four inch heels and hundreds of Swarovski Crystals.

The cameras began to flash and Melissa’s mother happily imitated what she’d seen models do on television. It was the first time that Melissa had ever seen her mother proud of her. It gave her that warm fuzzy feeling inside.   

“Can you please stop that before you ruin your dress and your
shoes!
” Kathy screamed at her mother before looking at Melissa. “And stop being so mushy. You’re
creeping
everyone out.”

Melissa grabbed her sister and gave her a big hug. “I love you too.”

“Claude, please take your girlfriend before I throw up,” Kathy said.

“Are you okay?” Melissa asked her sister.

Kathy smiled and then began to rub her belly. “We think its triplets!” She exclaimed.

“Can you please grab these kids? They’re drooling all over my fur coat,” Angie yelled out to Kathy.

“I thought you loved kids?” Melissa asked.

“Yes. But only when they’ve passed the teething stage,” Angie said, handing her purse to Carlos and wiping her coat. “Keep those
rugrats
away from my fur,” she commanded to Carlos who was nodding and doing as he was told.

Melissa laughed so hard, as she looked around at everyone that she thought she would bust open one of her stitches. She
knew things may not have turned out the way she planned but she knew that everything was exactly how it was supposed to be and maybe even better than she had hoped.

“Oh no.
I left my purse in the car,” Melissa said, as she was about to step inside the church.

“Don’t worry I’ll get it,” Claude
said and
ran to the car
.
He
grabbed her purse out of the back seat. As he was walking back to the church his cell phone rang. “Where the hell have you been? You said you’d call in a few weeks not a few months! What? No. she doesn’t suspect a thing.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A.V. Scott was born in 1978 in Caguas, Puerto Rico and was raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is an online blogger, freelancer, Poet and eBook author. She is a member of the Florida Writers Association and the International Women's Writers Guild.

She can be found on Facebook and Twitter, where she keeps readers up to date on her writing life

For more information please visit:

www.avscott.com