The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (34 page)

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Authors: Sarah Strohmeyer

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: The Sleeping Beauty Proposal
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Then again, I have no desire to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to wait for Nick. That is, if he ever returns.
Outside, the rain falls in horizontal sheets, marking a true New England nor'easter as I huddle under my umbrella and rush to the idling limo.
“Wicked
weathuh,
” says my limo driver, Joe, a big beefy Southie. “People do kooky stuff in
weathuh
like this.”
"I hope so,” I hear myself say as the Harbor Hotel comes into view. It is a huge, redbrick building that juts into Boston's bay, part of the city's refurbished waterfront. Joe informs me he'll be waiting around the corner in case I want to leave early.
“I won't want to leave early,” I yell through the pounding rain.
“So says you.” He gives me a thumbs-up and drives off.
“You should ask him to stay,” the Harbor Hotel doorman advises. “That's what he gets paid for. If he comes back again I'll make him stick around.You never know when you'll need to go home.”
There is no home, I think, not without Nick.
The party is on the fourth floor, where I find Patty wearing six-inch stiletto heels and a vintage Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress in leopard print. Her black hair is pushed back off her forehead and cascades in soft flips around her shoulders.
She's refined yet animalistic. Not many women could pull it off.“What happened to the Eileen Fisher?” I hand her my engagement gift, a set of note cards reading:
We regret to inform you that our nuptials have been canceled.
“You know what they say. It's a jungle out there. Dress accordingly. Speaking of jungle love, where's your Greek Adonis? I invited him, you know.”
“We had a falling-out.” I don't want to go into too much detail because this is Patty's big night and I refuse to ruin it.
“A little falling-out or a big falling-out?”
“A suicide plunge.”Taking a deep breath, I explain about telling him the truth. “It doesn't matter because I don't think he believed me. At any rate, he said he'll be out by Monday and he's leasing the apartment to his brother.”
“Genie. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I'm the one who made you wait.”
True, I think, biting my lip to keep myself together. "Oh, well. Now I suppose we'll find if true love will out.”
“It will. You bet it will. Though, I've never understood that phrase. Just
what
is true love supposed to out?” she asks as we enter the lavish room, one wall of which is windows facing out to the stormy harbor.
The men are in tuxes, the women in glittering designer wear. There's a band and waiters in white coats serving salmon and caviar and champagne.The place smells of smoked fish and Chanel.
"It's perfect,” I tell her. “All that's missing is a fiancé.”
“Not anymore. There he is,” she says, pointing to two men engaged in deep conversation.
I have to check once and then check again. This can't be right. There has to be some mistake. Patty would never have chosen . . .
“Hugh?”
"Hugh?” Patty takes another look. “Not Hugh. Though . . . shoot.
Is
that Hugh?”
Hearing his name, Hugh turns to us, dashing as usual in his authentic Savile Row. There is an air of triumph about him, a cockiness to his grin.
“Who let
him
in?” Patty asks.
"Todd,” I say, nodding to Hugh's conversation partner.“I gotta go, Patty. Hugh's probably just told Todd the truth and I don't want to be on the receiving end of his wrath. Sorry.”
Patty yanks me back. “You can't go. It's my shower.You have to stay.”
It's too late, anyway. Hugh and Todd are walking toward us. Todd is smiling, slapping Hugh on the back, while Hugh is focused completely on me. I have never seen him like this. I'm almost frightened.
“Darling,” he coos, taking my hand and kissing it. “I thought you'd never come.” And before I can snatch my hand away, he reaches out and brings me to him, planting a soft, scotch-tainted kiss on my startled lips. He's not drunk. He's not forceful. He's intent.
“That's what I'm talking about,”Todd says, clapping. “True love. Let's give it up for the other engaged couple here, okay, people?”
Several partygoers applaud. A gaggle of Hugh's groupies trip over themselves taking photos of us with their cell phones.
Hugh reluctantly ends our kiss, keeping his arm securely around my waist as if he can't be parted from my side for a minute.“I need to be alone with you, darling. There's so much I have to say.”
It is all I can do to keep breathing.
“Where've you been keeping my future in-law hidden, Genie?” Todd bellows.“I was beginning to wonder whether you two were really engaged or if you just made it up to rake in the loot.”
Todd and Hugh laugh heartily as the synapses in my brain short-circuit and fire off sparks.
“ 'Cause that's what Patty did, you know,”Todd says, bending close. “Faked it.”
“I never fake it,” Patty bawdily retorts. “What Patty wants, Patty gets.”
I take my eyes off Hugh and shoot a look at my sweet, delicate best friend who seems perfectly fine with admitting her engagement is a ruse. She is smiling up at Todd like he's her hero. Like he's her . . . no. It can't be. Not Todd. He'd never in a million years go along with a prank like this.
“Do you mean to tell me,” Hugh drawls, “that this shower is nothing but a scam?”
Patty says, “I don't know if I'd call it scamming. Payback is more like it.”
Todd shrugs. “Why not scam? Look, Patty's never gonna get married. I'm never gonna get married. This is our once-in-a -lifetime chance to even the playing field with really engaged people—like you and Genie.”
“Yes. Really engaged,” Hugh whispers in my ear.
Wait. So Todd thinks we
are
getting married?
“I say it's a capital idea!” Hugh hoists his scotch. “A toast. To equality.”
“To equality,” Todd agrees, toasting him back. “Here's to screwing with society.”
They clink glasses and I nearly faint. “I can't believe you, Mr. Principled, agreed to be Moe Howard.”
“Let's just say that for tonight, Sister Eugenia, I'm the stooge.”
Patty howls and reaches up to kiss Todd
smack
on the mouth. It's supposed to be a fun kiss, playful, but they stay like that, attached. Then Todd wraps his arms around her and they kiss some more. I have the feeling it's one of those oblivion kisses where the whole world drops away and there's just the two of them.
“This is our cue,” Hugh says, taking my hand and dragging me away to the dance floor.
I'm still gaping at my brother, so tall, bending down to Patty, so tiny she is invisible, that I barely notice Hugh has me in his grasp. The band strikes up “In My Life,” and, immediately, he dives in for another kiss.
“Quit it,” I say, pushing him back.“What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“Doing? Why, I'm doing what I should have done years ago. I'm treating you like my lover.”
This statement shocks me to where I'm tempted to make a break for it and dash to the limo. But Hugh holds me tight.
“I know what's going on,” he says. “I know what you've been up to.”
“What have I been up to?”
“Making me mad with desire, that's what you've been up to.” He twirls me around and brings me to him again. “Bill called last week. Said Connie Robeson showed up with a copy of an e-mail I'd sent to you weeks ago, cautioning you to be careful, that we weren't really betrothed.”
“That thief!” I cry. "That is so illegal for her to snoop in my personal e-mail.”
“No matter. It's not important.” His lips brush against my cheek and as they do, somewhere in the distance, flashes go off. Hugh's fans are lined up, watching us.“In a way it was for the best. It made me realize what a fool I've been.”
"You mean, thinking Bill and I were engaged.” Because, I had to admit, that was pretty foolish.
"No. I mean letting you go.”
I search the room for a professional photographer beyond Patty's gaping aunts and secretaries from her firm. “Is
People
magazine here or what?”
“Oh, Genie,” he says, laughing a polite Britishy kind of laugh. “I have so missed your sense of humor.”
“Really? Because the other day you rolled your eyes.”
“Yes, well, mustard on the collar's not actually funny, is it? Do you suppose there's somewhere we can slip off to so I can escape this infernal limelight?”
One year ago, Hugh would have died to be in “infernal limelight.”
“Why do we need to be alone?”
“Because I have to explain everything.” The song ends and Hugh agrees to sign a few autographs while I try to locate my exits, as if I'm on a plane and it's going down. Patty's on her cell standing by the door, so that won't work. And, cripes, there's Tony Pugliese by the other. I'd rather cross a swamp of alligators than cross him.
“Here.” Hugh escorts me toward the windows and out to the balcony, begging off more signatures like he really is Mick Jagger.
Outside, a salty wind is whipping off the harbor. Moored boats are bobbing over the black waves and it's spitting nasty. Hugh takes off his tuxedo jacket and hangs it on my shoulders. “Quite romantic, isn't it?” he says, slipping my hand in his pocket to keep it warm. “I do so like inclement weather. Summons the muses, you know.”
"Hugh?” I say. "Would you mind telling me what you're up to? There's no press out here. Not even adoring fans.You can be yourself.You don't have to put on a show.”
“But I am being myself, love.” He cocks my chin up for another kiss. “
Love.
It so fits you.”
“You're freaking me out. One minute I'm the clinging girlfriend with no sexuality. Now, I'm your love. I need an explanation, Hugh.”
He sighs and nods. “Yes, you do. A long-overdue one, I'm afraid.”
"Are you . . . mocking me?”
He shakes his head, all romantic pretense gone.“If there's anyone to be mocked here, it's me. I've been the idiot.”
“That's a first.” Hugh hardly ever admits he's wrong.
“Genie, I love you. I have always loved you and will always love you. I didn't realize that until I returned from England and walked into your office expecting to find the same old mousy girl, and instead discovered a strong, beautiful, and sharp woman on the verge of marrying another man.”
Kissing me on the forehead, he says,“At first I felt relieved.You were off my back. We were through. I was finally free. After four long years, I was able to live my life without concern for anyone else.”
Now
that
sounds more like Hugh.
“But I kept going back to you and Bill. It wasn't right that such a beautiful young woman should be stuck with such an old geezer. A philandering geezer, if the rumors are true.”
Probably true.
“I was haunted by images of you and him making”—he pauses, as if shy—“babies.”
"The hazards of sex,” I say, pulling his coat tight.
“Right.” He does his Hugh Grant bashful blinking and adds, “If there was anyone you should be doing
that
with, it's me.”
I am silent, waiting for the rest.
“I decided I had to do something to stop you from marrying him. So when the
New York Times
called, looking for a quote, I just went with it. Really, it had nothing to do with the tremendous publicity potential, although that's not to say my publicist wasn't thrilled. She was beside herself.”
"Oh, I bet.”
“As I was telling them, the
New York Times,
about you, I had a premonition of you as my wife, standing by me, supporting me throughout my career, its ups and downs.”
“Is that what you thought? That I'd be some sort of helpmate?”
“It was! I mean, what I'm trying to say, Genie, is now that you've gotten yourself so together with your new physique and independence and so on and so forth, it occurs to me what a fabulous team we'd make.”
Team. Unreal.“Are you asking me to join your squash league?” I say. "Or something more?”
“I suppose what I'm asking is if you can find it in your heart to forgive me so that we can reunite.”
“In other words, you want to get back together.”
He closes his eyes, as if this is the most momentous decision of his life. “Yes. That's what I'm saying. I think we should start over.”
Start over? Another four years? He couldn't be serious.“What about your lack of sexual attraction and all that?”
“A lie. A full-blown lie.You'd put me on the spot to come up with one good reason why I shouldn't marry you and, well, there were no good reasons.”
“There were no good reasons?” I knew it. I just knew it!
“No. Not really. Unless you count my own fear of commitment, which is no excuse considering the tons of therapy I've had and the fact that I'm almost forty.”
"Okay. Assuming that you are sexually attracted to me—”
“Oh, I am,” he says, nuzzling my neck. “You don't know how much.”
“Then what about the other woman?”
“Never.”
I push him off my neck. “What do you mean, ‘never'?”
Grinning like a dope, as if I will find him to be a naughty but precocious little boy, he says, “I made her up. I mean, what else could I do? Here I had a perfect opportunity to play to my audience of female readers by proposing to my girlfriend on live national television.Yet I wasn't ready to get married. I had no choice but to fake it.”

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