I glance at the crowd to look for Kennedy, but Ace snags my eye instead. Just crap. I shoot him a pleading look but I get the feeling he wants nothing to do with me or my leap into real estate right now.
“The first time I said I love you”—Warren starts, and in the wrong fucking direction, might I add—“I think maybe we were six and you had just shoved a stick of gum in my mouth.”
The crowd melts in a choir of sighs.
“It was a Popsicle,” I stupidly correct. If I knew that sweltering August day would come back to haunt me, I would have shoved it in a far more interesting location.
“Whatever.” Warren shrugs it off. He never could stand being corrected. “The point is, I had no idea that the girl I was saying it to would be the exact one I’d be saying it to for the rest of my life.”
My stomach lurches and suddenly the prime rib and potato salad I wolfed down a mere fifteen minutes ago are begging to make their reprisal.
“What I’m trying to say…” Warren drops to one knee and the crowd gives a collective gasp.
Oh sweet mother of God.
My entire body freezes. Warren has crossed the last fucking line. My mind tells my feet to carry me the hell away from here, but I catch the expression on my father’s face, and not one muscle in my body obeys.
“Reese Abigail Westfield…”
Abigail?
I shoot a look to my father. Unless he knows something I don’t, my middle name is still Madelyn. But dad doesn’t dispute my misplaced moniker, he simply plasters that shit-eating grin on his face right alongside Beverly and the McCarthy’s.
A choking sounds emits from Warren’s throat, and for a second I think he’s going to puke all over my patent leather FMs, and if his speech is headed in the direction I believe it is, I’d welcome vats full of vomit.
“I guess what I’m trying to say”—he picks up my hand—“Reese, will you spend the rest of your life with me?” He pops open a small velvet box that appears from the inside of his shirt, and I’m equally unimpressed with his magician-like skills as I am with his ambush proposal. Not that proposals are evernotambush, it’s just the prospective bride-to-be usually has a freaking clue things have escalated to a matrimonial level.
The crowd coo’s, creating its own lovesick brand of delirium as I’m momentarily blinded by the sparkler he’s wielding like a threat.
He dips the microphone away from the two of us a moment.
“Are you pissed?”
“Yes.” I hear my voice amplify over the lake like a gong, and the crowd erupts in violent cheers.
“You!” I try to snatch the microphone from him, but he passes it back to my father. “You’re an asshole,” I hiss into his ear.
Dad says something about champagne that sets the crowd off into another round of titters, but I miss it entirely because the only thing I hear is the sound of Warren’s balls exploding in my angry fist—or at least I’d like to.
The party shifts back to its pre-marital assault stage as the music gears up with an obnoxious song that gets the entire crowd moving.
“How could you?” I push Warren in the chest and sadly not one person witnesses the quasi violent exchange.
“What thefuckis wrong with you?” He grabs ahold of my wrist and whisks me off past the lawn to the dark area near the house.
“Do you really think our non-existent relationship is at that level?” I take the ring off my hand and shove it in his chest.
Warren stares at me for a very long time, his eyes filtering their disappointment into each of mine.
Oh my God. I stagger back a few steps. Obviously he does.
“But we’ve never even, you know.” I glance down at his crotch a moment.
“You’re the waiting kind of girl. I get it.” He comes in and lands a wet kiss over my lips. “And now that we’re engaged. I think the waiting should be over, don’t you?” His beer breath blows over me, and I’m getting a buzz by proxy simply off the fumes.
“Warren. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I just don’t think—”
“Look”— he knots up the front of my dress and yanks me in as if he’s about to beat the living shit out of me—“you and I belong together. Get your fucking head straight, will you? We’ve got a sixteen million dollar account riding on this evening. Just put on a happy face and stop acting like everything is always aboutyou. Sacrifice a little for once. This is our damn company you’re about to take down with your silly little tantrum. This isn’t the time or the place.”
