A knock sounded at the door. It inched open but stopped a moment later.
“Hey, Livy, it’s just Enrico,” the hesitant voice of Pirelli called through. “Are you decent? It looks like we can start anytime. Your groom is here.”
“I’m ready,” I answered, pushing up from the chair.
The door crept open to display Enrico Pirelli, my father’s right-hand man. Where my father stood tall, shoulders almost as broad as the thug’s before the cancer, his consigliere’s appeared pinched and slouched. A slicked up salt and pepper combover half covered his shiny dome, while my father had had a full head of ink black hair. I’d only discovered he had dyed it when some white roots came in after his diagnosis.
The man wore an impeccably tailored white tuxedo coat over his black pants. He dressed the part, but like my groom, he couldn’t match that dream wedding. He wasn’t my father… but he was the best I had. At least he knew that.
“You look…” he started before shaking his head, “I know your dad is looking down on you now and he’s proud, Livy.”
“If I want to make it to the pictures without streaks of mascara streaming down my cheeks, we shouldn’t talk about my dad,” I replied. “Shall we?”
“Of course, Livy.” He offered his arm.
He never used to call me that. Only my father called me Livy. Enrico began to shorten my name a month or so after my father’s diagnosis. He wanted me to think of him like a surrogate father, to keep his position in the family. I’d have respected it a lot more had he not been so damn transparent.
The walk from the restrooms to the center aisle of the church seemed to drag on forever. As we entered the sanctuary, I kept my eyes on the floor in front of us. The longer I could pretend it was my father’s arm I held and not the Russian thug standing next to the priest up front, the better.
Even after the music changed and we turned the corner, I kept my eyes low. Only when they came upon a spattering of rose petals against the dark hardwood floor did I look up. Celeste stood in front of the first pew, a basket held in her hands. Had she actually pretended to be the flower girl? She couldn’t let anyone else be the center of attention, even on their wedding day.
I couldn’t put it off any longer, couldn’t distract myself from the reality. My focus finally turned to the thug. When my hard eyes met his, they found them aimed lower, mouth open. A tinge of red dusted his cheeks when he realized I’d caught him staring. His head jerked higher, mouth closed, eyes unreadable.
His black tux draped over his broad shoulders, its arms perfectly tapered to emphasize his powerful frame without looking comically undersized. Even his shoes had been polished into mirrors. He might have been a thug, but he cleaned up. I’d been right about the pictures. They’d be breathtaking.
When I first met him, before he became my high school tormenter, I thought he was cute. He had that whole bad boy, too-cool-for-school charisma. That naïve girl I’d been back then would have turned crimson if he’d looked at me then the way he did now.
The music died down, replaced by distant clicks. I hadn’t even noticed the photographer when I entered. My lips curled into a warm smile as I looked to the side of my husband to be. Easier to fake it for the cameras when I wasn’t looking at him.
Enrico guided me up to stand in front of the priest. His job fulfilled, he stepped next to his daughter, the only people in attendance besides Mr. Rudolph. The three of them sat when the priest motioned for them to.
He began the ceremony but the words might as well have been in a different language. Like it had more times than I wanted to admit in the last week, reality pressed down on my shoulders with all the strength of gravity on Jupiter. Only repeating that this was my father’s last request kept me from bolting back up the aisle on my ice cold feet.
The priest droned on. More than once as his voice echoed through the sanctuary, the Russian thug’s eyes darted to me and down. Seemed someone else appreciated the dress. I almost wondered how he would have reacted if I’d actually worn the second dress Celeste had me try on.
Before his next glance, I squared my shoulders, pushed out my breasts. Let the thug look. It wasn’t like he was going to get a better view or a chance to touch me. That’d hurt him a lot more if he had a strong memory of this moment.
“I am,” said the thug a moment after the priest’s voice cut off. Both men looked my way.
“I am,” I repeated.
“Are you prepared, as you follow the path of marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?” the priest said from rote memory.
“I am,” the thug and I repeated.
No lightning struck me for lying in a church, so I had that going for me.
“Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the Law of Christ and His Church?”
“I am,” I lied again, echoed by the thug.
My shoulders shivered at the thought of his spawn inside me. I’d followed my father’s last request, helped give the thug legitimacy by marrying him, but I wasn’t about to let him touch me.
The priest moved on to the actual vows. Other than speaking when prompted, I tuned them out completely, lost in my thoughts and worries. As long as I smiled for the cameras, spared the thug the adoring glances expected of me, it would look real enough in the pictures, regardless of my mood.
“You may kiss the bride.” Here, the priest’s words finally found purchase in my otherwise occupied mind.
The thug inched closer. Our eyes met and he hesitated for a beat. His reaction and the clicking of the cameras told me I had let my true feelings show on my face. A moment later, I’d schooled them into the expected excited adoration.
