Jamie knew she was burning this bridge before it was even built.I don’t care. Holy shit, do I not care.Anne was not going to get away with brushing her off as Etta’s marriage training wheels. She was the full two-wheels, made by an old company known for its high, long-lasting quality. Etta would be riding her until she was dead!There are so many meanings behind that.Jamie didn’t care. It fit the kinky lifestyle that Anne Coleman would hopefully never know about, so help Jamie’s fragile ego.
“Take a good look at me right now, because even if you never bother to come see us, let alone come to our wedding, I want you to at least see what kind of woman your daughter has fallen in love with. So help me God, we might be having kids someday, so you better check out these genes right now!”
“Well…”
“Did you hear me? I’m not a fucking floozy. I’m your daughter’s fiancée, and I am going to be the mother of her children one day!”
Anne’s hard gaze told her to get out of her room, but at least she had finally shut up.
“You know what? At this rate, even if our marriage crumbles and she offers me a billion dollars to divorce her, I still won’t do it, just to spite you.”
“Get the hell out!”
Huffing, Jamie stormed out of the bedroom, too angry to face the restof the dark bungalow. Nevertheless, she slammed the door behind her and left Anne to her misery.
Etta was leaning against the couch, drinking from the glass Jamie had left in the kitchen.
“Oh… shit.” No duh, they woke her up with that commotion. “I’m sorry about that.” Etta may not blush very often, but Jamie could make it up on her behalf. Like now, when she blushed so hard that Etta must have seen it even in the darkness.
Her figure moved languidly through the night. If she was angry, she didn’t let on. “Future mother of my children, huh?”
Jamie sighed. “Don’t ask me how that’s going to work, Signora Donna.”
Etta crawled back beneath the covers of the sofa bed before pulling back Jamie’s side.I’m allowed in after yelling at your mother, huh?No love lost, apparently. “Where did you learn to say that in Italian?”
Jamie got in bed, but only tentatively wrapped her arm across Etta’s chest. “I learned a lot of random things in Milan. Like how your ex-girlfriend probably didn’t want to marry you because she still had the hots for her old dorm roommate.”
Etta chuckled. “Now you’re deflecting from what happened in there by trying to make me think of… whatever.” Her hand stroked the spot between her ear and neck. Jamie was soon lulled into a sense of security she wasn’t sure was real… or false. “It’s almost working.”
“I’m sorry. Your mother must really hate me now.” Jamie was only a little sorry.
“Hate you? Oh, my sweet, sweet flower.” Etta rolled on top of her. “You’ve got it all wrong. She doesn’t yell at people like that unless she likes them. Because she only likes people that are worth arguing with.”
Jamie blustered in disbelief. “Likes me? Arguing? That was not arguing. That was…”
“My father used to trade verbal blows like that with herbefore he died.” Why in the world was Etta laughing over such a horrible thing? “She used to say that she missed his ‘offbeat tone.’ I believed her, too. That woman isn’t happy unless someone is challenging her authority. That’s why she hates the idea of having people wait on her and won’t let me hire more than the housekeeper. Says they aren’t worth her…”
Anne threw open the bedroom door and marched over to the sofa, nostrils flaring. “If I go to this wedding,” she began, checking the screech in her throat, “you better damn well promise me I’ll never have to go to any others!”
Etta made an OK sign and held it up to her mother. Jamie was too busy being frozen to her fiancée’s chest. “Not a problem. Like you, I am a one-spouse woman.”
“You better damn well be,” Anne mumbled, retreating to her room with a huff. “I ain’t got time for more than one wedding in a life.”
It all made sense. Everything made so much sense since coming to South Carolina.
Chapter 51
There were only four more weekends until Jamie and Etta’s wedding, and each one was dominated by activities that had nothing to do with spending time together.
On the first weekend, Jamie had her bridal shower. Out of every event she had coming up, this was the one she dreaded the most, even though Monique had taken up the responsibility of hosting it so Seena could throw the bachelorette party the next weekend.
So while Monique was sure to have the loveliest party waiting for Jamie at the Warner Estate, it wasn’t for her. Aside from Monique, the only women that Jamie had any connection with were Kathleen, Eve, and Adele, who showed up fashionably late. (Eve managed to be a whole fifteen minutes late to a party being thrown in her own home.) Luna humbly passed when Jamie told her what kind of bridal shower it would be and promised to have their own party later. Seena decided to sit it out so she could “focus on the bachelorette shindig,” and Natasha was nowhere to be seen. Probably because of Eve, whatever was going on between them.
'The other women? Some of them were the same ones that came to Monique’s bridal shower, but for the most part, it was a ton of middle-agedand a few younger women whom Jamie had met once or twice, if that.
Monique apologized long beforehand that this had to be a matter of course. Jamie was expected to participate in a party for the higher social echelons sometime before her wedding. After all, these women had been invited due to their standing and their dealings with Etta’s business, but they were far from friends, or even acquaintances.
However, they were much nicer to her now than when she hosted Monique’s party – and now Jamie saw where she went horribly wrong with her friend’s poor shower.
