A Billionaire's Secret Baby - Chapter 17

“Dearly beloved,” said the priest. “We are gathered here today…”

For a crock of lies, I thought to myself.

The last three weeks had been a grueling escapade of planning. Hundreds and hundreds of decisions, which had to be made, decisions that people spent years making.

The first and most important decision of all. Who should we tell? Zeke was the only person who knew. He looked at me the next day, with a guilty expression.

“Hey,” he said, while I glared at him, a wide smile bursting onto my lips. “It’s a good excuse for a party?”

“Where are we going to have it?” I said.

“Why, here of course.”

“What? At The Blue Orchid? What good’s a wedding party if you can’t drink?”

“Private event,” said Zeke, with a wink. “And I hear they’ve got an excellent cellar here.”

When I saw the wine menu, I was flabbergasted. I ran up to the office to talk to Alex.

“You’ve ordered fifty bottles of champagne!”

“Well, it is my wedding,” said Alex. “Besides, we’ll need them for the fountain!”

“The fountain?” I said.

“Yeah. We’re gonna have one of those towers of champagne glasses, of course.”

“Alex, that’s crazy. This isn’t even—” I lowered my voice, my eyes darting to the door. “This isn’t even a real wedding.”

“It’s got to look real, though,” he told me. And he was right, I guess. We had to put on a show of a real-life couple, who really did think this was the greatest day of their lives. And in some ways, I supposed it was: it would be a party to end all parties. Even if the wedding at the center of the occasion wasn’t real.

“I just feel guilty, is all,” I said.

“Look at it this way,” Alex replied. “You get to plan the most extravagant party you can. On my dollar. Have fun! Will you give this drinks list to Andy?”

I rolled my eyes—Alex might now have me as his fake-fiancée, but he still wasn’t afraid of bossing me around. But I obliged him by running down to Andy, where I slapped the list of expensive wines and fancy cocktails down on the bar. “Boss’s orders,” I said cheekily.

I giggled when I saw Andy’s furious expression. He’d been pretending to be in a bad mood with me ever since the news of mine and Alex’s ‘engagement’ had broken.

“Y’all decided not to tell me,” said Andy, the wine sommelier, when I explained to him, “that you and the boss was dating?”

“I thought you might be mad,” I said.

“MAD? Honey, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that love comes from unexpected places. I just wish you’d told me, is all.”

And the amazing thing was, despite the news, and despite the short notice at which it had arrived in my life, people were happy for me. When I told Sara the news one evening and asked her to be my maid of honor, she squealed and practically jumped on me.

“Sara,” I said, “Wait a second. It isn’t real, okay? I don’t actually love Alex. It’s a fake marriage.”

“Honey,” she told me, while embracing me and kissing my cheeks, “I didn’t expect any less of you. All those fancy uptown weddings are fake anyhow.”

“No!” I groaned. “Not like that. I mean, I guess it is a little bit like that but…”

“You’re gonna be making some real dineros outta this one, huh?” she said, rubbing her fingers together.

“SARA!” I yelled, outraged. But we couldn’t help but laugh. But it hurt to be getting married to the man who’d left me without help so many years ago.

Of course, there were also upsides.

Our visit to the flower shop was like nothing I’d ever seen. Alex chose a fancy place up in the wide streets and green boulevards of uptown Manhattan. We walked among the rows of budding blossoms and gorgeous white roses and carnations with a helpful sales assistant dressed in a smart suit guiding us. She wandered around.

“And have you thought about the bouquet?” she said.

I practically froze. Of course, I hadn’t. If it had been my own wedding, my ‘real’ wedding, I’m sure I would have agonized about it, spent sleepless nights thinking about what flowers to have, in what arrangement, how big the bouquet would be. But in the department store, I blushed. I couldn’t say anything.

“She’d like something with white roses and white carnations,” suggested Alex.

“Um, no she wouldn’t, actually,” I said. “I’d prefer white chrysanthemums and lavender.”

“Oh,” said Alex, and nodded at the sales assistant. “Sure, we’ll do that,” he said.

Outside the store, I noticed he was scowling. “What?” I said.

“You made me look like an ass in there!” he growled.

“You made an ass of yourself,” I said. “White roses? In a bouquet? That’s pretty basic, Alex.”

“I don’t know what any of this means,” he admitted grumpily.

When we got to the dress store, it was even worse. Alex had brought me to Atelier Harmonique, a beautiful store in midtown, where they made bridal dresses for princesses and visiting dignitaries. It was astonishing. I’d never seen such rare and beautiful clothes. There were corsages made from 19^th-century lace, beautiful skirts and blouses made from fabrics you just didn’t see anymore, like velour and crenalin.

“Has madame thought about the style of the dress she would like?” said the tailor, when we sat down together in his beautiful office. Dotted around the place were mannequins, and there were incredibly rare models of haute-couture designs hung on the walls, like pieces of art.

“Not really,” said Alex, but I cut in again.

“I’d like something pretty classic,” I said. “Maybe an A-line, with lace on the straps?”

The tailor nodded, smiling, and I saw him searching through photograph albums. He showed me a few pictures, and I nodded. We chatted for at least an hour. At the end, he had just one question.

“Are you wearing gold, or silver?” he said.

“Gold,” I said. “Isn’t that right, honey?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex roll his eyes.

“Sure it is,” he moaned.

“I must congratulate you on marrying a woman of good taste,” the tailor said to Alex, as we left the store that afternoon, with Alex’s wallet $50,000 lighter than when he came in.

“Did you really need to chat for that long?” said Alex. “We’ve been in there for like, two hours.”

“It’s just like you said,” I replied, innocently shrugging. “We want it to look right, right?”

I flashed my eyes at him and, not for the first time that week, enjoyed watching Alex seethe. He might be the one with the cash, but I was the one who understood the secret operation we’d embarked upon. In the end, I was the one who knew how to make things convincing.

So I led Alex around town, visiting caterers, party planners, the priest, and all of it was just a big lie: a lie designed to present an impression to the world of two people who’d decided to join their hearts and minds for the rest of their lives. But the truth was that Alex and I were increasingly growing apart. It hurt me to have to bring an end to the affair we’d been carrying on. But I knew that things would be too complicated if I didn’t stop now. If my name ended up on the marriage license next to a man I was sleeping with, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between fact and fiction.

There were other, darker feelings in my mind too. I’d been close that day in the Park, to telling Alex the truth: that he was Macy’s father. Even if I felt like I knew him better than anyone, I was at a loss to explain how Alex would take the news. I still thought I could keep it from him, that I could shield him from the knowledge of what he had done. That he had a child, that she was my daughter. And that she was a constant reminder of why we could never be together. And I feared what would happen if Alex found out. I couldn’t trust him. His reach and influence were beyond my understanding. What if he tried to take Macy from me, or threatened the perfect peace I’d surrounded my life with?

Still, I couldn’t deny to myself that it was great fun to plan a wedding. Each hour of each day was spent with some new task that we had to get done, some new decision that had to have the bride and groom’s seal of approval. Of course, Alex thought it was all ridiculous. But he had to make plenty of arrangements.

First: the guest list. Alex invited everyone who worked at The Blue Orchid and for his company, but he didn’t have a single family member on the guest list. We discussed it one day, while sitting at the bar of Crumb, a flashy, upmarket wedding-cake maker in Brooklyn.

“Are you sure this is all you want to have?”

“I figured that if I was getting married for real, I’d want to keep it pretty small,” he told me. “I like the chocolate one. Very nutty.”

“What about me?” I said. “I’m not letting my parents come. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Of course not,” he said. “That’s what the actors are for.”

“Actors?” I said. “Mm, this strawberry’s nice.”

“You know, actors?” said Alex. “They pretend to be other people.”

“In movies, or TV, Alex. Not in real life.”

“This isn’t real-life,” he said. “It’s make-believe.”

“Well, it would be nice if it was,” I said, and smiled at him. But Alex’s smile had disappeared in recent days.

When the big day came, I was driven down to the church in the beautiful dress Alex had bought for me. At the entrance to the chapel, I met Sara and my bridesmaids, all girls from the restaurant. There were smiles and giggles as we got together, and then from behind the front door of the building, appeared a handsome man in his early fifties.

“Lola! My baby girl!” he said.

“Dad…?” I said.

He stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek, then hugged me while I stood awkwardly in front of the girls. “You look beautiful, sweetheart,” he said. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

“Is that your fake dad?” said Sara to me in a low voice as we stepped out of the sun and into the cool darkness of the church.

I nodded weakly. “He looks like he could be my older brother.”

But I was amazed. As the organ played and I walked down the aisle, surrounded by people I knew, no one stood up. When the priest asked the crowd if there were any objections, I expected twenty people to stand up and say, “It’s a fake!”

But no one did.

Everything went perfectly.

And while I still felt like Lola Ryder as we walked out into a shower of confetti, I wasn’t her anymore. I was Lola Lowe. Legally bound to Alex Lowe in marriage.

***

We had a reception at the fancy hotel over the road. From there, we’d be driven by limousine to The Blue Orchid for the evening do. But during the photographs, I couldn’t help but think about Macy. I didn’t want her to know about any of this, so I’d arranged for her to stay with Sara’s cousin Luisa. She lived in a cool brownstone in Brooklyn, and I knew Macy would be safe there and have a nice time.

But still, I felt torn as I smiled for the photographs. I wondered if someone would find them one day. Would they be able to see that it was all a sham, just from the look in my eye?

Later, over the drinks, I began to realize what I’d just gotten myself into.

“Where are you going on honeymoon?” one of Alex’s business colleagues asked me.

“Oh, we haven’t decided yet,” I said. “After all, we’re so busy with everything at the moment.”

“You could always go to the farm if you like. I’d be happy to sell the thing, actually. You and your husband ought to go and look at it.”

I mentioned this odd exchange to Alex later, and he gave me the first smile I’d seen from him in weeks.

“That farm…” he said, “…is on Martha’s Vineyard. He’s been trying to sell the thing to me for months, but I keep telling him 100 million dollars is too much money.”

“A hundred—” I said in disbelief, but Alex had already been swept away by more admirers and guests. I sighed. Was this how it was supposed to be on your wedding day? I’d barely seen him. Not that I was thinking about him, of course. Only I kept longing for the way he’d had his hand around my back in the photos, the graceful way he stood by me. It felt nice to pretend, I guess.

As the afternoon wore on, I had another glass of champagne, and some of the delicious canapés. But I couldn’t stand to hear another conversation about stocks and bonds, or have any more fake conversation with the ‘dad’ Alex had hired for me.

“Look,” I said to him at one point, after he launched into a story about us going golfing in front of a crowd of Alex’s friends, “who do you think you’re kidding? How old were you when I was born, anyway? Fifteen?”

“Hey, quit it, lady,” he muttered. “I can’t break character. This is research for me, anyway. I’m playing the father of the bride in a Wes Anderson movie next year.”

I sighed in frustration and stomped off. I couldn’t even remember why I’d agreed to do this. The whole thing was crazy anyway. I left by the back entrance and went out to the parking lot, where the limousines were parked. I thought it wouldn’t be so bad to recline on the comfortable seats and think happy thoughts. So I went to the first one and opened the door.

I screamed with shock.

So did Sara.

I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at until the tangle of ruffled silk and lace rustled and rolled over, and revealed Sara, looking crumpled in her dress on the floor of the limo. But I was utterly shocked when I saw who she’d just rolled off.

“ZEKE?”

Alex’s best man for the day sat up in the car, his carrot-top hair in a tangle. His cheeks were red, and the pair of them looked out of breath. He adjusted his tie and slipped his jacket on. “I…uh…sorry,” he said quickly, looking around in utter embarrassment.

“It’s not what it looks like?” said Sara.

“We, uh, just met,” said Zeke. “She was just…”

I just carried on staring at them, not knowing what to say. Then, an enormous smile spread across my face.

“I guess it really is true what they say about the best man and the maid of honor,” I said, giggling.

“Please don’t tell ‘Lex,” said Zeke. “I’ll see you later, Sara,” he said, nodding towards her and smiling. “It was good to meet you.”

“You too!” she said, waving at him. Then she turned towards me, and I could see the fire burning in her big brown eyes.

“WHAT?” she said, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

“How long have you two known each other?” I said.

“Long enough,” said Sara haughtily, and turned around and went back inside. I followed her, splitting my sides.

***

“You’re KIDDING me,” said Alex, when I told him in the limo on the way to The Blue Orchid.

“Scout’s honor,” I said, beaming. “In this very limo.”

“In this…” Alex said, before stepping up off the chairs and brushing the seat below him. “Wow. I guess you never can tell.”

“I didn’t really think she was his type,” I said.

“I didn’t really think he was hers!” said Alex.

But he was smiling again. And it made me happy to see him smiling. Alex was dressed immaculately for the day, in a tuxedo with a wing-collar shirt and a handsomely tied bow-tie. He had a red rose pinned to his lapel, and I admired the way the lapels of his shirt showed off his broad, muscular chest. I wanted to put my head against it and rest, and I thought about it for a moment. What would be so bad about telling him the truth? That I liked him? That I thought more of him than just a friend? That if we weren’t in this difficult situation, then I could tell him what was really on my mind?

But then I looked up, and saw a plume of smoke rising from around the corner.

“Is that what I think it is?” I said, looking up at it.

Alex followed my gaze. I looked at his eyes, blue and cold. Then, I saw them brighten and glimmer with interest.

“Isn’t that on our street?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, rolling down the window. I saw him lean out, craning his neck to look.

Then, I heard him gasp. It was just a tiny sound, a rush of air sucked into his lungs. And that frightened me more than anything.

Because Alex Lowe was angry, grumpy, and downright distant at the best of times.

But he was never panicked.

We turned the corner.

“Stop,” said Alex. “Stop the car.”

“What?” said the driver.

“I SAID STOP!” he thundered, quickly opening the door and sliding it to one side.

“Hey, what are you—” said the driver.

But Alex had gone. I followed him, hitching the long skirts of my wedding dress out of the car. But when I stood up and turned to look down the street, I let out a cry. A howl of shock.

It was burning.

The Blue Orchid was on fire. Tongues of flames reached up through the windows on the upper floors, while an enormous ball of fire blazed in the dining room downstairs. I could see the bar going up in flames, hear the bottles of liquor smashing in the heat, fueling the blaze as it sped through the building. I could feel the heat from two hundred yards away, smell the smoke and ruin.

But nothing in that devastation and ruin could match the look on Alex’s face. His eyes were wide and his ruby-red lips were curled, as he watched, open-mouthed. I rushed to his side, and he turned to me.

“It’s gone,” he whispered, and then I remember screams, shouts and sadness. And I thought about how many people had told me that I’d remember this day for the rest of my life.