Nick and Quinn’s Wedding Read online

  introduces us to a bellman who will take us to our room. We

  follow him from one hall to the next, until he at last opens

  the door.

  We step in after him and stop, staring in shock. The room

  looks like a celebrity’s vacation home straight out of Architectural

  Digest—fluffy white linen couches and glass tables, and the

  entire seaward wall is missing so when you face forward all you

  can see is water and the green peaks of Mount Leon. Outside

  there’s a huge deck with lounge chairs and a fire pit. But it’s

  missing one very critical item.

  “Where’s the bed?” Nick asks, just as my mouth opens to ask

  the same question. Not that we’re above having sex on the couch.

  God knows it’s happened enough times back home.

  The bellman opens what I assumed was a closet door and

  nods. “Right this way sir,” he says.

  We follow him into what turns out to be an elevator, and then

  emerge into a room even more astonishing than the one we came

  from. A huge bed, gleaming ebony hardwood floors, another

  open wall looking on to the mountains, but this time the deck

  ends with a private infinity pool at its edge.

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  E L I Z A B E T H O ’ R O A R K

  “This…” I begin and then trail off, looking at Nick to complete

  the sentence.

  “Is unbelievable,” he concludes.

  The bellman hangs his head with a bashful smile. I realize

  only now that he seems to be struggling to make eye contact. Nick

  tries to tip him, and he waves his hands. “I could not accept,” he

  says. “It’s an honor to have met you.” And with that he turns and

  gets onto the elevator, closing the door behind him.

  “That was strange,” I whisper. “But at least it was the good

  kind of strange?”

  Nick nods, looking around us. “Definitely the good kind of

  strange.” His gaze reverts to me, and he tips my chin up to plant a

  light kiss on my mouth. The sun bursts out from the clouds all of

  a sudden, and we stand in a beam of light. Something about all of

  this—the weather, the island, the church, the room—feels preor-

  dained. It’s possible I’m reading into things too much, but

  whether it’s something supernatural or not, I plan to enjoy every

  moment of it. “We need to figure out who the hell got us this

  room,” he says.

  I nod, reaching for my phone. As amazing as all this is, it just

  makes no sense…and I’m tired of things making no sense. I type

  the name Cecilia Boudon into the search engine—and the palm

  reader’s face is the first thing I see. Except it’s an entirely different

  version than the one we met—almost unrecognizably so, with

  salon-perfect hair and jewels and a Chanel suit that fits her trim

  figure in a way that only comes with tailoring. “It’s her,” I gasp.

  Nick pulls my back to his chest and looks at her over my

  shoulder. “What the hell?” he whispers. “She looks completely

  different.” I click on the image and her Wikipedia page opens,

  proving that this situation is even weirder than we thought:

  Cecelia Boudon, widow of philosopher Jean Marc Boudon,

  is reputed to be among the wealthiest women in France. She is

  the founder of HSD, one of the country’s largest purveyors of

  electronics, and the first company to bring televisions and

  Nick and Quinn’s Wedding

  13

  microwaves to France. Boudon used her earnings to become

  one of the country’s most successful investors, recognizing the

  value of stock in Microsoft and Sony long before those compa-

  nies became household names. Her mansion, on Rue d’Exu-

  pery, is considered one of Paris’s most magnificent homes.

  “So it was all an act,” I say quietly. “The house, the palm-

  reading thing. It was all an act. But why?”

  “Maybe there are details about her she didn’t want us to

  know,” Nick suggests.

  I scroll down to the next paragraph. Born Cecelia Bertrand,

  the daughter of a stage actress and a farmer…

  “Bertrand,” Nick says. “That’s the name your mother was

  using in France. I assumed it was just a pseudonym…but maybe

  not. Do you think you might be related?”

  I look at the woman in the picture. I see nothing in her face

  that reminds me of my own, but she’s over seventy. I’m not sure

  I’d recognize much with that kind of age difference. I guess she’d

  be the right age to be my grandmother, but a quick glance back at

  the article—which mostly focuses on her investing prowess—

  rules that out. “It says here she had no children.” I put the

  phone down.

  “Maybe your father was illegitimate. It would have been a

  bigger deal back then than it is now.”

  I turn toward him. “Or maybe he did something terrible and

  she didn’t want to be associated with him.”

  He laughs again, tipping my chin up to find my mouth.

  “Hon,” he says quietly, “there is no way your father was evil. I

  know you, and I’m telling you it’s not possible. The only reason

  you think that is because of the way your parents reacted to you

  when you were growing up.”

  I close my eyes and press my face to his chest. He’s probably

  right. I just wish I knew for sure. “I don’t want to think about this

  right now,” I tell him. “Let’s just enjoy this trip.”

  Nick’s hands curve around my neck, thumbs pressed to the

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  E L I Z A B E T H O ’ R O A R K

  corners of my jaw. “Are you tired? Do you want to lie down for

  a while?”

  I go on my toes to pull his mouth back to mine. “I tell you I

  want to enjoy our trip and you ask me if I need to rest?”

  I get a flash of his smile. “It seemed more considerate than

  immediately suggesting you take off your clothes.”

  I tug at the button on his shorts. “You’re pretty considerate

  when our clothes are off too.”

  He pulls my shirt over my head. “I’m going to be especially

  considerate today.”

  WE’D INTENDED to explore the island on our first day, but we

  never make it out of the room. Between school and Nick’s job,

  time like this—time where we have no responsibilities and can

  just enjoy each other—has been rare. And as it turns out, there’s

  nowhere to go really, anyhow. No restaurants, no stores. It’s

  bizarre—you’d think on an island this size there’d be some kind

  of tourist industry—but I sort of prefer it this way. This room, this

  view and Nick are pretty much all I require to be 100% content.

  We swim and lie in the sun, gorging on the fruit the hotel sent

  up. We’ve both agreed that the island is too hard to get to for a

  destination wedding. But it’s a shame, because with every

  moment I spend here, I just want more.

  I emerge from the bathroom at dusk but stop for a minute

  and just watch him. He's on the balcony staring at the ocean, clad

  only in swim trunks. I take in his broad, tan back, his narrow

  hips, the long, lean line of him. We were supposed to drive dow
n

  the mountain to go see the church, but the church is the last

  thing on my mind at present.

  I walk up behind him, press my palms and my mouth to his

  sun-warmed back. He shudders. The good kind of shudder, his

  body tensing slightly as if preparing to pounce. I go on my toes to

  Nick and Quinn’s Wedding

  15

  kiss his ear and the soft skin below it, pull at the lobe and feel

  that delicious tension in him grow. He turns and pulls me to him,

  the palm of his hand beneath my jaw, soft mouth pressed to

  mine. A small groan, low in his throat.

  Every once in a while it strikes me all over again: I am

  marrying Nick Reilly. Me. I've been blessed in so many ways, but

  sometimes it seems like winning him is too good, too much luck,

  for any one person.

  And I suppose I’m pushing it, but I really wish I was marrying

  him here.

  THE NEXT DAY we force ourselves from the room to go explore the

  island. It’s mostly wild, and half the roads consist of only gravel

  or sand. We follow the GPS mile after mile down a sand road,

  under the impression that it is leading us to the beach. It leads,

  instead, to a forest.

  Nick wants to return to the room, but I object. “It’s right on

  the other side of these trees,” I insist. “I mean, look at the map.

  There’s absolutely no way that the beach isn’t right there.”

  “I’m not walking my pregnant fiancé through a fucking forest

  in the middle of nowhere in search of a beach. Didn’t you ever

  watch Lost? Do you how much awful shit can live in a forest?”

  “The beach is right there,” I reply, hopping out of the car.

  “What could possibly go wrong?”

  Nick follows. “On a weirdly uninhabited island that is

  shielded from bad weather and has absolutely no infrastructure

  but somehow supports a hotel worth millions?” he grumbles. “Yes,

  it sounds like a completely legit place where nothing weird

  happens.”

  We find a sand path so narrow and overgrown we have to

  walk single file. He insists, naturally, on going in first. After five

  minutes, the path widens and then suddenly stops at a wide

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  E L I Z A B E T H O ’ R O A R K

  beach with powder-fine sand and water so clear and calm you

  can see to the bottom.

  “Quinn,” I say aloud to myself, imitating Nick’s voice, “you

  were completely right about this place. I’m sorry I was being such

  a pussy.”

  He turns back to me with an incredulous look. “Did you seri-

  ously just call me a pussy because I was worried about protecting

  my pregnant wife?”

  “Fiancé,” I correct. “And technically, I didn’t call you a pussy,

  because I would never use that word. I pretended you were

  calling yourself one.”

  “That does it,” he says, swinging me over his shoulder. “You’re

  going in.”

  I squirm. “Don’t you dare throw me in! I’m pregnant! I’m

  fragile.”

  His laugh is low and slightly sinister. “Too late to play that

  card.” He plows forward until we are waist-deep and pretends

  he’s going to throw me but then, at the last minute, sets me gently

  down in the water instead.

  “Thought you were going to throw me?” I tease, wrapping my

  arms around his neck as he sinks lower into the water. He grabs

  my ass and pulls me tight against him.

  “I had second thoughts at the last moment.”

  I wrap my legs around him and feel something rigid pressing

  against my abdomen. “Did those second thoughts involve

  your penis?”

  He laughs, his mouth moving over my neck. “Pretty much all

  my thoughts involve my penis to one extent or another. But

  yeah,” he says, sliding my bikini bottoms to the side. “This one

  was particularly penis-oriented.”

  WE STAY on the beach longer than we probably should, but given

  Nick and Quinn’s Wedding

  17

  that we no longer need to check out the church, it probably

  doesn’t matter. We exit the water and stand side-by-side, staring

  out at the view. It was a hard trip to get here. I can’t imagine we’ll

  ever come back, especially given that we’ll have twins eight

  months from now. My throat tightens at the thought. “I wish I

  knew we’d be coming back here some day.”

  He wraps an arm around me. “We will. As soon as the twins

  are old enough to be left at home, we’ll plan another trip.”

  I hear a noise in the distance. It sounds like the giggle of a

  small child. We both look back toward the woods.

  “It sounded like a kid,” I whisper.

  “Great,” says Nick. “Mysterious giggling ghost children who

  live in the forest.”

  He swings me back over his shoulder and heads for

  the woods.

  “Are you serious right now?” I demand. “I’m pretty sure I can

  handle a child on my own.”

  “What if it’s some crazy supernatural ghost child, like in The

  Shining?” he counters.

  I seriously doubt a crazy supernatural ghost child is going to

  be so intimidated by Nick’s size that it would really make much of

  a difference, but I love that his first thought is about protecting

  me at all costs. I can’t wait to see him as a father.

  Nick sets me down when we finally get to the car and opens

  my door, where we find a bouquet of flowers resting on my seat.

  Calla lilies and peonies, my favorites, tied in a thick satin bow,

  like a bridal bouquet. It’s the kind of thing Nick would do, but I

  can’t imagine how he’d have pulled it off here, and the astonished

  look on his face suggests he’s as in the dark as I am. “What the

  hell?” he breathes. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “This just gets weirder and weirder,” I say, climbing into the

  car with the bouquet in my lap. It’s as if someone around us

  knows more about our future than we do and wants to help

  us along.

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  E L I Z A B E T H O ’ R O A R K

  Or as if someone wants us to choose this place for our future

  wedding despite the difficulties involved.

  “Let’s go look at the church after all,” I tell Nick when he

  climbs in.

  He glances at me. “I thought you said it was too hard to

  get to.”

  I shrug. “It is. I just…I don’t know. I feel like we’re supposed to

  go see it.”

  THE CHURCH IS BACK on the other side of the island, not far from

  our hotel. Because it’s built at the base of a cliff, we can’t drive

  there and instead need to park on the top of a scenic overlook

  and walk down the steep stair case built into the cliff wall. Aside

  from the presence of the church it appears every bit as wild and

  uninhabited as the beach we just left, but to our surprise, the

  doors are wide open.

  I hesitate before we walk in. I’m a little more scared of angry

  priests than I am supernatural ghost children. Nick takes my

  hand and we step tentatively over the threshold. The church is

/>   even more massive inside than it appeared, airy and light. It

  seems less a temple to God than it does a temple to nature, to the

  beauty of the limestone that crafted it, the bare stone floors, the

  roar of the ocean, dust motes in a stream of sunlight. We seem so

  small within it, and yet it feels right, as if we belong here, as if we

  too are part of what makes this place alive. The breeze whips

  around us, and I picture it, marrying him here. I’d want it to be

  exactly like this—just us and the sunlight and the ocean behind

  us. Not my mother clucking her tongue about what people will

  think, not the few people who choose to weather the long trip

  while talking behind their hands about how unseemly it all is.

  Even Caroline and George, my closest friends…they aren’t a part

  of this really. I’m not sure I believe in God, necessarily, but there

  Nick and Quinn’s Wedding

  19

  is something holy in this place, something bigger than the two of

  us, and yet exclusive to us in the same moment.

  A side door opens and a small man walks into the room. He

  looks nearly as old as this church, his body wizened, his skin

  darkened by years under the sun. He moves toward us with

  surprising speed, given his age. “I’m so happy you’ve finally

  come,” he says, beaming at us like a grandparent might. It’s as if

  he was expecting us. “It’s a marvelous place for a wedding, is

  it not?”

  Nick’s hand tightens in mine. I know his thoughts are along

  the same lines: how did this guy know that’s why we were here? Was

  it our age? A lucky guess?

  “We’d love to get married here,” says Nick. “But I think logisti-

  cally it might be difficult.”

  “What logistics?” the priest asks. “You’re already here. We

  have no licensing requirements on the island.”

  “It was a long trip too,” I explain. “I’m not sure we can ask

  everyone to travel that distance, and there’d be no place to hold

  the reception.”

  “And you very badly want this reception?” the priest asks.

  Again he asks in a way that implies he already knows the answer

  and he is correct: I don’t want a reception. No one alive really

  understands what we’ve gone through to get to this point, and in

  an ideal world, it would just be the two of us. We’d marry here

  and spend the afternoon back on the deck of our hotel room,

  blissfully naked, the balmy breeze swaying our hammock to and