Fake It For Me, page 18
“Nick-” I tried, but he spoke over me.
“And I’ve decided that I want you,” Nick said. “I spent my whole life hiding away from my emotions, but I don’t want to hide away from them with you. I want to be in it to win it. Strapped in for the long haul. And I know…I know you want the same thing.”
I stepped closer to Nick and gazed deep into his green eyes. Those eyes really were gorgeous. And tempting. And tantalizing. “Jake,” I blurted suddenly.
“Jake?” Nick frowned, puzzled.
I smirked. “I’ve always wanted a boy called Jake.”
And then I reached up on my tip-toes and kissed him. And this time it was without pretenses, without lies, without borders or boundaries or barriers of any kind. And in that frozen moment, we both knew that we should never have gotten that divorce. And we knew that anything was possible.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sandy
New York City is a city of more than eight million people. And of those eight million people, almost every one of them, at some point in their lives, has a favorite time of day. My favourite time of day had changed, and for that matter, so had the day. It officially changed from “daily creativity break” to “about five in the evening on the day that I officially became Mrs. McConnery.”
I couldn’t help but get a distinct feeling of deja vu this time around. If I had thought at the first wedding that I’d gotten a glimpse of the joy it would be like to have a real wedding, then I’d simply been plain wrong. I was smiling so much the second time around that my cheeks were hurting.
And if that weren’t enough, then Nick had pulled out all of the stops. He booked the same venue, out in Central Park, New York. He had tailors recreate my original dress from the first wedding, but the abdomen had been adjusted to accommodate for my baby bump, of course. Everything about the wedding was identical to the one that had come before it, down to the last, minute detail.
Not for the first time, I was impressed at the detail that he, Nick, had taken. He really could be sweet and sensitive when he wanted to be. The day leading up to the ceremony, at least for me, was a blur. I’d been here and done this before. This was already discovered ground. We may not have said the vows and meant them, but it had been a real wedding, and we had had a real divorce.
This time around, we weren’t doing it for any amount of money, not for the opportunity, not for material gain, but because we loved each other. The greatest cause of all, none to rival it.
We had joined hands at the altar, the pastor read through the oratory, and finally, it was time, the reading of the vows. Instead of his original, which he’d written on a piece of paper, Nick simply gazed into my eyes and spoke.
“Sandy,” he murmured. “When we first stood together at this altar, holdings hands just like we’re doing right now, I…I was full of shit.”
The onlookers laughed at this, a few nervously covered their young children’s ears, and more than a few scowled disapprovingly.
“I came out with some spiel about…about how you were my whole life, and how I’d connected with you, how our souls were bonded,” Nick was saying. “Who knows, this might even prove to be true. But I didn’t believe it, not when I said it. I didn’t believe it because I’ve always been good at deceiving. I deceive my own father when I tell him I don’t love him.
“I’ve deceived women whose names I don’t remember by telling them that I do love them,” Nick went on. “Like I said, deceiving is what I do, and holding all the cards is when I’m most comfortable. But the person I deceived most of all is myself. I deceived myself into thinking that I needed people. That I needed to surround myself with female attention, and male admirers who were envious of my female attention. I deceived myself into thinking I needed to do it to be a more complete person.
“And that couldn’t be any further from the truth. I only need one person to do that for me, and that’s you, Sandy. You make me more of a man today than I was yesterday or any of the days that came before it. You complete me, Sandy. And I vow to spend the rest of my life repaying you this debt. I love you.”
I heard sniffling. I turned around to see who was crying, and then I realized it was me. Along with half of the chapel, of course, most of them being single women. But I was far too overcome with emotional affection for Nick to be jealous - the one thing women loved more than a good-looking guy was a good-looking guy who had control of his feelings.
The crowd “aww’d” as I felt the first, solitary tear streak down my face. “You’re totally going to make me cry, idiot,” I half-sobbed.
Nick gave me his signature, wink. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
“And now the second vow?” the pastor prompted me.
I went red. Anything I was going to say now was just going to sound insensitive, or insincere, or just plain rubbish.
“Um,” I thought to myself. Then it clicked. “Nick. Nick, this isn’t just a vow. For me, this is also an apology. Deep down, if I’m honest with myself and with you, I’ve always been in love with you. Ever since we met each other in high school, ever since that time. I’ve always loved you. I’ve always loved everything about you, from your hair, and your green eyes to those snappy “James Bond” tuxes you’re always wearing.”
Nick grinned at this. Anything to do with James Bond was guaranteed to hit him straight in the heart.
“But I want to apologize because…” I paused. “Because I haven’t always liked you. And that’s not the part I want to apologize about. There’s no rule that says you have to like your boyfriend or your husband. I didn’t like your womanizing ways, I didn’t like your snootiness, your arrogance or your “holier-than-thou” attitude. But even though I loved you, I turned away from you because of this. I suppose my vow to you is that I’ll never give up on you again. Because I love you.”
I turned to the crowd to see if the men were sniffling now. Unsurprisingly, however, they were not. What did I expect? They’re guys!
“The rings?” the pastor prompted.
The ring bearers, again Abby’s little cousins, came bearing the rings on velvet cushions. First, I applied Nick’s, then he, mine.
“Then by the power vested in me by the State of New York,” the pastor said. “I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the-”
Nick didn’t need any permission. He took me in his arms, and before I knew it, his lips were on mine. The entire chapel burst into a standing ovation, everyone screaming and stamping their feet.
I saw my parents, who’d always wanted to see their little girl get married. I saw my old high school friend Tiana, who’d predicted that I’d end up with Nick to general ridicule. I saw my grandparents, who’d “never liked that no-good McConnery,” but were now crying with happiness.
Nick suddenly took me by the hand and rushed me down the steps and back down the aisle. People showered us in confetti as we ran, from all angles, and when I stopped to throw the bouquet, somehow, I knew who would catch it. True to my suspicions, Abby lunged and beat everyone to it in the air. When she came back up, she returned casually to her conversation with Nick’s best man.
I chuckled to myself. Same old Abby, nothing ever changes there.
Nick was still pulling me to his SUV outside.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“Have I ever taken you on the Lavender Jet?” he asked curiously.
“The what?” I asked nonplussed.
Nick grinned. “Good. Because that’s where we’re going.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nick
When we arrived at the airport, rather than going through customs (like poor people, not in a million years, ha!), we cut across the terminal, out onto the tarmac, where my private plane was waiting. I’d always loved the color purple, and so when I’d got my jet, a brand spanking new Cessna Citation X, just off of the line, I’d made sure to cover it in a coat of deep pink/purple paint. Then I’d christened it “The Lavender Jet.”
Sandy, as ever, was gob smacked at the jet. Before long, the interior designer in here was alive and kicking. “I love this color!” she crowed. “What would you call it?”
“Lavender-” I tried, but she cut across me.
“I hope you got a good discount for such a large order of paint,” Sandy was saying.
“Well, I don’t actually-”
“How much did it cost?” Sandy cut across me again.
“I didn’t-”
“The jet, not the paint.”
“Sandy!” I blurted. “Can you get on the jet?”
She giggled, and I followed her up the steps. Inside the jet was all beige and leather.
“This baby has a range of just under thirty-five-hundred nautical miles,” I said proudly. “But that’s not the most amazing thing about it.”
“What’s the most amazing thing about it, baby?” Sandy asked, not really interested in how the jet worked, but humoring me.
“I’m glad you asked me, dear,” I grinned. “The most amazing thing about this jet is that this time you won’t be able to run away from our wedding bed. Because we’ll be cruising at an altitude of thirty thousand feet.”
Sandy frowned, nonplussed. “Huh?”
I laughed at the bewilderment on her face. “Come on, you, let me show you.”
I took her by the hand, just as I’d done down the aisle not an hour earlier, and tugged her to the back of the airplane where there was a door set in the aircraft hull. It looked as though it led back out onto the tarmac, but when I opened it, Sandy’s eyes lit up as a small bedroom was revealed with a TV, mood-lighting, a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne, and a huge King-sized bed shaped like a heart.
It was cheesy, but what was she going to do? Sue me?
I pulled her inside and swung the door shut behind her. “This place isn’t bad, right?”
“Is there nothing you can’t afford?” Sandy asked in a hushed voice.
I cracked a grin. “Nope, I thought you would have understood that by now.”
I placed my hands on her hips and pulled her closer to me. She smiled up at me. “Are you sure my belly isn’t going to get in the way?”
I leaned until the tips of our noses were touching. I reached around to undo her dress. “Let’s find out.”
We could work out where we would end up in due course. For now, all we wanted to do was take off. And by the time we had, Sandy and I were ready to join the Mile High club.
Epilogue
New York City
Two months later….
Not many people can say that they’ve experienced the first two months of married life twice. I doubt anyone has ever been able to say that in the history of marriage. Which is a good thing, if you look at it from a certain point of view. Because, as people have grown quite fond of saying, Nick McConnery loves attention. And there’s no finer or more potent form of attention than the kind you get when you break records for things and etch your name in the history books.
Which is one accolade that’s always, kind of eluded me. I mean I may be rich and famous for now, but who’s to say that anyone will remember a thing about me or anything that I did when I’ve been dead and gone for a hundred years? I must be getting old. My Dad once told me that when a man is aging and starts nearing the end of his life, he thinks about one thing more than anything else. One singular notion that fills him up like nothing else can, something he worries over constantly.
His legacy.
Or, for those of you who have never picked up a thesaurus in your uneducated lives, what he leaves behind in the world after he dies. My Dad told me that a legacy can take shape in many forms, it’s not always material. Sure, sometimes a man’s legacy is the total sum of the finance that he’s managed to accrue over the years, but not always.
Sometimes, a man’s legacy is the amount of valuable artifacts that he’s managed to collect over the years, but not always.
Legacies also change with time, and with the era. Thousands of years ago, a man’s legacy revolved around his descendants, and how long his family name was etched in the history books. Or his legacy was the ancestral sword that had been passed down through his family for five millennia. In any case, my father’s point was this: there is no fixed definition for what your legacy is, it’s something every man (or every woman for that matter) must choose for his or herself. And it’s whatever that person values.
I was nineteen when my Dad sat me down to talk to me about legacies, and halfway through the discussion, I thought he was about to tell me he had cancer or some kind of terminal illness. Which you can hardly blame me for thinking because that’s exactly the kind of subject that one broaches when someone is nearing their death. But as it turned out, my Dad had been planning to have that talk with me for years now, so it had been a long time coming. His own Dad - my grandfather - had had the same talk with him when he’d reached manhood, and my grandfather had died the year before I was born, so perhaps this was Dad’s way of carrying on his legacy also.
That was an unexpected, profound thought, I’ve never thought that before.
So, I’d found myself wondering what my father’s legacy was. Sure, he was rich and powerful, but the way he’d spoken and certainly led me to believe that my Dad didn’t look upon financial wealth as a worthy ultimate meaning to one’s life, which is, I guess, the best way of describing what a legacy is. An ultimate meaning to your life.
So, I concluded that that couldn’t be it. What did he value? It couldn’t be his children, because he’d only had one, me, and I refused to believe that I - the person who had disappointed him most in the world - was also his proudest achievement. What did my Dad value? Intelligence, I’d thought to myself. Intelligence was what he valued above all else.
But my Dad did not define intelligence like many others did. If you asked a normal, everyday person what they thought cleverness was, they might say that those who are prodigious in fields like science, or English, or maths, are “geniuses.” People who can do mental arithmetic at mind-melding speeds, people who can give you the exact chemical formula for Hydrogen Peroxide (it’s H2O2 by the way). My Dad calls people who think like that “idiots.” Once, when I was a kid, I asked him how he measured intelligence, and I’ll never forget what he said, and more importantly, the lesson it taught me.
* * *
“What’s intelligence?” Dad echoed my question. He glanced up from his book, studying me over his reading glasses. “Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “I’m curious. Because you were watching a rerun of that documentary last week, and it mentioned that guy-”
“Stephen Hawking,” my Dad supplied.
I nodded. “Yeah, him, and he wrote that thing called-”
“Black Hole theory,” my Dad supplied again, his eyes already back on his book.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “And you called him an idiot. I was just wondering...why? Isn’t he, like the smartest person in the world?”
My Dad laughed at this. “You weren’t supposed to hear that, Nicholas, why were you eavesdropping on me?”
“I was just going to the toilet!” I held up my hands defensively. “And I was walking past your room, and I heard you!”
My Dad chuckled. “I called him an idiot because he said something stupid. He said that there are infinite numbers.”
“Aren’t there?” I asked puzzled. “Like, don’t numbers just kind of...go on?”
“Not if you think about it,” my Dad finally put his book down on his lap, crossed his legs and removed his glasses, a sign that he was ready to get stuck into a lengthy discussion. “If you think about it, there are only ten numbers. Zero through nine. The rest of the so-called numbers, eleven twelve and whatnot, are just those same ten numbers put together.”
I thought this over. “Yeah, but what about, like...one million?”
My Dad laughed. “A one followed by six zeroes. Trust me, Nicholas, there are only ten numbers. That’s how they work.”
“So, Steven Hawking’s not smart, in your opinion?” I asked.
My Dad shrugged. “He’s certainly a learned man, nobody could ever dispute that. I mean look how many degrees he has, or whatever. But smart? That remains to be seen. Because I don’t classify true intelligence as how many degrees you have, or which fancy school you went to. I don’t classify it as how quickly you can do sums, or how many complex equations you know. Because that can all be learned. You could take an idiot, someone without the slightest common sense, and teach them the Drake Equation. Or you could teach them that Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. It doesn’t mean that they’re suddenly a genius.
“So, what, then, is true intelligence? It’s not for me to say, but what I can say is what I believe. Or perhaps I should just show you.”
As I watched, Dad patted his jacket down until he found what he was apparently looking for. He took out a huge, double Snickers bar, which he then held aloft. “Now. You know what this is, right?”
I made a face. “Dad, I know what Snickers bars are.”
“Good, so we’re on the same page,” Dad said, with just a hint of a sneer. “Now. I want you to answer the next question with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Can you do that?”
I nodded with a bored expression on my face. Thus far, I was unimpressed with my Dad’s self-proclaimed genius-level intellect.
“Okay,” Dad went on. “Do you know what one plus one is?”
Again, I nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay, now I’m going to ask you that question again, and this time, I want you to answer “one”.”
I frowned. “But that’s wrong.”
My Dad smiled. “You’re free to answer however you please, but if you say one, I’ll give you this Snickers bar.”
So now I was in the valley of decision. I didn’t like being wrong, but I did like chocolate. But, as this was supposedly a test or an example of intelligence, I knew I was going to have to think more laterally in order to pass. After a quick analysis of the situation, I concluded that I knew what my Dad’s point here was. That intelligence was sticking to what you knew was right, no matter what you were offered.
