The Ex (32 page)

The moment we were alone, Neil leaned back on the door. His huge smile was infectious. “We’re married.”

“We are!” I launched myself into his arms, and he caught me gladly, picking me up to spin me in a dizzying circle.

See, Sophie? All that worrying for nothing.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The
photographer was very good, and super efficient, with her assistant corralling family members and keeping them on deck while another group was having a photo taken. By the time we were done with the pictures, though, my face was numb, and the corners of my mouth wobbled from trying to hold a smile for so long.

Not that I didn’t have anything to smile about. My heart could have punched its way out of my chest for all the adrenaline flooding through me. It intensified every time I met Neil’s gaze. He looked at me like I was the only woman in the room. Or the world, for that matter. He looked at me like I was the only other person alive, and as though he could be okay with that.

Well, with the exception of a few people. Our photo with Emma and Michael was a difficult one to get, because Neil wouldn’t take his attention off Olivia. She’d gotten much cuter now that her face wasn’t all squashed in and red. She even smiled now, and she beamed up at her grandfather, delighting him, even though everyone said she just had gas.

When the pictures were finally done, my eyes were strained from the camera’s flash, and my cheeks ached. There wasn’t much I could do about the latter. I was going to end up smiling all day long, whether my face could take it or not.

“All right, the bride needs to change, and then, we’ll get the couple to their reception,” Shelby called over the sound of hotel staff already collecting up chairs.

“I think that means I have to go.” I caught Neil’s hand and squeezed. “See you at the reception, Mr. Scaife?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mrs. Elwood.” He kissed my forehead then released me with a little push. “Off you go. Wardrobe change the first.”

Shelby snuck me deftly to the suite. This wasn’t her first Plaza rodeo.

“Wait, I need my mom,” I protested, looking over my shoulder. There was no sign of her. “She’s going to help me get out of this.”

“Don’t panic, I’ll find her. And I’ll send the stylist to touch up your hair.”

I self-consciously patted a curl. “It’s not flat, is it? It wasn’t flat for the pictures?”

“It was beautiful for the pictures,” she reassured me. “We’re just going to do some preventative maintenance.” She tucked me away in the upstairs bedroom with Pia’s dress form and held up one finger as she backed from the room, saying into her headset, “We need Pia Malik. Has anyone seen her?”

“Just send my mom,” I called, and Shelby halted. She nodded to me, hit the button on her headset and said, “And the mother of the bride.” Then, she scurried off.

This must be what it’s like for Holli when she’s doing a runway show.

The door opened behind me, and I sighed in relief. I knew she wouldn’t just run off to the reception, if she thought she could be helpful. “Mom, could you get me out of this—” I began. Then, I glanced at the mirror.

Neil came through the door, his eyes meeting mine as he smirked at me in the reflection. A stab of nervous heat flared in my stomach as he walked slowly toward me. “You know, of all the predictions I’d made about your dress, I would never have thought you’d wear black.”

My stomach fell a little. “You didn’t like it.”

“I loved it.” He settled his hands on my waist and held my gaze in the mirror. He might as well have zapped me with electricity; just the touch of his hands through my dress sent zings down my spine. “The only problem was how much I wanted to tear it off of you.”

“I’m glad you restrained yourself.” At least in front of our guests. I wouldn’t have cared at all if he ripped the gown off me now.

Still looking into my eyes in our reflection, he lowered his mouth to the curve where my neck met my shoulder.

My knees wobbled. Breathlessly, I reminded him. “My mom is coming to help me with my dress.”

“I think I am capable of undressing my own wife,” he murmured against my neck. “And it would be my pleasure.”

The knock at the door was furious and insistent, as though someone had been knocking for hours. The sound of my mom loudly clearing her throat preceded, “Neil, get decent and get out of there. Sophie has to change.”

“Go,” I said, unhappy to break my optimistic bubble. I would have liked nothing more than a quick fuck or a long cuddle, but both would have to wait.

“Come in,” he called, looking down at me with a disappointed scowl. “I was just leaving.”

I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him, just as my mother and Marie shoved their way in. Marie held a curling iron over her head like a trophy won in grisly combat.
Oh god, she’s killed the stylist.

“Right, let’s get all of this off,” Mom said, grabbing the back of my dress and deftly popping the tiny, silk-covered buttons. Neil left in a backward stroll. Our eye contact lingered. When he turned, I caught the flash of his half-smile before he closed the door behind him.

Mom tugged the bodice of the dress down. “You two have a whole honeymoon to fool around.”

“But we’ve also got a whole reception to wait through,” I reminded her.

She gave me a stern look in the mirror, and I just grinned back at her.

It was my day, I could pick at her a little.

* * * *

I’d
changed into a figure-hugging column of pearlescent gold silk and black Chantilly lace that would be so much easier to move in and met Neil at the closed doors of the Grand Ballroom.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a bride?” he teased, slipping an arm around my waist. He spread his hand as if each finger reached out to touch as much of me as possible and appropriate. “You certainly don’t look virginal and blushing.”

I stepped into his embrace and smoothed my hands down the lapels of his jacket. “You realize that’s your fault, right? I was pure as the driven snow before I met you. Now, you look at me like I’m your dinner.”

Neil kissed my nose. “On that note, let’s go get some actual dinner, before I cannibalize one of our guests.”

The Grand Ballroom was lit far more brightly than the Terrace Room. “Somebody Loves You” by Betty Who played over the sound system as we entered, to the claps and cheers and obnoxious glass clinking to demand a kiss. From there, dinner was a blur. Not because I got wasted off the champagne toasts, I was just super high on endorphins. There were so many well wishers that I barely ate anything; there just didn’t seem time to get a bite. And, oh my god, the glass clinking. My mouth was always too busy to put food in it.

But we were on a schedule, as Shelby reminded us before she herded us off to cut the cake.

I might not get as excited over food as Holli does, but I understood her enthusiasm a bit better once I saw the cake. The inspiration photos and design sketches we’d seen hadn’t prepared me for the sheer size of the seven tiers of white fondant, or the delicacy of the gold-embossed lace. I was nervous about symbolically cutting into it, because I wasn’t sure that the whole thing wouldn’t just topple over on us. Luckily, the baker was on hand to point out the subtle lines pressed into the fondant that showed us where to cut. When Neil put his hand on mine over the handle of the knife, my heart fluttered. I don’t know what it was about a ceremony and a piece of paper—which, yes, I did sign—that made me feel nervous butterflies and full body shivers, like I was falling in love all over again.

I leaned up and whispered, so no one could hear, “I want you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. We should have made a bet as to who would cave to sex in the bathroom first; I would have totally won that, judging from the way his fingers flexed over mine.

“Remember,” he warned me as we both lifted our neatly cut wedges of cake, “we swore we wouldn’t do it.”

“Right,” I said, nodding seriously. “No cake smashing.”

He fed me a delicate bite while I absolutely creamed him with a palm full of cake. I took a step back, out of retaliation range, and he lunged at me, sweeping an arm around my back and pulling me up to kiss my neck with his frosting-smeared face. I squealed and half-heartedly fought him off while, from the corner of my eye, I caught my mom throwing up her hands in frustration. She’d lectured me over and over about how immature that particular tradition was.

The bite I’d gotten from Neil and the bits I’d teasingly kissed from his face was all the cake I got. Brides apparently don’t get to eat at their own weddings, no matter how much the meal cost per plate.

Between songs, Shelby alerted us to our next married couple duty, the one I’d been dreading the most. Our first dance. Dancing in public wasn’t what bothered me. It was fun to go out to a club and grind up on other people to loud music and disconcerting lights. It was not fun, however, to be on display in an environment where one is expected to be graceful. Unlike some couples, who I now regretted mocking in the past, Neil and I hadn’t worked on some elaborate choreography to pull off during our first dance as man and wife. But I wasn’t totally unprepared. We
had
practiced.

Beneath the high, open ceiling in the den, Neil had pushed back the coffee table and rolled up the rug so that he could impart his wisdom about wedding dances.

“The first thing to remember,” he’d advised me sagely, “is that everyone thinks you got fully drunk in the limo on the way to the reception.”

Of course, there had been no limo on the way to the reception, just a short walk. But I hadn’t pointed it out then, and it made me giggle now as we walked onto dance floor. Neil’s hand curved around my waist, and I imagined we were back at our house, John Legend’s “All Of Me” playing on my phone, rather than the instrumental arrangement for piano and strings performed live now. We started our steps, and I thought of the way it had felt when we’d been gliding around in our socks on the polished wood floor. In our practice, I’d crashed into Neil, and he’d held me on my feet. We’d laughed and fallen down then forgotten about dancing altogether. It was the same feeling now, as I gave in and let him lead me effortlessly around the floor. Even though I was in a beautiful, if not entirely comfortable, evening gown instead of rolled up sweatpants and a faded hoodie, even though Neil didn’t have to curse and snap, “Stop trying to lead, Sophie!” when I stepped on his foot for the millionth time, it felt normal. It all clicked into place; whether we were dressed up all fancy or wearing comfy sweats, whether we were married or not, Neil and I were still just Neil and I. We were the same two people gliding around the famed floor of the Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom as the ones laughing and colliding and not taking anything seriously.

The song was over way too soon.

Once the dance floor filled up and everything started to feel more like a party than a wedding, I loosened up. While Neil danced with Emma, I used Holli to defend my way to the bathroom, where she fished a candy bar from her purse. Eating a Snickers on the toilet wouldn’t be one of my top-ten romantic wedding memories, but after starving all day and needing to pee worse than ever in my entire life, it was definitely in my top-ten urination experiences.

I checked for chocolate smudges on my mouth then went back to the dance floor. The band was playing, “Just The Way You Look Tonight,” and Neil held Olivia in the crook of his arm, her tiny pink fist in his hand as he swayed with her. Her huge eyes were fixed on the silvery light patterns shifting on the ceiling. Neil, on the other hand, saw nothing but her, so I managed to sneak up and tap him on the shoulder.

“May I cut in?” I took Olivia and sniffed her head. “I know it’s weird, because she apparently smells like Emma’s breast milk, but Olivia’s head always smells so good.”

“It’s the smell that gets you,” Neil warned. “It sticks in your nose, and you’re stuck wrapped around their little fingers for the rest of their lives.”

“Like you weren’t going to be, anyway,” I teased. The song was ending, and I spotted Emma coming out to reclaim her child.

“Let’s get off our feet a moment, shall we?” Neil gave Olivia a final kiss before I handed her off to Emma, and we unceremoniously stole two seats at a table near the dance floor.

“Oy, fucko! That’s my chair!” Ian came toward us with a huge, congratulatory smile on his face. Neil got up and offered his hand, but Ian pushed his arm aside and went in for a bear hug instead. When they parted, Ian came to me and took the hand I offered, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Always good luck, getting a kiss from the bride.”

“Sit with us,” Neil said, and Ian pulled up an unoccupied chair from the next table.

“Look at the two of you,” Ian said, sighing as he sat down. “Like a pair of salt and pepper shakers. Neil, you’re the salt, on account of the white hair.”

“I do not have white hair!” Neil laughed, but reached up to his head with unconscious defensiveness.

“Nah, mate, you look like you’ve been struck by fucking lightning.” He leaned back with an elbow on the table. “I’m happy for the two of you. I don’t know what you see in him, Sophie, but god bless you for taking him on. And you’ve won the fucking lottery, old man.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Neil agreed.

“Will you now?” Ian jerked his thumb toward the bar. “You want to go have one?”

“I can’t. It was a figure of speech.” Neil put his hand on my knee. “I’m hanging it up.”

“Good idea.” Ian nodded sagely. “But your good ideas won’t get me drunk, so I’ll bid you adieu. I know you have a lot of friends, Sophie’s friends, specifically, who all look like fucking models…”