All of Me (Inside Out Series Book 6) (12 page)

“Sara,” Mike says softly.

I inhale, and damn it, I have tears in my eyes that Chris gently wipes away. “Yes, Mike,” I say, not ready to turn around.

“I’d be honored to walk you down the aisle.”

Oh, God. Now I’m really going to bawl. I grab a napkin and turn to him, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I’d be honored if you would.”

“Oh, honey,” Katie whispers. “I’m sorry we made you cry.”

“You didn’t. I’m sorry my
father
can still make me cry.”

“He’s a bastard if he can,” she assures me.

“Oh, he’s a bastard,” Chris assures them. “A very rich, arrogant bastard. But Sara wasn’t willing to be a slave to his money. She left, giving up everything to live a life she believes in. And she’s probably the only woman I’ve ever met who found my money to be a problem.”

“I think
I’m
falling in love with Sara,” Mike jokes, and I laugh along with everyone else. “And this seems like the time to taste some wines. Make us all merry.”

Chris and I agree, and we fall into light conversation. The first wine comes and our glasses are filled with the chardonnay.

Katie lifts her glass. “This was your parents’ favorite wine, Chris, and the one that put us on the map after winning the Paris competition. It seems a perfect wedding choice.”

“Chris’s father had a diverse taste in wine,” Mike tells me. “That’s what made him such a good competition judge.”

Chris draws a deep, slow breath and sets his glass down. I know even before he stands that something is wrong. “I need to get some air,” he announces, and he grabs his jacket. In a flash, he’s out the door that leads to the back of the property and the gazebo.

Katie and Mike look stunned. “I—” Katie begins. “What just happened? He’s never done anything like that before. I’m confused.”

“We’ve had a lot of tragedy these past few weeks.” I grab my jacket. “We’ll be right back.”

I rush after Chris, exiting the chateau to find him waiting for me.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he returns, lacing my fingers with his. “Let’s go to the gazebo.”

I nod. “Yes.” And I instinctively know this is when he’s going to tell me about that nightmare.

In silence, we travel across the wooden bridge covering a pond. The early evening is cool but not cold, the wind light. Once we reach the other side, and to my dismay I realize that the roses winding around the gazebo aren’t in bloom. We’ve forgotten the season.

We stop in the center of the gazebo and both of us look up. “They’ll bring in roses,” Chris says, as if reading my mind. “It’ll look like they are in bloom. I already talked to Katie about it.”

“That’s a relief,” I say, and we look at each other, our fingers still laced together. “You never told me the story of the roses.”

He smiles a bit sadly. “Ah, yes. The story of the roses. My mother truly personified the saying ‘she could sell ice to Eskimos.’ When she was seven years old, she lived in an apartment and she used to pick wildflowers and go door to door, telling them she was selling roses. She sold a lot of those fake roses. Eventually she decided she wanted to help women feel good about themselves, be it as a wildflower or a rose. And the rest was history. She became a cosmetics queen.”

“And now I know how you sat down with a paintbrush and ended up one of the most famous painters on the planet.”

“Every time I sit down to face that canvas, I think it’s going to be shit.”

“And yet you turn wildflowers into roses.”

He steps closer to me, his hands settling under my jacket, on my hips. “Triggers. We talked about triggers.”

“Yes,” I say. “And your father is a trigger.”

“Yes,” he confirms, releasing me and turning away, resting his hands on the gazebo railing. I move to stand beside him, and wait. “When I was growing up,” he finally says, “I convinced myself that my father started drinking excessively to forget the accident. But I kept having this nightmare about the accident.” He glances at me. “The one I had two nights ago. I’ve told myself over and over that it means nothing. I was five. How can I remember anything?”

“But you do, Chris. You’ve told me about that day.”

“I was five, Sara. I can’t remember.” His voice cracks, and there is a desperateness to his tone, like he doesn’t want to face something.

“I don’t know if I should encourage you to tell me right now, or urge you to put it behind you.”

“In thirty years, if I haven’t put it behind me, I’m not going to.”

“Then tell me.”

“Katie said we should have my father’s favorite wine at the wedding, and honor his love of the grape.” There’s bitterness in the way he exaggerates the word
love
. “That statement, innocent as it was, became my trigger.” He dips his chin, lowering his head a moment, and I can hear him take several breaths. “I remember him drinking. I remember him drinking all the time. And I remember, that night in the car”—he pauses—“I remember him leaning over her body, and grabbing a bottle that he threw as far as he could out of the window.” He looks at me, his eyes pained. “I think he was drunk that night—and he knew that I saw. I think he hated that I knew. He didn’t know if I remembered, but the idea that I might made him hate me as much as he hated himself. So he made both of our lives hell. I don’t want that fucking wine at our wedding.”

For the second time tonight, tears well in my eyes. “Then we won’t have it at our wedding.” I look up at him. “Tell Katie and Mike.”

“No, baby. I’m not telling them.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know for sure. But my bitterness does nothing to help anyone. Just being able to finally say this to someone else I trust helps the most.”

“I’m going to tell Katie that we had a certain champagne the night you proposed, and that if it won’t offend her, I want to have it instead.”

He shakes his head. “They couldn’t have kids. They tried, then they adopted and lost that boy in a boating accident. I became their son. And that wine made this winery. It’s the connection that brought us together. I’m okay with the wine. It’s my father I have the problem with. And he’s gone, and they aren’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” He drapes his arm over my shoulders and we walk across the bridge to return to the chateau, and I’m touched by how selfless this man can be. He has money and power and fame, but he never thinks about only himself.

We enter the dining room to find Katie and Mike still sitting at the table, worry on their faces. Chris and I take off our coats again and sit down.

“Everything okay?” Katie asks.

“Yes,” Chris replies. “I just had a little walk down memory lane.”

“Memories aren’t always easy,” Mike replies.

“No,” Chris agrees, “but they make us stronger.”

I’m reminded of what he told me about Chantal, about how we’re the sum of our broken pieces.

Chris lifts his glass. “Let’s toast.” Everyone lifts their glass, and he says, “To making roses—”

“Out of wildflowers,” Katie finishes.

Part Twelve

Just You and Me

The weeks before the wedding pass in a blink of an eye, despite a brief window of harassment by the press. Chris and I spent the time at home and around San Francisco, especially in “our” window corner of Diego and Maria’s Mexican restaurant, while Chris sketches and I work. Maria’s son Diego is back from Paris as well, nursing a broken heart, and his mother is determined to help him mend with comfort food. She’s also determined to fatten me up before the wedding, and I certainly don’t lose any weight.

Now, on the eve of the wedding, I wake up alone in the bed of the rental house, certain Chris is already in the kitchen drinking coffee. It’s become our ritual for him to wake early and start the coffee, be it here, back at the apartment in San Francisco, or in Paris, and for me to join him when it’s ready.

Entering the kitchen, I find Chris leaning on the marble countertop by the coffeepot, shirtless and in his pajama bottoms, the long strands of his blond hair a wild, sexy mess I’m pretty sure I created last night.

He glances up from the paper he’s reading, then picks up his coffee cup. “Morning, Ms. McMillan.”

“Morning, Mr. Merit,” I reply, grinning as I join him.

He offers me his coffee cup and I happily accept it, taking a drink of the perfectly flavored coffee and creamer. Sharing a cup with Chris has this sexy, intimate feel to it that always does funny things to my belly.

“Your last day as a free woman,” he comments.

“Why? Are you planning to tie me up sometime soon?”

He covers my hands on his cup. “Is that an objection, or wishful thinking?” He tilts the cup and drinks, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I plead the Fifth. It’s more fun that way.”

“That it is,” he agrees, but a sigh follows. “I wish I could do the same, but you’d better look at the newspaper.” He sets the cup on the counter, then hands me the Arts section of the local paper.

Dread fills me as I read the headline: “Acclaimed Artist and Philanthropist Chris Merit to wed Sara McMillan on Valentine’s Day in Star-studded Event in Sonoma.” I set it down. “We went to so much trouble to get the press off our backs before the wedding, and now they’ve found us! I
knew
when all these famous people showed up on the guest list, it was going to turn into a zoo.”

“Walker Security anticipated the press, and they’re staffed and ready for it. It’ll be fine. We’ll be shielded.”

Nerves the size of birds, not butterflies, attack my stomach. “We should have eloped.”

“We still can. Let’s do it. Now. Today.”

“We can’t elope,” I say, sounding appalled, as if he’d suggested it, not me. “People who respect you are coming a long way to see us. And Katie has planned this for months.”

“Baby, we can do whatever we want. This is our day.”

“No. We can’t. Not this far into this. Which reminds me—you can’t stay here tonight. It’s bad luck to see the bride the night before the wedding.”

“I told you how I feel about that. We make our own luck.”

“Chris—”

He kisses me. “I’m staying here tonight, and I’m fucking you like I won’t see you ever again, just to be sure you walk down that aisle.”

“If you’re waiting for me at the end of that aisle, I’ll be there. And if you’re staying here tonight, we can use separate bedrooms.”

“Does today count as part of that eve-of-the-wedding rule?”

“Yes.”

He scoops me up and I yelp. “What are you doing?”

“I’m a renegade, baby. Let’s go break the rules.”

•    •    •

It’s noon when Katie and I head to the Auberge du Nuit, the resort hotel Chris and I stayed at our first night in Sonoma. First on the agenda is to meet a couple of her girlfriends, as well as Chantal, her parents, and Rey in the lobby. As Chantal predicted in Paris, Katie and her mother are elated to see each other. Of course every person I meet tells me how beautiful I am, even though I’m without makeup, in sweats, ready to go to the spa. Maybe brides are like new babies, which everyone says are cute even when they have swollen heads and red faces. Nevertheless, I take the compliments gracefully, and there’s lots of hugging and laughter. There’s also enough awkwardness between Chantal and Rey to make even Katie, as distracted as she is by her reunions, give them a curious look. When the fuss finally dies down, Katie, her friends, and Chantal’s mother decide to do a little sightseeing. Rey is quick to go to his room.

Next for me and Chantal are our appointments at the spa, and while I’m dying to ask her about Tristan and Rey, it’s impossible, since we’re split up for facials, manicures, and pedicures. After we’ve been pampered, we head to one of the hotel restaurants for a snack and settle at a table for two.

I glance at the round bar in the center of the room and sigh. “I’d get a drink to calm my nerves, but the lady in the spa said it would make me puffy for the wedding.”

Chantal huffs at that and flags down a waitress. “Get a drink. You’re bouncing off the walls.”

That’s all the convincing I need. I order a glass of champagne and Chantal does the same, along with some spinach and artichoke dip and a plate of nachos to share. Halfway through my bubbly, with a few bites of food down me, I finally ask what I’ve wanted to for hours. “How bad was it flying over with Rey?”

She shoves her long brown hair behind her ear, looking uncomfortable. “Miserable. I hate him. I don’t hate him. He feels the same about me.”

“Okay, then. That sizes that up. What about Tristan?”

“He’s Tristan. Tormented, angry, miserable.”

“And that means what for the two of you?” My brows dip. “Or . . . uh, the three of you?”

“Two of us. There is no me and Rey. As for Tristan, I want to make his pain go away, but I think I’ve decided I can’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he needs more. Or something else.”

“And how about you? What do you need?”

“I need to freshen up.” She sets her napkin on the table, then walks away.

I’ve clearly hit a nerve. I was afraid of Tristan hurting her, but it seems like Rey is the one tearing her to pieces.

My gaze drifts to the window and the view of the Mayacamas Mountains, and I’m fondly remembering seeing them the first time with Chris, when I hear, “Hello, Sara.”

I freeze at the familiar voice, the only voice other than Michael’s that could make me nauseous in an instant. I turn, swallowing the knot in my throat, to find my father claiming Chantal’s chair. It’s been years since I’ve seen him, and the only time I’ve heard his voice was when he was on speakerphone with Chris, being the bastard that he is.

I don’t speak. Neither does he. We just sit there, staring at each other. He’s still thin, his regal carriage as evident as always, but money and time have been good to him. His thick, dark hair might be more gray, and there are a few more lines on his face, but he still looks like the arrogant, self-important, but incredibly good-looking man I know as my fallen idol.

“What are you doing here?” I finally ask.

“I know I haven’t been the best father,” he begins.

“Are you kidding me? Are you really going to have this conversation with me today?”

“I’ve put it off for too long.”

“And you choose the day before I get married?” I cross my arms in front of me, shutting him out, wishing this didn’t cut so deeply. “Please leave.”

“Sara—”

I lean forward and point at him. “Your timing is so poorly thought out that even if I wanted to hear what you had to say, which I don’t, I wouldn’t listen.”

“I’m sorry. For now. For the past. For everything.”

“You think
sorry
makes it all go away? You think
sorry
makes you dismissing Michael”—my breath hitches—“and what he did to me okay?”

“No. I don’t. I think it’s a beginning. That’s all I want.”

“Why?”

“I had a cancer scare. It’s over. I’m fine, but it made me look in the mirror.”

Cancer
. That one word chills me to the bone. It’s like it’s all around me, touching lives, destroying lives. Mark’s mother. Rebecca’s mother. Dylan.

“All I’m asking is for you to be open to a conversation with me after the wedding. I’ll call you.” He gets up and leaves. He just . . . leaves.

I sit there watching him, my mind blank, and I suddenly realize that I’m shaking, on the edge of an explosion I can’t have here. I push to my feet, grab my purse, and rush in the direction of the bathroom. Rounding the bar, I enter an L-shaped hallway and stop dead when I hear rapid French. A man’s voice, Rey, I think, and then Chantal is responding, first in French, and then shifting to English.

“Sorry? What are you sorry for?” she asks, contempt lacing her words. “Because I’m not sorry for Tristan. He needs me. He thinks I’m woman enough for him. He thinks I’m good enough.”

“You think
I
think you’re not good enough?”

She snorts. “Shall I quote you? I’m too young. I’m too—”

“It’s
me
that’s the problem. I’m a problem for you.”

“You’re right. You are. You keep messing with my head. Just go, and let
me
go.”

“I can’t,” he rasps hoarsely, and I can tell from Chantal’s gasp that something has happened.

I peek around the corner to find them kissing. Sinking back against the wall, I turn to leave . . . and see Chris approaching, his black T-shirt stretched over his perfect chest, his jeans hugging his powerful lower body. He’s just . . . Chris. He is perfect.

I wrap my arms around him and press my head to his chest. “Hey,” he says, his hand coming down on my head. “What’s wrong?”

I look up at him. “How is it that you’re always here when I need you?”

“That’s what we do, Sara. We’re here for each other. The salon told me you were here.”

“I thought . . . I thought
he
told you. Did you see him?”

“See who?”

“My father. He was here.”

“What? How? When?”

“He just left, and I have no idea how he found me.” I laugh bitterly. “He wanted to apologize.”

“Stay here,” he orders, but when he tries to leave, I hold on tight. “He’s gone. He left.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. He said he’d call after the wedding.”

“What did he say?”

“That he had a cancer scare and it changed his thinking. And I hate that I feel this ball of hope that it might be true. No one is who he is and then changes. And why did he have to choose today? He’s going to call. It’s not over.”

“And we’ll deal with it, like we do everything else. That’s what we do,” he repeats. “We’re there for each other.”

“I don’t want to let him back in my life, so why does he stir these feelings inside me?”

“The same reason mine did me. He’s your father, a part of you. But so am I, now.”

There’s a whisper, a moan, and Rey says something in French.

“What the hell?” Chris asks.

I laugh and grab his shirt when he tries to look around the corner. “Don’t look. It’s Rey and Chantal. Apparently he’s decided he’s not so bad for her, after all. He apologized and she said it wasn’t enough.”

Chris cups my face. “Because when you really want someone, nothing is ever enough.”

“Why do I feel guilty for not greeting my father’s request with welcome arms?”

“He took you off guard, and he’s done a lot to hurt you—including not being the father you needed him to be. Try to put him aside for now. The hurt, the guilt, the need he creates in you for that unknown something you never had.

“Because you have us. Think about us. Think about our song.” He lowers his head, his lips near my ear as he softly sings, “It’s just you and me and all of the people. With nothing to do and nothing to prove.” He leans back and stares down at me, his eyes filled with love. “Just you and me, baby.”

I smile. “Just you and me, Chris.”