Don’t Mind If “I Do” by Everly Ashton

Forty-Six

Nick

This is it. Today marks the last day we have to be married.

Now the question is—what do we each want to do? It’s hard not to feel as though this is an episode of that stupid show Mazzy makes me watch, Married at First Sight, where they have to announce their decision to their spouse eight weeks after they blindly married.

Only I’ve loved this girl for almost as long as I’ve known her. That’s what I plan to tell her tonight.

The day she received her grandfather’s letter, we agreed to enjoy our last few days together. That we’d discuss our future on the last day of the six months. She had a lot more shit to figure out than I did, what with the state of her family’s legacy on the line.

I sit in the kitchen at the table and wait for her. We’re getting our first dusting of snow. It’s not even officially winter yet, but that’s life in the northeast. It’s unpredictable. I watch the snow float gently to the ground. I only hope that I’ll walk away from this conversation with the same sense of peace.

Mazzy walks into the room in an oversized sweater and a pair of leggings. The fact that she’s not dressed formally for our conversation relaxes my nerves. She hasn’t said or done anything that makes me feel as though we’re on different pages, but you just never know.

“Hey.” I smile at her as she sits across from me. Surely that has to be a good sign.

“I’m nervous,” she says.

“Same.”

We both let a small chuckle escape. I reach across the table for her hands and she lets me take them. Another good sign.

“So… who goes first here?” I ask.

“You can go first.”

“Chicken shit.” I wink. “I had this whole speech prepared and now I forget all of it. But that’s okay because it really comes down to one thing. The day you walked back into my life was the second-best day of my life.”

Her forehead wrinkles. “The second-best?”

“The best day was the day I married you.”

She squeezes my hands. I’ll take that as another good sign.

“It doesn’t matter to me how we got here. The fact is we’re husband and wife and I want to share the rest of my life with you. I want to build on what we’ve already established. I want to figure out how our lives work together long term. I love you too much to let you walk out of my life again, so if you’re planning to sit here and tell me that you want to divorce, you need to understand that I’m going to fight for us this time, Maz. And I won’t make it easy for you to leave me. Not a chance in hell.”

Her huge grin makes me think I said all the words she hoped to hear. “I have no plans to try to slip away from you. I want nothing more than for us to be a married couple. I’ve never felt as happy or as loved and supported as I have since we got married. Nor as sexually satisfied.” She winks.

I’ll admit, my chest puffs out a little.

“If I were to lose you again, I honestly don’t know what I would do. You are my everything. I love you, Nicholas Ryan.”

I push out my chair and rush around the table to pull her from her chair. My chest feels as if it might burst and the confetti that is my joy will explode everywhere.

As soon as she stands, I wrap my arms around her and kiss her for all I’m worth. I try to put everything in that kiss. Every ounce of regret for the years we were apart. Every part of my heart that belongs to her. She sinks into me as though she feels all the words I’m not saying.

When we part, I rest my forehead against hers. “You are my person, Mazzy Pembrooke.”

She swats my chest. “You stole that from Grey’s Anatomy.”

I chuckle. “That doesn’t make it any less true.”

She tilts her chin up and kisses me again. I’m thinking of laying her back onto the kitchen table and having my way with her when she pulls back.

“There’s one more thing.” She tilts her head back to look me in the eye. “I’ve decided what to do about Pembrooke Financial too.”

This has been a difficult decision for her, so I’m curious to hear what she’s settled on. “Are you going to inject the money into the company to save it?”

She bites her bottom lip and nods. “I am. Under a few conditions.”

“Wow.” I’m actually taken aback. I thought she’d let her dad face the consequences of his own mistakes. “What are the conditions?”

“My dad has to step down from leading the company. I’ll be involved in finding someone suitable to replace him, and they’ll oversee things. He’ll say he’s decided on an early retirement and will have nothing more to do with the company. I’ll give the money he owes back to the company and things will be business as usual.”

“So your dad gets off scot-free and doesn’t have to face up to the fact that he’s a thief and a liar?”

She steps back. “Nick, he’s my father.”

The hurt on her face registers, but the idea that some rich bastard is getting away with breaking the law and having zero consequences because he can buy his way out of his problems doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve always liked Mazzy’s dad because I thought he was on the up and up. But to hear what he’s done to risk all those people’s lives at Pembrooke goes to show he’s no better than anyone else in that circle. The only thing that matters is what benefits him. And now he’s putting Mazzy right in the middle of it with him. That might be what I’m most mad about.

“I get it, Maz, but he still did what he did.”

“It’s about more than just him. There are all the employees and their jobs and their families relying on them to bring home a paycheck and benefits. The fallout of a scandal involving my father could be catastrophic for the company. What companies are going to trust a corporation to do their financials if the person running it uses it like their own pocketbook?”

“Exactly!” I wave at her as though she proved my point.

“What if he was charged and ended up having to go to jail? I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, isn’t that the saying?”

She scowls and points at me. “I am not going to be responsible for sending my father to jail. I’m just not.”

How can she not see her dad needs to be punished for what he did? If not, he’ll just do it all over again, but next time his father won’t die, and he won’t have his daughter to bail him out. “I can’t believe you’re bailing him out. I expected you to help the company, but I thought you’d let him deal with the fallout of his actions.”

“This isn’t your business anyway. It’s my money.”

Her words hang between us for a moment.

A dark chuckle escapes me. “It always comes down to the money, doesn’t it? Why would I expect any different?”

“You have to get rid of this giant chip on your shoulder. I know your childhood was hard and you don’t agree with the class structure in society. I get it. But this is not about money. It’s about family. Why can’t you see that?”

“Your dad is a crook, and he deserves to be treated like one.”

She blinks rapid-fire for a moment and I briefly wonder if I’ve crossed a line there’s no coming back from. But I’m honestly dumbfounded by her choice. After the past months, I’ve felt like we want the same things in life. That we’re on the same page, but right now it feels like we’re back on that street and there’s a crater between us. If we’re ever going to make this work, she has to jump to my side. She just has to.

“It’s him or me, Maz. You need to decide.”

Her hand flies to her stomach as though she might be sick. “You’re asking me choose?”

“I love you, but I don’t know that I can be with someone who doesn’t stand up for what’s right.”

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Instead she bolts from the room. I hear her rush up the stairs and a door slams.

Damn it. How did we get here again?