Page 2 of Faking the Pass

Unexpected Guest

R osie

Some girls get fairy-tale weddings. I got viral headlines, a ruined career, and a fake husband who’s six-feet-four-inches of sin in cleats.

“Okay, next.”

The ultra capable wedding planner checked her stopwatch and sent the final bridesmaid to do her walk.

“Straight up the steps and across the hallway to the ballroom doors,” she said, repeating the same marching orders she’d given to each of my attendants.

There were a lot of them.

All of them drop-dead gorgeous and handpicked by Randy, my groom, to fit the aesthetic he wanted for our wedding.

The women probably thought they were auditioning for a role in his next feature film—and they might have been right.

“Slow down,” the wedding planner called after the leggy brunette. “It’s a wedding processional, not the runway.”

The planner, whose name was Olivia, pointed to my maid of honor and best friend Danielle, the only bridesmaid I’d chosen for myself.

She actually smiled at her.

“Get ready, honey.”

Danielle nodded and turned to me, grabbing my hands and whisper-squealing. “I can’t believe you’re about to be Randy Ryland’s wife!”

“Yeah.” I nodded, feeling like I was in a daze. I couldn’t believe it myself.

It had all happened so fast. I’d met him six months ago, and in that time we’d shared one movie shoot, fourteen nights at his house in the Hollywood Hills, and the most public of public proposals.

Of course I’d said yes.

Now I was about to walk down the aisle and marry my co-star, who was also the producer of our upcoming film—my very first.

Randy had plucked an absolute nobody out of obscurity and made my acting dreams come true. Now he was about to make me his wife.

I’d never stop being grateful that he’d given me my first big break—and that he’d been there for me during one of the most difficult seasons of my life.

Danielle wiggled her fingers from my involuntary deathgrip and gave me a concerned look.

“You okay? Are you thinking about your mom?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m actually glad she’s not here. She would have absolutely hated this whole circus.”

Now Danielle’s forehead creased even more, and her eyes grew serious.

“So what’s the matter? You have that look on your face that you only get when you’re kind of freaking out,” she said. “You don’t have to do this, you know… if you’re not sure.”

“Right.” I giggled nervously, though nothing felt the slightest bit amusing at the moment.

“I’ll just stroll into a mansion ballroom filled with five hundred of Hollywood’s biggest stars and most powerful directors and producers and tell them I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “No biggie.”

“Uh oh,” Danielle’s eyebrows lifted to her auburn hairline.

“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I can do this.”

The concern on her face doubled. “But do you want to?”

“Time to go,” Olivia announced.

Danielle and I shared a long look before I nodded again, working hard to keep from hyperventilating.

“My feet are just a teensy bit cold. I’ll be fine.” I gave her a big smile. “Go, go.”

Danielle left the room, tossing one last worried glance over her shoulder.

Closing my eyes and breathing deeply, I pictured her entering the ballroom and walking slowly down the long aisle lined with blooming crepe myrtle trees.

I’d seen the room earlier when it was empty. By now it would be packed with designer-clad bodies and unnaturally youthful faces, most of whom I didn’t know.

Randy was the one who knew everyone, so he’d been in charge of the invitations, inviting a who’s who of the Hollywood scene. The fact they’d traveled all the way to the East coast for this event demonstrated his popularity and power in the industry.

As I had no family left and a small number of real friends, his insistence on handling the guest list had been fine with me.

Still, I was nervous. Very nervous.

It was probably just the public speaking thing.

Delivering well-rehearsed lines on camera? I could do that all day.

Speaking live in front of a crowd of hundreds? Not my favorite.

In fact, utterly terrifying. I’d begged Randy for a small ceremony.

I took another deep breath and closed my eyes, counting to four on the inhale and holding it at the top as the grief counselor had taught me to do whenever it felt like I was about to fly apart.

On the exhale, I repeated the mantra I’d been saying to myself since we’d boarded the plane to Eastport Bay, Rhode Island.

You’ll be fine. You know your vows. You’ve practiced them. Everything else is just a yes or no answer. Imagine you’re on set, and all those people in there are extras.

Olivia checked the running timer again and spoke into her headset as if directing troops on the battlefield.

“It’s go time. Cue the orchestra to start the bride’s processional music.”

Then her expression morphed from her usual I got this smile to a WTF? grimace.

“What?” she gasped into the microphone.

“What?” I echoed, tottering closer to her on the torturous stilettoes the stylist had picked out for me.

Clearly Olivia had heard something alarming through her earpiece. Something was wrong.

So why did that sudden floaty sensation in my chest feel a little like hope?

Olivia held up a finger as she continued to listen to whatever was being said on the other end. Then her eyes came up to meet mine.

For the first time since I’d met her, they contained something other than total confidence.

It looked like… pity.

And then the dauntless facade slid back into place. Olivia gave me a strained smile before speaking in an extra-calm voice.

“Everything’s fine,” she said.

The smile grew a little more strained and a lot less believable. “It’s being… handled. It’ll only take a moment.”

Handled? Was that a normal wedding planner term? Because as far as I knew, the only thing you handled was a problem.

“Is there a problem?” I asked. “Did Randy not show up?”

That odd floaty feeling got even floatier, threatening to carry me to one of those altitudes that made people pass out.

Olivia was speaking into her microphone again. “Yes, just tell them to hold off on the bride’s processional and keep playing the movie score until you hear back from me. I’m coming up.”

To me she said, “Oh no, honey, he’s here . Don’t worry about a thing.”

But a bead of sweat trickled from her neat hairline to form a trail down one temple. And the strained smile had turned her face into one of those brightly painted sugar skulls from Dia de los Muertos, minus the flowers and glitter.

Something was definitely wrong.

My acting classes had trained me to portray pretty much every human emotion you could imagine on cue, so I was good at reading facial expressions and body language.

This unflappable woman was seriously flapped.

Reading between the lines, I asked, “Is he having second thoughts?”

She didn’t answer the question directly. “Just a teensy delay. An unexpected guest. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry honey.”

Gripping her clipboard like it was a parachute and she’d just been told to jump out of a plane, Olivia turned to leave the dressing room.

“Please wait here. I’ll be right back. Just stay here okay?” she said before closing the door firmly behind her.

What was going on?

What kind of last-minute guest could cause this kind of delay? Did Randy know the Pope or something?

I blew out a breath, pacing the dressing room in the mansion’s lower level. My feet hurt already, and I’d only had these stupid heels on for thirty minutes. I was going to be crippled by the end of the reception.

If it even happened.

Screw waiting. I had to see what was happening for myself.

If the wedding planner was up there applying a blowtorch to my groom’s icy feet… I needed to know about it.

Leaving the dressing room, I rushed—to the best of my ability in the enormous dress and cruel stilettos—up the stairs and into Bellevue Manor’s opulent entry hall area outside the ballroom’s glass doors.

The crowd visible through them was even larger than I’d expected.

It really did look like a movie scene in there with huge floral arrangements overflowing their containers around the room and candlelight sparkling all along the walls and in the crystal chandeliers overhead.

At the front of the room, live trees adorned with tiny twinkle lights bloomed with pink petals and overhung the podium where the officiant stood at the ready.

There were cameras everywhere. Apparently Randy wanted the ceremony to be captured from every angle.

But I didn’t see him standing up front with the officiant and the groomsmen and bridesmaids. The wedding planner must have lied about him being here.

And then I heard her voice.

Turning to the side, I spotted her in a romantic little marble alcove where a fountain poured water into a lighted pool, speaking in hushed tones with a man and woman.

I couldn’t see much of the guy—he was short enough that his face was blocked by Olivia—but he was in a tux, so it must have been an usher.

The woman I could see clearly. She was wearing yoga pants, flip flops, and a t-shirt, and she was pregnant.

Like, really pregnant—at least eight months I’d guess.

She was crying, and the man’s arm was around her back, comforting her.

My first thought was that her luggage had been lost by the airline, and they were refusing to let her in because she wasn’t properly attired or some such nonsense.

My heart went out to her. It was probably impossible to find a semi-formal maternity dress at the last minute.

Well, I wasn’t going to stand for someone being turned away from my wedding for a silly reason like not matching the aesthetic.

I marched over to them, prepared to give Olivia and the rude usher a piece of my mind and assure the unfortunate guest she was welcome.

But when I reached them and Olivia stepped back to face me, I saw the man.

It was not an usher.

It was my groom.

“Randy,” I said in surprise. “Why are you out here ?”

Had Olivia actually dragged him out into the foyer to deal with the clothing snafu? My mind was having a hard time processing.