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What had happened between then and now, I wondered.
I’d had a hell of a day myself. Amy showing up on the island early this afternoon had been an unpleasant surprise. I couldn’t believe that she’d actually flown here. I’d ignored her calls after we talked yesterday, and she was so intent on talking to me that she’d bought a last-minute ticket here on a red-eye flight. She was out of her freaking mind.
It turned out that she had some crazy idea that being at this wedding would reignite my desire to give our marriage another shot or something like that. I hadn’t hesitated to tell her that she was insane, which didn’t exactly go over well.
She’d made one hell of a scene in front of everyone in the groom’s suite. I wasn’t easily embarrassed, but I was still mortified by the whole thing. She’d called me every hateful name she could think of, dragging my name through the mud in front of everyone.
I’d held firm on my conviction that we just weren’t a good match. Things were never going to work out between us, end of story.
Then, she cried. Big, ugly tears and sobs that made me feel like a jerk, even though I wasn’t the one that travelled here to cause a scene at a wedding that I wasn’t invited to. Nope, that was all Amy, and it was a perfect example of why I wasn’t willing to work things out with her.
In the end, something gooddidcome out of it.
When she’d calmed down enough to speak again, Amyfinallyagreed to sign the divorce papers. Hearing her say those words was like receiving a gift from heaven. I had been trying to get her to do it for so long that I was starting to think it would never happen. It was worth all the drama to get her to finally agree that she was done with this marriage. Of course, she made sure to let me know that I was going to miss “the best thing I ever had.” But she’d left the island before the wedding started, thank God.
I forgot all about Amy as the wedding ceremony came to an end. Tatum had one hundred percent of my attention, and I had no idea what to think when it was our turn to walk back up the aisle together. When she refused to take my arm, her cold eyes turning away from me as she stiffly walked at my side, I realized that she was angry with me.
I just wished that I knew why.
The wedding party went straight to our table at the reception. It was a long rectangle covered in a white tablecloth and facing the other tables. We were on one side with Faith and Michael in the middle while the bridesmaids and groomsmen filled the seats on either side of them. We were facing the rest of the tables as they filled up with wedding guests.
Waiters and waitresses served dinner: chicken cordon bleu, broccoli, and wild rice. I dug in, but I couldn’t stop looking at Tatum out of the corner of my eye. The bride and groom were between us, but I could see her if I leaned forward slightly.
She wasn’t really eating, just picking at her food, despite how delicious it was. I was feeling desperate for a chance to talk to her, but I had to wait for the right opportunity. Fortunately, it came sooner than I expected as most of us finished eating and the time came to cut the cake. Faith and Michael left the table to go feed each other the first pieces, meaning that there were just two empty seats between me and Tatum.
I slid over into Faith’s seat. Tatum was looking down at her plate of food, still just picking at the meal and barely eating anything, but she tensed as I moved closer. The bridesmaid on the other side of her had gotten out of her seat to go talk with some friends, so there was no one nearby to overhear us.
“Hey,” I said, placing a hand on her forearm.
She pulled away, but turned to look at me. There was a fire in her eyes that had nothing to do with passion. It was defiance and hurt, and it gutted me to see it. Whatever I had done to upset her was serious.
“What’s going on?”
“Are you sure you should be talking to me right now?” she asked stiffly. “What if your wife sees us and gets jealous?”
“My wife?” I repeated, and it stupidly took a couple of seconds before I realized that she was talking about Amy. I barely even thought of her that way, despite her legal status as my spouse. She was just my clingy ex.
“How dare you hide the fact that you’re married from me?” she said angrily. “What the hellwasall of this to you? Some fun little vacation hook-up? A getaway from the real world that you took as an opportunity to fuck someone else?”
Her voice was hardly more than a harsh whisper that was clearly intended to avoid drawing attention, but I could hear the anger and pain in it. I wasn’t sure when she encountered Amy, but that must have been what happened. This was a nightmare, and I was mentally kicking myself for not telling Tatum about her sooner.
“It’s not like that—”
“Oh sure,” she interrupted, looking at me with disgust. “It never is, is it? You just forgot to mention that you’re a married man, huh? And did youloseyour wedding ring too? I can’t believe that you used me like this.”
“I didn’t,” I started, but she suddenly pushed her chair back as she stood.
As she looked down at me, I knew that she wasn’t ready to hear my explanation. She was too furious.
“I can’t do this right now,” she said, confirming my suspicion. “We’re at our best friends’ wedding, and I won’t disrupt it by having some heated argument.”
Without another word, she walked away, leaving me sitting there feeling like I’d been punched in the gut. Or rather, the heart.
Damn it, Amy. You just had to show up here and fuck up my entire day, along with the best thing that had ever happened to me. Tatum.
But I wasn’t going to let things unfold this way. I was determined to get through to Tatum, to tell her that she was wrong. I wasn’t using her, and what we had was real.
I just had to figure out a way to make her believe it.
