She Played His Perfect Girlfriend, He Couldn't Let Her Go novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Three Place Cards

Cain and Mara fight over Lydia's seat at Dolan's daughter's wedding, Mara saves the bride's dress with picture wire, and Dolan shows her her payroll stubs.

Cain Rourke moved three place cards at Frank Dolan's daughter's wedding, and nobody dared to move them back.

Nobody except me.

We had arrived early, because Cain was always early.

The reception hall was still empty, with white roses on every table.

A string quartet was tuning in the corner.

Cain walked the length of the seating chart, reading every card.

He stopped at table four. Lydia Shaw's card was on it, six seats from ours.

"She's an old friend of the Dolans," he said, in his professional voice.

"Ms. Bell, she'll be able to see everything from there."

"That's the point," I said. "She's supposed to see us being in love."

"She doesn't need to see all of it."

He picked up Lydia's card and carried it to table eleven, which was by the kitchen doors.

When he turned his back, I took the card from table eleven and put it on table six.

Table six was two tables from ours. A reasonable distance, one that said we had nothing to hide.

Cain came back and found the card on table six.

He looked at me and said nothing.

He moved it to table nine.

I moved it to table seven.

"Ms. Bell."

"Mr. Rourke. If you put her by the kitchen, she'll think you're hiding me."

"I am not hiding you. I am hiding her from you."

"That's the worst thing you could do."

I straightened the napkin by his plate.

"Put her where she can see my face, and she'll see that I don't mind."

He held the card between two fingers.

"Do you mind?"

"It's not in the contract."

His jaw worked.

Then he walked to the head table and set the card beside the bride's grandmother, who was ninety-one and deaf in one ear.

"There," he said. "She can see everything and hear nothing."

"That's worse," I said.

"It is not worse."

At the cocktail hour, Lydia found her seat and read the name on the next card.

She sat down to a long, loud story about the grandmother's gallbladder.

She looked across the room at me and raised her glass.

I raised mine. I was beginning to like her very much, which was inconvenient.

After the ceremony the guests went out to the terrace, and two men from the Harbor Board pulled Cain into a corner.

I went to find the ladies' room.

The bride was in the hallway outside it, in her wedding dress, crying.

Her veil comb had come loose and hung by two hairs.

I knew her a little. Her father had talked over me at a dinner once, and she had apologized for him in the coat check.

"My bustle broke," she said. "The whole back came off in the car."

She wiped her face with her wrist.

"They'll call me any minute, and I'm not ready."

"Turn around," I said.

I keep a small kit in my clutch. It was my father's habit and now it's mine.

It holds a mini screwdriver, a roll of tape, two zip ties and a length of picture wire.

I looped the wire through the fallen hooks and twisted it tight.

I fixed the comb with a zip tie and a bobby pin.

It took four minutes.

The bride looked over her shoulder at her own back.

"Why do you have picture wire?"

"I always have picture wire."

She hugged me. She smelled like roses and hairspray.

"I owe you," she said. "I really do."

"You don't," I said.

Then I got out my notebook and wrote: Bustle. Veil. Owed me, one bride.

"What's that?"

"Nothing. It's just how I keep track."

A coordinator called her away, and I was alone in the hallway.

"Impressive."

Frank Dolan was leaning against the wall at the far end, holding a drink.

He was sweating, though the hall was cool.

"Mr. Dolan. Congratulations to the father of the bride."

"You've got good hands," he said. "Cain's lucky to have you."

"Thank you."

"I'll bet he doesn't know the half of what you do."

"He knows what's in the contract," I said, and then I wished I had said anything else.

Dolan smiled slowly.

"Contract. That's the word."

"Marriage contract," I said. "Very strict. He's a traditional man."

"Mara."

He pushed himself off the wall.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'd like to save you the embarrassment, is all."

He took a folded paper from his jacket and held it where I could read the top.

It was a payroll stub. Rourke Marine Freight. My name. Fifteen thousand dollars.

"I have fourteen months of these," he said.

He tucked the stub away.

"On the night of the Harbor Gala, when the Board votes on Pier 9, I'm going to read them out loud."

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