The Schemer (Harbor City 3)

Tyler didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The panic in his eyes round with shock said it all.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even close. Emotion turned into a lump in her throat, and no matter how many times she swallowed, she couldn’t get past it. And worst of all, she wanted to believe him because those were the only words she’d been wanting to hear from him since that night she’d come home to find him on a lounge chair in the parking garage. Giving in would be easy…and beyond a risk she was willing to take. Just having fun was one thing, but she wanted more than that from him. She wanted love.

“Everly,” he finally managed to get out—but it was too late.

She held up her hand, silencing him because she couldn’t stand to hear the words. How often had her mother made herself believe only to end up broken because of a man? Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the others in the vestibule with them. None of them bothered to hide their curiosity because they didn’t need to. They knew who they were and what they wanted. Unlike Tyler, they weren’t pretending. Using up her very last bit of control to keep herself from falling apart, she turned back to Tyler and did what she had to do, what her mother should have done.

“Please.” He reached out, but she evaded his touch. “We can go back to what it was.”

Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen.

“It’s too late for that. I want someone who knows that I’m worth fighting for, not someone who is fighting to forget who I am…” She leveled a glare at Tyler that should have fried him right down to his toes. “Or who he is. I want someone who loves me as much as I love him.” As much as I love you…

Before she could say anything else, the chapel doors opened and an entire church full of wedding guests turned in their direction. She slammed her mouth shut and slipped her arm through Nonna’s. The older woman looked at her, then over to Tyler, and then back again.

“L’amore ti fa matto,” she said, and held out her free hand to Tyler.

Nonna couldn’t be more wrong in her assessment of the situation. Love may make some people crazy, but it just fucked up Everly’s world.

Together, she, Nonna, Alberto, and Carlo walked down the aisle into the church, leaving Tyler behind, just like she needed her heart to do.

…

Tyler stood dumbfounded in the vestibule as the minister began explaining to the wedding guests seated that the bride would be reading from her favorite sonnet behind the closed vestibule door before walking down the aisle.

L’amore? Love? Why did people keep saying that? It wasn’t love. Love was crazy and out of control and overwhelming to the point where a person could lose themselves completely. He scrubbed his palm against the nearly three-week growth of beard that he hadn’t meant to grow and caught a glimpse of himself in the glass case of church mementos. It was impossible to miss the meals he’d skipped with how his tux hung on him or the more than a hint of wild desperation in his tired eyes. Crazy? Yeah, he looked a little bit that way. Out of control? He was going with yes. Overwhelmed? That was affirmative.

“Fucking A,” he said, too shocked to care that he was talking to himself. “I love her.”

“Do not even think about it, Tyler Jacobson.” Irena’s snotty tone was like taking a dull knife to the eye.

He turned to see her flanked by attendants as she marched from the waiting lounge straight toward him. She was in a poofy, overdesigned monstrosity of a wedding dress, a mic in one hand and a piece of paper crumpled in the other. There was an unhinged fury in her eyes that at any other time would have made him head for cover. Right now, though, he was still too stunned about the fact that he’d fallen in love with Everly to give a shit.

“You and that low-rent tramp had better not even be considering stealing my thunder. This is my day. Mine.” Irena raised the hand holding the mic and pointed it at him, her thumb brushing the power button. “I am the bride and you shouldn’t even be here. Neither should that social-climbing gutter rat. Why Alberto insisted, I have no clue beyond the nearly unbearable Pollyanna attitude of that man, but I swear to God if either of you do a single thing to mess up my day, I will make it my life’s mission to put you two back in the slums where you belong.”

His gaze slid from the little red light on the mic to the closed doors between them and a church full of wedding guests. In half a heartbeat he knew exactly what he needed to do. It was time to let his Waterbury hang out.

“You could try,” he said, making sure his voice was loud enough to be heard clearly through the speakers in the church. “You might even be able to do it, but I’ll tell you something, Irena, a single broke Everly in a run-down tenement is still worth more than three hundred of you.” He took a step closer to his ex-fiancée, determined that the only person he cared about on the other side of the doors would catch every word. “Do you want to know why? Because she knows who she is. She’s earned what she has. She doesn’t fight to keep other people down, she fights to protect them. You’re deluded if you think you could ever take anything away from Everly.”

Irena rolled her eyes. “Thank God I’m not actually in love with Carlo because that sentimental bullshit was almost enough to make me puke.”

“For once you’re right about something,” he said, all but dipping his head to be close to the mic. “I love Everly. I can’t imagine life without her.”

“Yep.” Irena made a gagging face. “I definitely just threw up in my mouth a little.”

After everything the woman had put Everly through, he should draw out the moment more, but all he cared about was getting to the woman he loved as soon as possible. “You want to know something that will really send you over the edge?”

“What, you want her to have your babies?”

“Someday, but that’s not what I was going to say.” Of course, the image of mini Everlys filled his head. “I was going to tell you that your mic is live and everyone inside that church heard every bitchy little word you just said. After the pain in the ass you’ve been over the years and all the shit you’ve pulled, that should be the best thing about this whole exchange, but you know what?” He grabbed the mic from her hand while she stood there blinking rapidly, her mouth hanging open. “The only thing I care about anyone hearing is this: I don’t just want you, Everly Ribinski. I love you. So much so that I’d tell all these big-money assholes exactly what they can do with their hotel deal if they don’t want to give the consulting position to a scholarship kid like me. Because even a lifetime of being accepted by them doesn’t mean anything compared to spending just five minutes with you.”

And with that, he dropped the mic, yanked open the doors leading to the church, and marched inside, determined to find his woman.

That wasn’t going to happen right away, though, because the place was total chaos, with football-offensive-lineman-size ushers plugging up the aisle, not letting anyone through—with one exception.

Carlo rushed past him out into the vestibule. No doubt he had something to say to Irena regarding the catty line about his dad that had gone out on the hot mic, but Tyler didn’t care. She didn’t matter. Most of the people in the church didn’t matter. The only one who really did was sitting with Nonna near the front. She was the only person there who wasn’t transfixed by the Irena and Carlo show going on behind him. He had to get past the ushers and get to her.

“What do you mean, you can’t go through with it?” Irena yelled loud enough that they must have heard her across the harbor in Waterbury and pulled Tyler’s attention behind him. “That you were wrong to think it could work? There is an entire church full of people waiting for us to get married.”