Better for Us (6 page)

Chapter 10

I
f Noel hadn’t been holding her hand, Ryla would have fallen out of her seat. “What did you just say?”

“I asked you to marry me.”

“But, Noel, you’ve been so angry with me about Jaylen. I—I’m a little surprised that you would even entertain the thought of marriage right now.” Although Ryla was surprised, her heart was beating a mile a minute and she felt butterflies floating about her stomach. In the dreams she’d had of Noel popping the question, he’d always been on bended knee, but holding hands was just as good, Ryla told herself.

Noel said, “I’m not thinking that we have to really get married. So, I guess I’m asking for you to be engaged to me for a little while.”

And just that quickly, the dream died. She pulled her hands away from him. “What?”

“Look, if I don’t do something drastic, I could lose this election. So I was hoping that you would be willing to pretend to be engaged to me for a while.”

“So, we wouldn’t have to get married?” she asked to clarify the situation.

As if he was in a business meeting, he leaned back in his seat and with that I-rule-the-world air that he had as he told her of his plan. “This is the way I was thinking we’d play this thing out... The election is in three months. So, if we had a quick engagement and then arranged a late-September wedding—”

“But I thought you didn’t want us to get married,” Ryla interrupted.

“Woman, will you let me finish?”

With a wave of her hand, she indicated the floor was his.

“As I was saying.” He gave her a pointed look, daring her to interrupt him again. “We’ll plan the wedding for late September, sometime around the twenty-fourth. We’ll do it up, invite our family and friends, and then as I am standing in front of the preacher waiting for you to recite your vows, you scream something like ‘I just can’t do this,’ and then run out of the church like somebody just snatched your purse and you’re trying to get it back.”

“I’m not about to humiliate myself just so you can get the sympathy vote,” Ryla protested.

Noel appeared to be puzzled as he said, “I don’t understand you, Ryla. You’ve been running in and out of my life since the day I met you, and now that I’m asking you to do what you are obviously good at, to help me, you act like it’s a cardinal sin.”

Okay, Ryla could admit that Noel had probably received the short end of the stick when he decided to date her back in college. But couldn’t he see that asking her to become a runaway bride was just as bad as what she had done to him? “This is not right.”

“My career is on the line, Ryla.” He pointed at the newspaper. “The press has practically married us off already. I can’t go back and say that we’re not getting married. Do you know how bad it would look if I tell my constituents that I’m not willing to marry the mother of my child?”

“Well, we could just get married for real, you know,” Ryla suggested. But when she saw the look of horror on Noel’s face, she realized that she had been right about his feelings toward her. Before she could stop herself, she belted out, “Do you really hate me that much, Noel?”

Noel shook his head. “I don’t hate you, Ryla. But I don’t trust you, either.”

She understood why he didn’t trust her. If he had taken Jaylen away from her and kept her for seven years, she would have a hard time believing a word he said, too. “What I did may not have been right, but I had my reasons.”

He harrumphed. “I figured out what your so-called reason was. And that was no reason at all.”

“How can you sit here and even think that I would have been fine staying with a man who cheated on me?”

“I never cheated on you.” Noel’s voice roared throughout the room. Heads swiveled. He took a sip of his iced tea and then continued in a lower voice. “Cathy tried to kiss me. That much is true, but if you hadn’t run off, you would have seen that I politely took her arms from around my neck and told her that I was in love with you.”

Oh, my God, was Noel right? Had she run off too soon? If so, that was one more thing Ryla would blame on her father. She must have inherited her running gene from him. “You’re right, Noel. I left as soon as she kissed you. I thought she was doing what you wanted her to do.” Ryla shook her head. She no longer felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She felt plain ill. “I have wished a thousand times that I could go back and make all of this right.”

“It’s too late now.”

“It’s never too late, Noel. Not if we’re willing to give it a try.”

“Some things are too hard to forgive, Ryla.”

Ryla saw the look of sorrow in Noel’s eye as he admitted that he hadn’t yet forgiven her for what she’d done. But she was also encouraged by the fact that Noel had just admitted that he had been in love with her in college. Sure, she had messed up. But Ryla wasn’t ready to throw in the towel so easily this time. Noel wanted her to pretend to marry him, and now that she knew for sure that Noel wasn’t a cheater, she wanted nothing more than to marry him. Maybe this was her chance to make things right between them.

She leaned over a bit and took Noel’s hand in hers. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”

He removed his hand. “You mean, you’ll pretend to marry me, right?”

She smiled. Noel wanted a runaway bride, but little did he know Ryla’s running days were over. “I just have one question,” she said, ignoring his question.

“What’s that?”

“Where’s my engagement ring?”

He popped himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. “I’m so sorry, Ryla. I didn’t even think to pick up a ring.”

She frowned. “Well, I’ll tell you right now, Noel Carter, I’m not about to get engaged to anyone who doesn’t even bother to buy me a ring.”

“You got it, Ryla. I’ll take care of it first thing in the morning.”

She looked him square in the face and said, “I don’t want you to delegate this to one of your staff members. I’m not marrying any man who won’t even take the time to find his fiancé an engagement ring.”

“I’ll get the ring. But don’t you think you need to calm down a bit? I mean, we’re only pretending, remember?”

“I don’t care. I’ve never been engaged before, so if you want me to walk away at the altar, then I want you to treat me like a fiancé throughout the entire engagement. Got it?”

“Got it,” Noel said as he lifted a hand to the waiter to get the check.

* * *

Ryla had a hard time getting to sleep that night. She didn’t feel good about her decision to trick Noel into marrying her. She just hoped that by the end of the engagement, he would be in love with her again and would want to marry her for real, just as much as she wanted to marry him.

Whenever Ryla had a dilemma that she just couldn’t see her way through, she called on her girls, Danetta Windham and Surry McDaniel. Jaylen was spending the day with her aunt, going to museums, lunch and then a movie. So Ryla picked up the phone and called Danetta. When Danetta answered, Ryla said, “I know it’s early and I apologize if you’re not up yet.”

Yawning, Danetta said, “I’m getting up. Why are you calling so early on a Saturday morning?”

“I tossed and turned all night long. I really need to talk to you and Surry today. Do you think you can meet me for a late breakfast or early lunch?”

“This sounds serious. Let me get Surry on the phone,” Danetta said and then clicked to her other line. When she came back on the line with Ryla, she said, “Okay, Surry is on the line with us.”

“What’s going on, girl? Why are you up at this ungodly hour?” Surry asked.

“It’s seven in the morning. You two are acting like I called at four in the morning. Where is the sisterhood here? I really need your help.”

After razzing her for a few more minutes, Danetta and Surry agreed to meet up with Ryla in Fort Hood, a military town that was just about the halfway point between Houston and Dallas.

They met at one of the local eateries. After hugs and small talk, Ryla began spilling her guts. “I just don’t know what to do,” Ryla confessed. “The man hates me, but the more time I spend with him, I know for a fact that I never stopped loving him.”

Surry was the first to speak. Out of the three of them, she was the more no-nonsense, reality-based kind of girl. She gave and she took, but preferred taking and didn’t apologize for it. “So you’re saying that this joker asked you to marry him, but not really?”

“He wants me to walk to the altar and then reject him in front of everyone. He’s got it in his head that if he refuses to marry me now, he’ll be perceived as some despicable man who refused to marry the mother of his child. Coupled with the fact that he hasn’t paid child support in the last seven years, Noel thinks the media will have a field day with all the deadbeat dad headlines,” Ryla admitted to her friends.

Danetta chimed in. “Advertising is my business, so I can’t say that Noel is wrong for considering how it would play out if he refused to marry you after basically letting it be known that he planned to do just that.” Danetta picked up her glass of water and sipped. “But you’re just starting an event-planning business. Has he thought about your image and what this arrangement could do to your career?”

“No, Noel is hoping that he’ll just be thought of as some poor, wronged-again dupe,” Ryla said. And for the first time since her conversation with Noel, rather than feeling sorry for herself, she was beginning to get angry.

“He better be careful with that,” Surry said. “While some people will feel sorry for the way he was jilted at the altar, there are also people like me, who will think he got what he deserved for being a chump.”

“Come on, Surry, how can loving someone make you a chump?” Danetta asked.

Ryla smiled at Danetta’s question. Out of the three of them, Danetta was the one who believed in love eternal. After all, she had loved Marshall Windham for ten years before he fell in love with her. The two of them were now married and Danetta believed that the same could happen for all women.

“So are you saying that all the men who fall in love with you are chumps? And that they haven’t bothered to get to know who you are, but rather fall for your beauty?” Ryla asked.

“Exactly,” Surry exclaimed as she pushed the bread basket on the table to the far side. “None of them know me at all, and that’s why I haven’t fallen for any of them.”

“Well, Noel knows me. And I guess that’s why he doesn’t really want to marry me,” Ryla said.

“I’m tired of listening to you put yourself down,” Danetta said and then added, “I’m not saying that you handled this situation the right way, but you’re a good person, Ryla Evans. Any man would be blessed to have you, so remember that.”

Ryla nodded. “Okay. Now, will the two of you please be my bridesmaids?”

“Girl, please, I’m not willing to be a part of some sham wedding that is sure to make the news. I’m just getting my business off the ground and I’m currently in talks to two major retailers,” Surry told her.

“What?” Danetta almost screamed. “You didn’t tell us that your business was expanding.” Danetta lifted her hand and she and Surry high-fived.

“I wanted to keep it close to the vest until I was sure the deal would go through,” Surry told Danetta, and then turned to Ryla. “So, as much as I would love to help with this little sham wedding, I can’t risk the bad publicity right now.”

Surry designed African attire and sold her sundresses and accessories in little boutiques in about five different states. “You’re a true friend, Surry,” Ryla said sarcastically. “But you won’t have to worry about this wedding ending up on CNN because Noel Carter got ditched by his deranged baby mama.”

Danetta squinted as she looked at Ryla. “Okay, you’re up to something. I can tell by the way you’re grinning.”

“I think I remember you grinning quite a bit when you were engaged, so don’t act like I’m doing anything out of the ordinary,” Ryla said to Danetta.

“Yeah, but she was engaged for real. This clown you’re with wants you to pretend.” Surry shook her head in disgust. “And they wonder why nobody trusts politicians anymore.”

Ryla didn’t respond, but Danetta pointed at her again. “See, that’s the grin I’m talking about. Tell us what you’ve got up your sleeve right now, Ryla Evans, or I’m not showing up at this wedding.”

“Okay, okay.” Ryla held up a hand. “It’s simple, really. Noel and I would be married already if I hadn’t left college and refused to talk to him. So, all I’m doing now is righting a wrong that I did to Noel and Jaylen.

“You see,” Ryla continued, “I don’t plan on doing a thing the way Noel wants. Which should come as no surprise to him or anyone else who knows me.”

Surry nodded, with a slight smirk on her face. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to marry him.”

Danetta looked from Surry and then back to Ryla and said, “You can’t do that. The man doesn’t want to be married.”

“Noel loves me...or at least he loved me at one time. I just need to show him that we are meant to be together. If I hadn’t run off years ago, we would already be married anyway, so what’s the difference.”

“I’m with Danetta on this one,” Surry said. “You can’t just marry someone who doesn’t want to be married. This thing could backfire on you big-time.”

“Well, I’m desperate and I need your help. So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if the two of you would stop talking all doom and gloom. Help me figure out a way to get Noel to fall back in love with me so he’ll want me to say ‘I do’ for real. Got it?”

Surry snapped her finger. “I think I know what you should do.”

“Spill it,” Ryla said, looking as anxious as a high school girl waiting on her first date to knock on her door.

Surry leaned forward in her seat. “You’re not getting married until September, so you’ve got two and a half months to make this work.”

“Go on,” Ryla urged.

“You simply tell Noel that to make the engagement look real, he needs to act like he’s a man in love. Tell him to plan a few dates for you and to hold your hand in public. Things like that.”

Danetta sat silently shaking her head.

“How is that going to change anything?” Ryla asked.

“Girl, you know how to work it.” Surry snapped her finger again, but this time she added a little attitude with it. “Make that man see what he’s missing by not having you in his life. Every time you go out with him, you need to be dressed so fine that his mouth starts watering.”