Page 9 of Impossible Rapids
Shawn forced his gaze from Julie to Franz. Dread made his palms clammy; his gut churned. This was it. Soon the whole world would know. Hang the rest of the world; it was Julie’s possible reaction that made him want to bolt from the room.
“Shawn and Mercedes were married April eighth.” Franz smiled proudly at Shawn. It was the look Shawn used to dream of seeing on a father’s face.
Shawn tried to return the smile, but the sharp intake of breath from Julie ripped at his insides. She always made him laugh and teased with him. She’d been semi-flirting with him earlier. That would stop now that she knew he’d married Mercedes. Of course she would now believe, along with the rest of the world, that he’d desperately loved Mercedes. In a romantic way, not the sisterly way.
“You and Mercedes were married a month ago?” Julie asked quietly.
The rest of the room was silent. Shawn’s stomach gnawed at its own lining. He didn’t want to hurt Julie.
He half expected her to leap to her feet, jab a finger at Shawn, and shriek, “Liar! Li-ar!”
Julie did a great Mad Max’s wife impression from Princess Bride. It had never failed to make him and Mercedes laugh.
He had no desire to laugh right now. The office was deathly quiet.
Shawn held her gaze and slowly nodded.
“Why didn’t you invite me?”
He blinked at her. Invite her? That would’ve destroyed him. Marrying his friend while Julie stood by and watched and he wished for her to be his bride?
He wanted to look to Franz, maybe let Mercedes’s dad who dealt with situations a million times better than him explain, but he knew his lines and what he needed to say.
“I apologize, Jules. Only Franz and the judge were there. We hoped Mercedes would have a return to health and you two could plan a large, happy wedding party.” He forced a smile that she didn’t return. “When we realized our time was short, we were married quietly so at least we’d have that time together to love each other.”
He winced, despising what Julie would read into that. She’d believe that he and Mercedes had been intimate, that he loved Mercedes the way a man should love his new bride. Julie was ultra-loyal to Mercedes and would shut off any chance of her and Shawn flirting and someday dating. Maybe when some time had passed, she would let down her guard and give him a chance. Maybe.
Shawn and Mercedes’s marriage had been in name only, and only for the legal purpose of keeping the Belle fortune where Franz Belle wanted it—in Shawn’s name, with no chance of Lucas and Arianna getting a dime.
When Wallace had researched the particulars of their family’s legal instructions, he felt a marriage and transfer to the surviving spouse would be stronger, more natural, and had less chance of being overruled than Franz legally adopting a thirty-year-old son before his only daughter and last surviving family member died.
They’d known it might be their only option for years. Though Mercedes and Shawn had played their roles of being in a relationship that entire time, she had resisted the marriage, not thinking it was fair to keep Shawn from the love of his life.
It finally came down to the wire and everybody, including Mercedes, knew there was no option but to take the marriage route. Shawn wasn’t concerned about anything being ‘fair’ to him, but he’d been concerned a month ago in Augustine and he was even more concerned now about confusing Julie and destroying any feelings she might have for him.
“I see.” Julie clearly did not see. She saw what Franz and Wallace wanted her to see—Shawn and Mercedes marrying for love to spend time together before she died.
Shawn wanted her to see the truth. He wanted her to know he thought the sun rose and set on her face. Oh, how he wanted that. She’d been around him and Mercedes so often she should see clearly that he and Mercedes were like siblings, but she seemed to buy the roles they’d played, along with the rest of the world.
Shawn looked at Franz. He saw the pleading in his best friends’ dad’s teal-blue eyes. Eyes far too similar to Mercedes and Grayson’s.
Shawn would stay the course. He had to. They’d worked too hard, and it was what he’d pledged to do when he promised Grayson twelve years ago that he’d take care of Mercedes, Franz, and Mama T.
Maybe in a few years, when Lucas and Arianna gave up on legal appeals, he would be brave enough to properly date Julie Pandoran. If she was still single at that point, and if being a billionaire could give him the confidence to think an unlovable punk, as his mom had loved to call him, could ever be worthy to date somebody like Julie. Mercedes would claim he was worth more than a billion. Ah, Mercedes and her eternal optimism.
“Well, that’s out there now.” Wallace smiled. “The press will be informed tonight about Shawn and Mercedes’s intimate wedding and chance to honeymoon as lovers before she got sick in the beautiful locations of the kingdom of Augustine in Europe and the Hidden Kingdom of Magna off the coast of Spain. They also were able to spend time on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico.”
Why was Wallace hammering all of this in? So awkward. Shawn had helped Mercedes visit those spots, and they were exotic locations. They’d taken far too many pictures that would be released to the media with the wedding announcement. All part of the proving Shawn was Mercedes’s husband and deserved to inherit over a billion dollars.
He wanted to protest that they hadn’t ‘honeymooned as lovers.’ Was Wallace hamming it up for Cash and Brylee’s sake, hoping those two level-headed and kind people would gossip about it? Or …
One glance at Julie and he knew exactly what Wallace was doing. The high-dollar, pretty-boy, brilliant lawyer was sadly as smart as he thought he was.
He was making certain Julie believed Shawn and Mercedes had been intimate and romantic and assure Shawn had no chance of quietly convincing Julie otherwise. Not that Shawn would do that. He was committed to Franz and, no matter how he trusted Julie, he wouldn’t breathe the truth to anyone. Not even Jagger or Hays. Only he, Franz, Wallace, and Mercedes would ever know the truth.
That stunk for his hopes of getting Julie to fall for him. Even if time passed, she’d probably feel she was being un-loyal to her best friend’s memory. When he was finally able to tell her the truth, she’d know he’d lied to her and would never trust him.
Wallace snuck a triumphant look at Shawn, and Shawn barely stopped himself from shooting a threatening look back. He might not be on Jagger, Aiden Porter, or Cash’s fighting level or abilities, but he was close. He’d been in the Navy for eight years, sparring and learning from the best fighters in the world. He was confident in his skills, and taking down a preppy softie like Wallace would hardly be worth stepping in the ring, but he’d do it. For the sake of Wallace knowing to stay far away from Julie.