At Wits' End - Kenzie Reed Page 0,12

nudges me gently with his elbow. “You might want to quit while you’re ahead.”

“If only.” I twist around and cast a longing look at the door.

The Ribaldis occupy the left side of the room. My mother, my uncle Vito, Vito’s wife Chiara, their son Rocco, Rocco’s wife Katherine, and their two kids, Sara and Cesare, who are in their early twenties, all huddle together silently.

The only one missing is Aunt Fernanda. And it’s a good thing she’s not here. She’d never have gone along with this. The problem is, she wouldn’t have been able to come up with any other solution either – because there is none. Our family desperately needs this money, or their dairy farm and her vineyard are going under.

The only reason we can keep this a secret is because her rehab facility is an hour from here, and she’s so old school that she doesn’t do any social media whatsoever. She doesn’t have a cell phone, and she’s vehement that she’ll never have “a Twitbookface account”. If I’m really, really lucky she might not find out what I’ve done until the end of summer, when she’s coming home and the contract’s already been signed.

Sara catches my eye, holds up her hand, and does a little wave with an apologetic wince. She’s a Botticelli angel with the glorious explosion of Ribaldi curls, the same kind of hair that I used to hate and flat-iron into fried submission, but which I’ve finally come to appreciate. She’s twenty-two, and when my mother and uncles came up with this stupid scheme, she volunteered to be the one. And she had tears in her eyes. It would have meant she’d have to break up with her very nice boyfriend, but to save the dairy farm, she’d have done it.

My mother told me about it, and of course I jumped in and said no way. I mean, what the heck, I’ve already had what turned out to be a fake engagement. Why not a fake marriage?

I knew that my mother was being manipulative when she threw Sara’s willing sacrifice in my face. I’m not naive. I stopped believing in fairytales, Santa Claus, and my unemployed mother’s lengthy “business trips” long ago. But the fact remained that the available single Ribaldi girls were myself or Sara – so I insisted that it be me.

My cousin Rocco has the grim look of a man facing a firing squad. He’s a proud man, and he hates that it’s come to this. My mother was the real driving force behind it. She was already in town, licking her wounds and recovering from her latest marriage disaster. When this property deal popped up, she suggested the fake marriage as a way to seal the deal.

Not surprising. She collects a fee to manage my portion of the family trust fund until I’m thirty-five, and the trust fund is so dry, it’s coughing up dust. When the sale goes through, she starts getting that fee again. It’s not huge, but it’s a small, steady income until she lands the next man. And then the next one. And the next one after that.

“Sorry,” Rocco mouths at me.

“I know,” I mouth back.

If there were any other way to get the money, he would have done it, but they’re up to their nose-hairs in debt and sinking fast.

I’m doing it for them, I remind myself. For the land. For the farm. For the cows and goats and ducks and geese. For Aunt Fernanda’s vineyard.

My gaze wanders to the right side of the room, where the Witlockes are gathered. Donovan’s parents, Montgomery and Diana, his older sisters, Jamie and Toni, his Uncle Phillip and Aunt April, and their sons, Brandon, Cory, and Jonathon. Jonathon’s hanging his head in shame, all sunken in on himself and miserable, his sunny good humor vanished. I feel bad about that. Yes, he’s a doofus, but he’s a good-natured, harmless doofus.

It’s a pathetically small crowd. The overhead fans make a faint whooshing noise, and in my head it sounds like lies, lies, lies.

The plastic wreath of my veil itches on my head. My simple A-Line princess dress is tight in the bust and too loose everywhere else. Low-heeled white pumps hurt my feet.

This is my wedding day.

And I’m marrying Donovan, the first man I ever really felt anything for, the man I’ve spent more than a decade forcing out of my thoughts and my heart, again and again. I’ve basically made a full-time job of forgetting Donovan. That’s