“Let’s get her upstairs,” Diana said as she steered them down the hall toward the corridor with the elevators. “This way.”
Allie pulled up short. “But that goes right past the bar. What if someone sees her?”
Jess’s legs crumpled beneath her.
“Well, we can’t parade her through the lobby in this condition.”
“Diana’s right,” Lillo said. “I’ll go ahead and try to run interference.” She stepped past them, searched the hallway, and then motioned them forward. They’d gone several yards when a man burst through the doors to the bar, which swung back, nearly hitting the woman who was close on his heels.
“Mother of—” Diana swore, and attempted to turn Jess in the opposite direction.
“—the bride,” Lillo finished. She held her ground. She knew those people. They were older, but there was no mistaking them. They swept past her like she wasn’t even there.
“Jessica Braithwaite Parker. Stop this instant.”
That voice. Just as demanding and cold as it had been the first time he’d dropped his daughter off at camp. And his wife cowering behind him as usual. Never once had Lillo seen the woman stick up for Jess. Not even tonight.
Lillo’s stomach turned sour.
Jess stopped, turned, already slipping away from her friends, even though she could barely stay on her feet. And Lillo wondered if it was because of catching her groom in flagrante delicto in the parking lot before a crowd of people, fear of her parents, or because she was just weak from starving herself for the wedding.
Diana and Allie immediately repositioned themselves at her side.
“I know you’re upset,” Mrs. Parker began.
“Upset?” screeched Jess.
“Keep your voice down,” Mr. Parker snapped. “Do you want the whole world to hear you?”
“Like they just saw her fiancé bonking another woman?” Diana said. “That just wouldn’t do, would it, Mr. Parker?”
Parker moved into them, took his daughter’s arm. “We’ll take you to your room. After a good night’s sleep, without these outside agitators, things won’t seem nearly so dramatic.”
“Ha!” said Diana. “That’s a first. I’ve never been called an agitator before.”
Parker shook his finger at her.
From the way Diana looked at it, Lillo was afraid she might take a bite out of it. She did absolutely nothing to stop her.
“Your father’s right,” added Mrs. Parker. “Your big day is almost here and you want to look your best.”
Lillo’s brain fritzed out. How could they still expect her to marry that ass?
Diana was the first to react. “Wait a minute. Her big day was when she graduated magna cum from Wharton business school. Or when she almost single-handedly turned CPF Global around. You think marrying James Beckman’s family fortune is her big day? Yours maybe. But it will suck for her.”
“Of course we’re proud—” her mother began.
“This is not about you. And you can’t expect her to walk down the aisle with that ass in front of everyone knowing what just happened.”
“Oh, grow up, Diana. Boys will be boys.” Mr. Parker tried to push Jess toward the elevators. But her feet seemed nailed to the floor.
“That’s why women marry ‘men.’ Maybe you should postpone the wedding until he grows up. Which, if you ask me, will be never.”
“You girls are making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“And upsetting our daughter,” his wife added.
“Ha,” Diana said. “I think James Beckman has already managed that on his own.”
Mrs. Parker grasped both of Jess’s hands. “Things will be fine on Saturday, as long as you quit crying, dear. You don’t want everyone to see you tomorrow with puffy eyes and a big red nose. We want this weekend to be perfect.”
Jess pulled her hands away and ran her index fingers under her eyes, but it was a hopeless attempt. She sniffed, then looked straight at Lillo. For an eternity, their eyes held.
And Lillo understood in that instant why Jess had begged her to come to her wedding. She still couldn’t stand up for herself, not even after all these years.
“I can’t. Please call it off. I can’t walk down the aisle with everyone laughing at me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’ll be forgotten before you return from your honeymoon. Go to bed—things will look different in the morning.”
Jess hung her head.
Lillo threw her good sense to the wind and stepped in front of them. “No, they won’t. They’ll only be worse. How can you ask Jess to marry someone who would do that to her anytime, but especially tonight of all nights? If she doesn’t want to get married, then she isn’t going to.”
Mr. Parker turned on her. “Who are you? I don’t believe you’re anyone we know.”
“Lillo Gray.”
“Gray,” he echoed. “Gray. I don’t recall . . .” His eyes narrowed; the storm clouds descended. “Good God. You’re the girl whose parents ran that camp where we sent Jessica for those summers, not that it did a speck of good. What are you doing here?”
“Jess invited me.”
“Well, you can uninvite yourself. And you other two can take yourselves off to bed; we’ll see to Jessica.”
The three women didn’t move, but Lillo could feel Allie’s resolve weakening, a woman who didn’t like confrontations. Neither did Lillo, and yet here she was. This wasn’t a few months at camp or college. This was a life choice. And Jess was no stronger tonight than she’d been at ten or twelve or sixteen. Maybe it was hopeless to try to help her.
“You’ll cut this nonsense out this minute, Jessica,” Mr. Parker said. “You will walk down that aisle on Saturday and do it with a smile on your face.”
Jess gripped her stomach and caved. “Do you hate me that much?”
Mrs. Parker took her by the shoulders. “We love you and we want what’s best for you.”
Diana barked out a laugh. “By making her marry a sleazebag who can’t keep it in his pants even at his own wedding? Sorry, Jess, but it isn’t the first time, and knowing James, it won’t be the last.”
Jess moaned.
“You,” Mr. Parker said, actually pointing a finger at Diana, “can mind your own business.”
“She hasn’t had as many opportunities as you have, Diana,” Mrs. Parker said. “For all the good it did you. And she may not have another as good as this, if she gets any.”
“Jeez, what century are you living in?”
“We just want her to be happy.”
“By making her marry that creature?” asked Lillo. “That’s going to make her happy? You never did get it, did you, or have you always consciously tried to undermine Jess’s self-esteem?”
“How dare you!” Mr. Parker exploded; his face turned so red that Lillo feared for his health.
“We’ve always encouraged her to be better,” Mrs. Parker said.
“Like the way you encouraged her year after year at fat camp? We didn’t miss the little gibes. The smiling condescension. You must really think kids are stupid. Well, they’re not. And it hurt. And she wasn’t even that fat. Well, it stops now. Jess never needed to be better, she just needed to be herself. And you wouldn’t let her.” Lillo sucked in her breath, horrified at herself. She’d spent the last year trying to erase herself and now—
What had she just done? She didn’t know what Jess wanted. She didn’t even know what she herself wanted.
Diana and Allie were staring at her. So were the Parkers, and even Jess, who straightened slightly.
Mr. Parker took a threatening step toward her. “I want you out of here, tonight.”
“I’ll happily leave . . . when Jess tells me to.”
“If you’re not out of this hotel in the next hour, the manager will help you out.” He turned his back on Lillo, arrogant as always. He thought she was afraid of him, but nothing could be further from the truth. Bullies didn’t scare her in the least.
If she’d had a weapon handy, she might have tried to kill him. She stepped back, horrified at her own thought.
“I suggest you other two girls return to your own rooms. Jessica, your mother and I will walk you to your room.”
The three friends took an unconscious step toward Jess.
She gulped. “It’s okay. I’ll see you in the morning.” She grasped Lillo’s wrist, whispered, “Please don’t leave. I’ll talk to them.” Jess stepped away from them and walked down the hall, cutting between her parents as she passed, neither slowing down nor glancing at either of them.
With another quelling look, Mr. Parker took his wife’s arm and propelled her toward their retreating daughter, catching up to her and flanking her as they turned the corner to the elevators. Not two parents offering comfort and support but two guards taking her to face her life sentence.
“Whew,” Allie said. “You were fierce, Lillo. No wonder Jess was so determined to get you here.”
“I just hope I didn’t make things worse. Do you think she stills wants to marry him?”
“I don’t think she ever wanted to marry him,” Diana said. “Not really. They just brainwashed her into thinking no one would ever marry her if she was left to her own choices.”
“That’s terrible,” Allie said. “I can’t believe any parent would do that.”
Lillo and Diana exchanged looks. “They would,” Lillo said. “Some people really are that despicable, no matter how much they try to convince themselves otherwise.”
Diana sighed as she looked into the empty space of the corridor. “And I thought I had controlling parents. This is so wrong. I swear, if I ever have children, which is looking like it’s pretty much not happening at this point, I will never use them as pawns in a power struggle or for empire building. And you can quote me.”
She started off down the hall. Allie and Lillo ran to catch up.
“So where are we going?” Allie asked.
“Well, I’m not going back to my room,” Diana said.
“And I’m not leaving. Jess begged me to come. I didn’t really want to. I didn’t understand why after all these years she asked me, but now I get it. I just don’t know what, if anything, to do about it.”
“None of us are going meekly back to our rooms,” Diana said. “We’re going to follow them upstairs, and when Jess is alone, we’ll make a stealth invasion.”
Allie’s eyes rounded. “Are we going to kidnap her?”
“Now there’s an idea.” Diana stopped at the next corridor and peeked around the corner to the elevators. “Safe! Come on. We don’t have much time.” She hurried ahead of them and jabbed the up button so hard Lillo half expected the building to shake.
Stealth invasion indeed, Lillo thought as they crept along the corridor to Jess’s room. Skulking along like she didn’t belong here. Which she didn’t.
Farther down the hall, a room door opened.
“Quick,” Diana warned, and ducked into the ice-machine alcove.
The three of them pressed against the wall until the people passed. Diana held Lillo and Allie back and peered out. “It’s them. We’ll give them time to get in the elevator, and then it’s Operation Wedding Fail.”
Lillo frowned. It was almost as if Diana was having a good time.
They scuttled down the hall and huddled around Jess’s door like the three witches in Macbeth while Diana tapped on the door then stuck her face in front of the peephole.
Lillo had decided Jess wasn’t going to let them in when the door opened a crack. They all pushed inside. Lillo shut the door behind them and put on the chain just for good measure.
“Are you okay?” asked Allie.
A silly question, Lillo thought. Jess was definitely not okay. Not okay, but resigned. Lillo remembered the look. And she knew Jess had capitulated. She’d be marrying James Beckman this Saturday.
Lillo could only stand back and watch as Allie and Diana sat down beside Jess, attempting to heal a hurt that had begun long before she had ever met James. And Lillo knew all the talking in the world wouldn’t cure the pain.
“They’re right,” Jess said, and sniffed. “I won’t get a better offer.”
“Really?” Diana asked. “You want to walk down that long aisle to marry a man who cheats on you and say ‘I do’ to God knows what kind of life you’ll be dished out?”
She snorted, stood up. “Come work for me. That’s a real offer. Not ‘Will you marry me so I can continue to act like the ass I am, help myself to your family’s assets until you get so fed up you divorce me, pay me, give me alimony, stock options, anything I want just to get rid of me.’”
“Diana, that’s not helping,” Allie said.
“Then what do you suggest?”
Confronted, Allie only shrugged.
“It’s my own fault,” Jess began. “If I’d been more—”
“Oh God, I can’t believe this.” Diana stalked off across the room to stare out the window.
But Lillo could. Nothing had changed. She couldn’t help Jess. Hell, she couldn’t even help herself. Then why had she come? She didn’t owe Jess anything. But Jess had wanted her here, so Lillo had come, like a moth to a flame she had come.
Jess was the same old docile, malleable girl she’d always been, except for being ridiculously thin. She would swallow the dregs of her self-esteem and do what she always had done. Make apologies for her shortcomings, promise to try harder, and do whatever would please her parents.
At first, all those years ago, Lillo hadn’t understood Jess’s insecurities. The Parkers might have been richer, more prominent than most of the other parents who brought their kids to Camp Beacon. But basically, they were just like all the rest, sending their kids to camp for their own good because they loved them too much to let them mess up their lives by their own bad habits—or to reflect badly on the parents. And ended up driving most of the kids further into the same habits they were trying to break.
Of course, Lillo hadn’t realized how insidious all that parental caring was until much later, in one of her college psychology classes. She’d never had those kinds of problems with her own parents; they were loving, not terribly organized, but always supportive of their only child—and yet she had delivered them the ultimate betrayal. She should never have left the island—then or now.
But you did.
She crossed to the bed and stood directly in front of Jess, looked down at her so intently that finally Jess had to look up.
“Do you love James?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why?”
Allie’s head snapped up. Lillo was aware of Diana turning to look at her.
The room was completely silent. It was such a simple question, but they hadn’t even thought to ask it.
“Well, because he’s . . . handsome and—” Jess squeezed her eyes shut. “And . . . and everybody’s so happy for me.”
Lillo’s heart plummeted. If that’s the best Jess could do, things did not bode well for her future happiness.
“Maybe tonight was just a one-off,” Allie suggested. “You know, wedding jitters?”
No excuse, Lillo thought. “Has he cheated on you before?”
Jess’s mouth twisted. “Of course he has. He doesn’t love me. Marrying me is good for business.”
“Is there any reason for him to stop now?”
Diana strode back to the others. “Why are you even asking her about this? She can’t marry him. He’ll make her miserable.”
“He already has,” Allie said, her eyes tearing.
Lillo shook her head. What a mess. Until a few hours ago, her life had been so . . . uneventful. She’d worked really hard to make it that way. She’d gotten used to it. That balance. The calm. Yeah, the calm you feel while balancing on a log going down the rapids. She let out a long breath, took another.
“Do you want to marry him? For yourself? For your own happiness?”
Jess covered her face with her hands. “What have I done? I’ve ruined my life, embarrassed my family. Poor James.”
“Poor James?” Diana said incredulously. “He was fu—”
“Diana!” Allie exclaimed.
Diana pursed her lips and clasped her hands to her stomach. “Having his way with a waitress from the hotel bar.”
“She was a waitress?”
“Jeez, she was still wearing her uniform . . . most of it anyway.”
Lillo focused on Jess. “What do you want to do? Truly want to do?” She took a breath. Ignored her final Don’t get involved. “But make sure you make the decision you can live with.”
At first Jess said nothing. Diana shifted on her feet. Allie was sitting ramrod straight. They were messing in someone else’s life. They could make Jess do what they thought best. She would cave. She always caved to the stronger person. And there were three of them right now. But that might not be the best choice for her. And they would be responsible for that, too.
“No. No, I don’t want to marry him. I never did, really. He would never have asked me if he hadn’t been coerced into it by his parents.”
“Didn’t take much to twist his arm, if you ask me,” Diana said.
Lillo shot her a look, but Allie surprised her. “Well, we didn’t ask you. Don’t try to make her decision for her.”
Diana blinked and for a moment Lillo thought she would explode. But she merely smiled, the kind of smile Lillo thought she might use in a boardroom when she’d just received insider information. “You’re right. Whatever you decide, Jess, we’ve got your back.”
“I want to get out of here, as far away as I can.”
Lillo grimaced. “Doesn’t really solve the underlying problem.”
“It might,” Diana said. “Things might be clearer in hindsight.”
“I think we’ve already entered hindsight,” Lillo said.
Diana’s smile morphed into a full-out grin. “I was thinking the kind of hindsight you got from a rearview mirror.”
“We are going to kidnap her,” Allie said. “I knew it. We’ll be in so much trouble.”
“Not kidnap,” Diana said. “Road trip.”
Jess hiccuped and wiped her eyes. “Could we? If I could just get away for a while, it would give me time to figure out what to do, once my family disowns me.”
“They won’t disown you,” Allie said reassuringly.
“They won’t,” Diana agreed. “They’d never give up her trust fund.” She held up her hand. “Sorry, but it’s true. The more they have, the more they want. They’ll just have to get over it.”
They all looked at Lillo.
“Don’t look at me. It’s up to Jess.” Lillo could send them off on a road trip and she could go back to Lighthouse Island, where she belonged and where nothing unsettling ever happened except for the weather.
Jess stood up. “Can we go now? They’ll be guarding me like crazy tomorrow.”
Diana, instead of jumping on the bandwagon, frowned. “Just one little problem. Allie and I both flew in for the wedding, and you came up with your parents. There are no available rental cars for the weekend. I already tried to get one.”
“Lillo has wheels,” Jess said.
“Me? But it’s an old VW.”
“It doesn’t matter. It runs.”
“Barely.”
The other three looked expectantly at her.
“But—” Lillo’s stomach went south. She started shaking her head before the arguments even reached her mouth. She couldn’t be responsible for three fleeing women.
“Call valet parking for your car,” Diana said. “We need to be out of here before James arrives to beg forgiveness, which he no doubt will as soon as the Parkers can get him zipped up.”
“Oh God,” Jess moaned.
One look at Jess and Lillo picked up the phone.
“Okay,” she said a moment later. “They’re bringing it around. Now what?”
“Go get your stuff and the car and meet us out on the street.” Diana reached into her purse, brought out her room card, and handed it to Allie. “I’m in 315, just grab my toiletries out of the bathroom and throw them in the suitcase. I never unpacked. Garment bag in the closet. You and Lillo take everything downstairs and move the car to the street. Jess and I will sneak out the far-side entrance and join you. You have five minutes.”
“But what are you going to do?” Allie asked.
“Pack her clothes and leave a note.”
“But where are we going?”
Diana frowned, looked to Lillo.
Lillo shrugged. She didn’t have a clue. But she knew where she couldn’t take them.
“I know right where to go,” Jess said, suddenly showing a sign of life. “They’ll never think to look for me there.”
“Where?” asked Allie.
“Where?” demanded Diana.
Oh please, no, thought Lillo.
“Lighthouse Beach. It’s perfect.”