Filed to story: My Dark Romeo (Dallas & Romeo) Drama Story
I wished this event didn’t symbolize my demise, so I could appreciate the place for all its splendor.
As soon as I unglued myself from Romeo, Frankie appeared by my side, clutching my arm and anchoring me to safety. She was so beautiful, my eyeballs prickled.
She’d better find a good match. A true love after the sacrifice I’d made for her.
“I know we hate him, and in a second, I’ll get back to stabbing him with my glares, but I thought maybe you’d be comforted to hear Romeo’s kiss dampened every panty on the East Coast.”
“Not mine,” I lied. “Besides, there’s a ton of hot guys in this world.”
“Saying your husband is hot is like saying Mount Everest is hilly. Bitch is sizzling. I don’t know how you touch him without getting blisters.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her Romeo had stolen all of my Henry Plotkin books. I also didn’t want her to stab him with one of the decorative icicles that kept the vintage champagne bottles chilled.
Momma and Daddy joined us. Together, we visited each table from our side and thanked people for gracing us with their presence.
Presumably, Romeo did the same with his family, though I mentally checked out, trying to forget he was in the same room with me. It almost worked.
I’d just started to breathe properly-even the numbness in my fingers had gone away-when Daddy hauled me to the Lichts’ table.
As his best friend from Georgetown, Mr. Licht showed up despite the bad blood with the Costas. He wouldn’t pass on an opportunity to prove he was unaffected by the public fiasco.
“Dallas, congratulations, my dear. You look stunning.” Mrs. Licht patted the corners of her mouth with a napkin, though she hadn’t touched any of the delicious food in front of her.
I nodded, wooden. My gaze pinned to the floor.
I couldn’t look Madison in the eyes. Madison, who had let me choose my engagement ring. Who once promised me I could turn a room in his condo into my own library.
“Dallas.” His voice was impartial, not a trace of anger in it. I wanted to keel over. Even after his archenemy had sullied me, he still had kindness in him. “Look at me, please. I can’t…” He tossed his napkin onto his plate, rising to his feet. “I can’t bear for you to think that I’m mad at you. We weren’t really together. I understand.”
I dragged my gaze up from the floor.
Madison looked so familiar. With his All-American blond hair and brown eyes rimmed green around the fringes.
Though I felt nothing romantic toward him, I’d always assumed the feelings would come. That the comfort would bleed into happiness.
“Dallas.” He put his hand on my forearm. “Oh, Dal, please. Come with me.” He captured my hand. “Let’s wash your face.”
I let him lead me out of the ballroom. It was equally sweet and deranged of him to assume I’d let water touch my face after having my makeup done for three consecutive hours.
“I don’t want to wash my face.”
He stopped and turned to me, his hand still interlaced with mine. “Okay. Know what? Let me get you a plate of desserts. That always lifts your mood. Meet me out back.”
I felt comfortable sneaking out of my wedding to the back patio of the ballroom and sitting over the banister. After all, I couldn’t give one dang about whether someone discovered me with Madison.
The courtyard overlooked a small lake. Swans and ducks glided over the glacial water.
Madison appeared with a plate laden with pink and coral macarons, white-chocolate éclairs, and gold-specked fruit tarts. The desserts looked too beautiful to be eaten.
Nonetheless, I shoved a macaron down my throat, barely tasting it.
Madison sat beside me. “Better?”
I nodded, squinting at the never-ending rolling green hills and gardens bracketing von Bismarck’s property. “I’m really sorry, Mad-“
“Please, no more of this.” He patted my knee, smiling. “You and I both know you didn’t really cheat on me. We were always an arrangement. Don’t saddle yourself with unwarranted guilt. Was I disappointed? Yes. I liked you. I still like you, Dal. But you chose who you chose, and I accept that.”
Wanting badly to appease him and also unburden myself from the weight of the truth, I blurted out, “But I didn’t choose him at all. It was supposed to be one small kiss before I married you. Everything just snowballed, and now I’m stuck with…with…this beast.”
It felt good to be childish and authentic. With Madison, my childhood friend, I felt free to be a version of myself that would be thrown from the halls of polite and mature society.
Madison looked like the sky had fallen directly on his head. “Are you telling me you didn’t want to marry Costa?”
“No.” I tossed my hands up. “Daddy forced me after he caught us. Romeo planned this entire thing. He set me up.”
As I explained the chain of events to Madison, I knew in my heart that I wasn’t playing with fire, but rather a full-blown dynamite box.
But the temptation proved too much. If the slightest chance of Madison freeing me from this arrangement existed, I wanted to seize it.
It took me three minutes to explain everything.
After I did, he gathered my hands in his and faced me. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay married to him?”
I didn’t even need to think about it.
“Confident,” I said with conviction. “If there’s a way out in which my reputation can survive, I’ll take it.”
Madison bit his lip. “I can’t promise anything, but I think there’s a way to take him down.”
Take him down?
It all sounded so Riverdale.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. I made a mental note to bail on Madison’s plan if he formed a red circle.
“When will you let me know? Every minute spent in his house is torture.”
Especially since he confiscated the carbs.
Madison sighed, plowing his fingers into his hair. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this mess, Dal. Trust me, I never thought anyone could be as spiteful as to seek you out like this.”
“Could you call me when-“
“First thing’s first, keep an eye on him for me, will you?” he cut straight to business. “I’m sure he’s monitoring your devices, so don’t send me anything sensitive in texts. Just call, and we’ll meet up. Anything you have for me that smells fishy. Whether business-related or regarding his personal life.”
Was he…recruiting me to bring Romeo down?
I struggled to picture my husband getting caught red-handed doing something bad. He was more sophisticated than that.
If anything, he was always stupidly in control. Even when he introduced Scott the Co-pilot’s face to the airplane’s floor, he seemed calm and collected.
Withdrawing my hands from Madison’s, I snatched a fruit tart and nibbled on it. “What if I find nothing? He’s not exactly an open book.”
Madison pretended to look tormented. He really wasn’t a good actor. I’d seen better adult productions at Sav’s sleepovers.
“Well…I mean, depending on how hard you want to nail the son of a gun, you can always… manufacture an issue.” He chewed on his thumbnail, an old habit I always found off-putting. “You know, bring to light the horrible way he treats you. Anything at all that can tarnish his reputation. This is important, Dal. If you want Romeo Costa out of your life, out of our lives-“
“My, my, don’t you two look adorable together.” Slow, sarcastic claps followed the sharp voice. “The Beauty and the Yeast.”
Madison did look a little like bread dough.
Out strolled my new husband, twirling whisky in a highball glass, his steps long and confident.
He’d shed his blazer sometime during the event. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled all the way to his elbows, exposing tan, muscular forearms.
His hair looked slightly disheveled. Maybe Morgan had ruffled it while they disappeared in one of the twenty-three guest rooms together for a quickie.
My heart began pounding out of whack after I remembered that, when we’d last parted ways, I’d shown off Madison’s engagement ring.
The latter remained seated beside me.
Worse-he draped a hand over my knee, leveling Romeo with an undeterred glare. “I have my eye on you, Costa.”
“Your eyes are none of my concern. Your arm, however, is another matter. If you still want it attached to the rest of your body, I suggest you remove it from my wife’s lap.”
“Your wife.” Madison snorted. Still, he complied, dumping his hands between his legs. “All she is to you is a way to get back at me for strengthening our ties with the DOD and presenting an impeccable defense package that’s too hard to walk away from and twenty percent cheaper than what Costa Industries offers.”
“First, I suggest you use punctuation. That was one long-ass sentence.” Romeo blinked, as if Madison had spoken in another language. “Second, I wasn’t finished.”
“That so?”
Romeo spat his gum. It was the first time I’d seen him willingly part with the thing. “Consider this my first, last, and final warning. Each time you come close to my wife, I’ll break a different bone of yours. I’m thinking of starting with the femur, though subject to change.”
Madison shot up. A blush snaked up his neck. “You have some nerve. After all you’ve done to me and Dallas-“
Stealing Madison’s seat, Romeo flicked lint from the sleeve of his shirt. “Please. This past year, there hasn’t been one event we’ve both attended where you didn’t end the night inside a leggy blonde who charges by the hour.”
Madison’s jaw tightened. He moved it back and forth. “Dallas and I had an agreement.”