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I saidI love you, and he didn’t say it back.
Should I not have said that? This is an arranged marriage, not a love match, so perhaps I caught him off guard. It’s clear he cares deeply for me, so maybe hearing the wordsI love you too, Rietais only a matter of time. It’s my wedding day. Of course I believe that.
The wedding reception is a whirl of faces, colors, and sounds. Nero and I are bombarded with kisses and well wishes. I keep an eye on my husband, wary that he might become overwhelmed by all the attention, but he’s more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him around other people. We dance together. He kisses me. We cut the cake.
It’s the wedding of my dreams. A dream I didn’t dare hope for.
I stumble off the dance floor several hours later, panting and smiling and desperately in need of a glass of cold water. There are hundreds of people I don’t know all around me, but I accept their congratulations with smiles as I pass through the crowd.
I’m halfway to the bar when I see a man that I recognize from somewhere. He’s sandy-haired with a receding hairline and slightly protruding front teeth. I don’t think we’ve met, so why does he seem so familiar?
As he turns his head, I see him in profile, and recognition grips me. I’ve seen him on news websites. Six months ago he was in court after being accused of sexually assaulting two sisters, aged nine and twelve. The case fell apart for some reason, I don’t remember why, but I think there was a legal technicality, or the children couldn’t or wouldn’t give evidence. I remember reading that it wasn’t the first time this man was in court on the same charges. Two years earlier he was accused of the same crime in another state across the country.
My happy world stops spinning. My body turns to ice. There’s a child sex offender at our wedding, and he was invited here by my husband. Reflexively, my hand goes to my stomach. I’m not pregnant yet, but I’ve been thinking constantly about children and the safe, happy world Nero and I will build for them.
I whirl around, searching the crowd for my husband, and see him standing by the wedding cake talking with two men. I hurry over there and motion that I urgently need to speak to him.
“Is something wrong?” Nero asks with a concerned frown when he approaches me.
“Yes, there is,” I say in an agitated whisper. “What is a child rapist doing at our wedding?”
Nero’s eyes widen in shock. “Who? Where?”
I put my hand on my husband’s shoulder and turn him toward the man, pointing him out across the room. “Him. Something Shields. Paul Shields, that’s his name. I didn’t recognize the name on the guest list, but I recognize his face from the news. Don’t tell me ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Twice he’s been accused of assaulting children, in two different states. Maybe that’s not enough for the courts, but it’s enough for me to never want to come within a hundred miles of the man, and it should be enough for you as well. There arechildrenhere.”
Nero stares at the man as I speak, and his face slowly darkens in anger. “You’re right, he shouldn’t be here. I’ll take care of it.”
He heads toward the man, but before he can leave my side, I grasp his wrist. “Wait. Why did you invite him in the first place?”
Nero glares for an angry moment at my hand on his sleeve. I’m manhandling my husband, and he doesn’t like it. I’m being demanding and accusatory. I’m not the wife he wants me to be, but right now, I’m too angry and upset to play the meek little woman.
“I said I’ll take care of it, Rieta.” His face has become a cold, furious mask.
I let go of Nero, though he hasn’t answered my question. My cousins have brought their sons and daughters to the wedding. Little children have been running around the ballroom all evening, many of them the same ages as the children that Shields molested. I feel sick to my stomach.
Nero glances at his watch, takes an angry breath, and shoves his hand through his hair. He looks at the man I want gone and then back at me, seeming conflicted about something.
He takes my face in his hands and says in a low, urgent voice, “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. You may as well be theonlywoman I’ve ever met.”
I don’t understand his words or his sudden change of mood. “Why are you saying this now?”
He opens his mouth, and then shakes his head. “There is only you,cara mia. I only wish to protect you.”
“Stop being so cryptic,” I beg him, squeezing his hands and imploring him with my eyes. “Protect me from what?”
Nero slants his mouth over mine and kisses me deeply, holding me so close in his arms. He whispers against my lips, “I will always be yours.”
Then he’s gone from my side. I press my fingers against my tingling lips, slightly dazed from his kiss.
My husband strides toward the man I want gone from the wedding. I see them exchange a few terse words, Nero’s severe and Shields’s faux-bewildered, and then they leave the ballroom together.
I wish I felt relief at seeing Shields being escorted out, but my husband’s strange behavior has put me on edge. I turn this way and that in a crowd of strangers, uncertain what to do and how to act naturally.
Mia approaches me. “What’s wrong? Where’s Nero?”
I nibble on the edge of my lip. Do I tell everyone that there was a disgusting excuse for a human being at my wedding, invited by my husband? What Paul Shields did is so sickening that I have to believe Nero didn’t know about it. He couldn’t possibly have known and still invited him.
But how could he not know?
