Chapter 47: Change of Heart

Once they were back stateside at her father’s mansion in New York, she was scheduled for a meeting with him.

“How do we stand for going forward with the merger...uh, marriage to the Teddy Bear King?”

“I will marry Kurt, father.”

“Good. You are dismissed.”

She had stayed awake on the plane back to the states, trying to figure out if there was any way around it. If only she had been brave enough to stay in Clovelly and not succumb to her father’s wishes. She realized that when it came to dealing with him, God forbid, confronting him or responding to his commands with the word ‘no’, she was a polite people-pleaser and a pawn.

She did not have the luxury to grieve the loss of relationship, job, home, and community. The meeting with her father reinforced that things were moving forward as planned and any attempts to change or escape the plan would be frowned upon.

Once she left her father, she returned to the private rooms in the west wing that were her apartment within her father’s mansion. His personal secretary followed her back and handed her a folder with the agenda of events and some other documents.

For the next couple of days up to and through the wedding ceremony a detailed itinerary was on the left side. A copy of the pre-nuptial agreement and the terms of the merger were on the right side. Stickers marked everywhere that she needed to sign and return as soon as possible and the secretary stood by eagerly with a pen, facilitating getting her to sign on the spot once she gave it all a cursory review and initialed the terms of the contract. She was trapped. Nothing was left to chance, not even the requirement of natural or in vitro fertilization creation of an heir within the first year of marriage.

These things were strictly pro forma. They did not need to consult her for her opinion, really. It served more as a courtesy and as a polite consideration. The documents also let her know where she was expected to be, what she was to be doing, and when she was expected. Buried within the agenda, however, was the meta-message that running away a second time would not be tolerated. Most of what she would be doing involved her looks and her consistent presence as a new trophy wife everyone was excited to see after months of tabloids chronicling Kurt’s freewheeling spirit while still a bachelor, but also a fiancé.

# # #

Back in Clovelly, Arthur had a change of heart and tried to reach out to Rachel to ask her forgiveness. He had read a story in the newspaper announcing that Rachel was getting married in New York. He tried to send her email messages, the only way he knew of to contact her, but her father’s secretary was tasked with monitoring Rachel’s email messages, intercepting, blocking, reporting spam, and destroying them by emptying them daily from the trash. Arthur would not give up so easily and offered a new email to her with a new address each day, hoping that someday he would be able to get through.

The New York bar exam was in three days, but he planned to arrive early and use his stellar research skills to locate and, armed with the realization that he could lose her to a marriage of convenience for financial reasons, he decided to crash the wedding that the entire world was watching. If he failed, it would mark one of the biggest mergers in American history, but leave a huge hole in his heart for the rest of his life.

They were soon in the same city, but felt a world apart.

# # #
While Rachel remained the “princess in the palace” being groomed to become Kurt’s wife, her thoughts wandered to her time in Clovelly, the community of friends, her job, but especially her continued, strong feelings for Arthur.

Before, when she was supposed to marry Kurt, it would have been easier; now that she had experienced romance and true love with Arthur, it was hard for her to even think of making marriage vows to another man she had no feelings for other than pure dislike of his character.

Kurt and Arthur were exact opposites. Kurt, with his globetrotting womanizing, clearly mocked the sanctity of marriage as a sacrament, did not see it as a lasting institution, given his many divorces, did not respect women, and agreed to it only for business reasons. Arthur, on the other hand, looked forward to the day when he decided to make a lovely girl his wife.

Arthur remembered that he had a friend from Oxford in New York City who worked as a photographer for the society page of one of the more reputable newspapers in the city. He planned to plead his case before her and beg her to be her plus one and photographer’s assistant so that he could gain entry to the wedding before it was too late. He got her number from the alumni association and contacted her.

“Michelle? How are you? Arthur here. Look, I need a huge favor...”

“Hello. What can I do for you?”

“I need to gain entrance to that big society wedding on Saturday.”

“You want to go to the reception? That list has been top secret and is very hard to break. Big wig, business types, you know?”

“That might be nice, but it’s not necessary. I’d like to attend the ceremony.”

She was confused, but demanded to hear his plan before she would agree to put her reputation and her job on the line before that. He wanted to attend wedding, object to the couple getting married, then scoop Rachel up and off to his hotel room for the weekend on the Saturday when she was supposed to be wed.

“Wait, didn’t she run away the first time they were supposed to get married? I’m sorry to admit it, but I’m as susceptible to the supermarket tabloids as the average person.”

“Yes, but I’m hoping that she still has it in her not to go through with it this time, either.”

“Okay, that must be another reason that the security will be so tight. It plans to be an exciting show of CEOs from most of the Fortune Five Hundred businesses and their ladies from the society pages, too. Everybody who’s anybody will be there. Almost all of the journalists and paparazzi want access to the reception, not the ceremony. So, sure, I’ll let you come along.”

If he succeeded, Arthur and Rachel would have to keep a low profile while he sat for the bar the next week. Then she would return with him to Clovelly after the interest in her and her whereabouts had died down a bit. It was an ambitious prospect and a daunting task, but with a little luck, it just might work. It was all a matter of perfectly aligned timing.

Meanwhile, he continued to change and send her email begging her forgiveness and asking for a second chance.