“I don’t have to do shit.” She spun around and stomped down the hall. “I don’t ever want to see your sorry face again. Go to fucking hell!”
“Blair!” he shouted, trying to run after her.
Neil blocked his path and gave him a stone-cold smile. “I told you not to screw with me, Garrett. I warned you that I always win.”
Horror washed through him. “Oh, my God. You would hurt her like that to get back at me?”
Hate filled Neil’s eyes. “I put it together after we started dating. It wasn’t too hard. She went to the same law school you did, at the same time. She was dumped by a guy who slept his way through the school. So did you. It was a nice bonus, knowing I was seeing your old girlfriend. But then Nana insisted you come to the wedding, so I put an insurance policy in place to encourage her to keep our engagement. Just in case.”
Oh, God. “Your friend is the junior partner who told her about the potential partnership or firing. He made it all up.” He felt like he was going to throw up. “What the fuck, Neil?”
“Knowing how much she holds a grudge, I figured she’d castrate you on sight. But I had to make sure you wouldn’t screw this up for me, so I convinced Ben to tell Blair the story about the partnership. She holds her job sacred, so I knew that even if she were still attracted to you, she’d never act on it. She’d offer up her firstborn child to stay at her firm. I never thought she’d consider dumping her job for you.”
“Why are you trying to keep her so badly? Is this really all about you and me?”
“God, you really are a narcissist. Stealing something you want is a bonus. The thing I don’t understand is why you want her. She’s perfect for me. We’ll live our mostly separate lives, but we’ll both have the professional spouses we need. Do you know how hard it’s been to find someone as detached as her? I’m not about to let that go.”
Garret shook his head, speechless. Then he remembered his original plan. “I’ll give you Nana’s farm if you don’t marry her.”
Neil’s smile fell. “You can’t promise me that. It’s not yours to give.”
Garrett took a step toward him. “Nana told me she’s giving me the farm. The entire thing.”
“She’s giving it to you?” He spat in disgust. “I knew it.”
Garrett held up his hands. “But I’ll give it to you. Everything except the land with the house and the barn.”
Neil’s eyes narrowed. “You would give all that up for her?”
Garrett took a breath, trying to hide his relief that Neil was listening. “I’m in the process of having a contract drawn up.”
Neil studied him for a moment, then laughed. “That’s a good one. You think I’m going to fall for this bullshit?”
“It’s not bullshit. My friend is working on it now.”
“How convenient that it’s not ready yet. You think I’m just going to cancel the wedding on your word?”
“I’m telling you the truth, Neil.”
Confusion clouded his eyes. “You’d really give up millions to keep her?”
Garrett shot him a glare of contempt. “I would ask ‘wouldn’t you?’ but the fact we’re still discussing it speaks for itself.”
Neil rubbed his forehead, then looked up at Garrett, an ugly smile spreading across his face. “Okay. I’ll do it. But . . .” He paused for long enough for hope to bloom in Garrett’s heart. “You can’t have her either.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“If you can produce a contract before my wedding, I’ll sign and call it off. But you have to agree you won’t pursue her. The two of you are over.”
Garrett shook his head in disgust. “You idiot, I can’t put something like that in a contract.”
“I know.” He waved off the issue. “But you can prevent me from releasing indiscreet photos of Blair that could cost her not only this job, but kill her career.”
The blood rushed from Garrett’s head. “What photos?”
Neil smiled, but evil filled his eyes. “I have a tape and photos of Blair. Having sex. I’m sure she would hate to have those get out.”
Horror washed over Garrett. He could barely stand the thought of them having sex, let alone having it recorded for anyone to see. “Blair agreed to film a sex tape?”
Neil laughed. “Agreed? God no. But it shows her in several very compromising situations. And it’s very clear it’s her.”
Garrett shook his head, still in shock. “You would do that to her?”
“I can’t believe you have to ask me that, cousin. You really don’t know me.” He laughed. “But don’t worry. This setup.” His hand waved a circle around the room. “This pretty much makes sure you don’t stand a chance, but just in case . . . I have my insurance.”
“You really are a prick,” he spat in disgust.
Neil smirked. “Tell you what. I’m going to continue with the plan as it stands. But if you show up with a contract before I say I do, you have a deal.”
“You’re presuming Blair will still marry you.”
He grinned. “She will. Now that she’s lost you, her job is the only thing she has left.” Neil spun around and walked down the hall. “See you at the wedding.”
Blair stood in the lobby of Garrett’s hotel, trying to piece everything together. There was no denying there had been a half-naked woman in Garrett’s room. And there was no denying the horrified look in his eyes. The real question was who was Layla and why was she there?
And then there was the inexplicable fact that Neil really expected her to still marry him. Why was he acting so calm and rational? She’d be furious in his shoes, and she didn’t even love him. He claimed to love her, and yet he was acting like sleeping with his cousin was a crime on par with purchasing the wrong toilet paper brand.
But something else was nagging her, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She replayed their conversation in the bakery . . . and then it struck her like a bag full of bricks.
“Blair.” Neil called her name from across the lobby. She turned to face him, newly amazed by how collected he seemed after the ugly scene upstairs. But that’s what she’d wanted, right? Someone calm and rational.
Neil stopped in front of her and gently put his hand on her arm. “Are you okay, darling? I know that had to be humiliating.”
She cringed. “You have no idea.”
His face softened. “I meant what I said, Blair. I still want to marry you. I love you enough to overlook all of this.”
She shook her head. “I just don’t see how you can feel that way.”
“I’m not like you.”
“Thank God for that, right?” she asked dryly.
He placed a kiss on her mouth. “We’ll go through with the wedding to save your job. Then we’ll sort everything else out later. Okay?”
“That’s right, we’re going to save my job.” It was all she had left. Her gaze narrowed. “I want you to propose to me again.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“I’ve heard another man’s proposal and accepted it since last night, Neil. You need to propose again.”
“Okay . . .” He took her hand in his. “Blair Hansen, you are perfect for me. Will you marry me?”
She smiled and took her hand from his. “I’ll see you at the wedding.” Then she turned and started for the door.
“But you don’t have your car. Don’t you want me to take you home?”
She looked back at him. “No. I have so much to do to prepare for the wedding. I want everything to be perfect.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Garrett Lowry was a desperate man. He’d spent an hour repeatedly calling and texting Blair until Megan finally answered and told him that Blair had never picked up her purse. She still didn’t have her phone.
The rest of the day was spent trying to get the contract for Neil put together, emailing documents back and forth between a law school friend who was a practicing estate law attorney in Missouri. But his h
eart was in his throat when he asked Nana to meet him in the hotel bar.
He sat at a table, nervously tapping his pen on the file sitting in front of him on the bistro table. As he watched her approach, hobbling toward him with her cane, he realized Neil might get his inheritance sooner than Garrett would like, and not just because he didn’t want his cousin to have possession. She was walking slower than ever. She had more wrinkles, and her eyes were deeper set than usual. She looked older than her years, and it scared him.
When she neared the table, he stood to help her with her seat, and she waved him off. “The day I can’t sit my ass in a chair is the day I’m checking into Sunnybrook Retirement Home.”
“I already told you I wouldn’t let that happen, Nana.”
She eased herself onto the chair and looked up at him as he sat across from her. “What are you going to do about it? Put me in your fancy California apartment?”
He shrugged. “I could move in with you.”
She laughed. “Claiming your inheritance before my body’s even cold.”
His eyes flew open. “No, Nana! I—”
She laughed again. “Relax, boy. I’m teasing ya. That’s not your style.” She shifted around in her chair, leaning her hand on her cane. “But from the way you look, I presume there’s still a wedding today.”
He sighed. “It’s a long story, but basically Neil tricked Blair into thinking I was about to sleep with another woman after she and I . . . had already gotten back together. She went to break things off with Neil, and he sent his girlfriend to my hotel room. She started stripping . . .”
“And Blair showed up?”
“Yeah, with Neil.”
“Aww . . . and he made sure to paint you as the devil incarnate.”
He didn’t respond. The answer was obvious.
“So did you invite me here to lick your wounds for ya? ’Cause you know that’s not my style.”
“No, Nana.” He swallowed. Jesus, this was hard. “I want to ask you for a favor.”
“Go on.”
“Neil is willing to be bought off.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“He’s agreed not to marry Blair if I’ll give him something in return.”
Sadness filled her eyes. “So you give him my land in exchange for canceling the wedding.”
He nodded, part of him dying inside.
“I thought that girl had some sense in her head. Why can’t she just tell him no?”
“She doesn’t know he’s been cheating on her.”
“Well, why not?”
“Uh . . .” he stammered. “It would hurt her. Badly. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.”
“The girl I met at that spectacle of a wedding shower was no wilting flower. She’s made of sterner stuff. She’s not going to fall to pieces if she finds out, so what were you thinking?”
She was right. God, he was an idiot. Ever since he’d found out, he’d danced with the idea of telling her, but the time had never seemed right, and he’d never managed to force out the words. “Obviously, I wasn’t.”
“So tell her before the wedding and be done with it. If she chooses to marry the fool, let her accept the consequences.”
“That’s not all, Nana. He has something else up his sleeve.”
“What?”
He grimaced. He hated to even think about Blair having sex with Neil, so the last thing he wanted to do was talk about it.
“Out with it, boy.”
“He has photos of them . . . in bed. He says he’ll make them public.”
“Sex photos?” She shook her head and gave him a look of disgust. “You kids these days. No sense whatsoever.” She put her hand on the table. “If she chose to take dirty pictures, then she shouldn’t be ashamed of ’em. Let her accept the consequences of that too.”
“That’s just it, Nana. She didn’t approve of the photos. She doesn’t even know they exist, and they could destroy her career.”
“So Neil is threatening to release them unless you sign over your inheritance?”
“Once he realized how far I was willing to go, yeah.”
Her eyes were blazing. “I take it you need me to sign something to make this nice and legal.”
He cringed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sighed, looking even older. “Well, where is it?”
He slid the paper out from the file. What was he doing? He was asking his grandmother to sign her life’s work away to his maniacal cousin. And this was all his fault, because he was the one who’d spilled the beans about getting it all and setting the wheels in motion. “The document says I’m going to inherit everything except the house and the barn.”
“I told you that you’re going to get it all.”
“It’s safer this way. Give it to Kelsey. Then Neil has no chance at it.”
She peered into his face for a long moment, her gaze as penetrating and sharp as ever. “You’re really willing to give up everything for this woman?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do anything to protect her. Even if she never forgives me.”
She picked up the paper and ripped it into two.
“Nana!”
“I raised ya right, despite your mother’s influence. We’re going to make this right, but we’re not about to reward that ferret for his bad behavior. You’re going about it all wrong, boy. Time to draw up a new set of papers.”
He looked down at his phone, and his heart started racing. It was already three o’clock, and the wedding was at five. “I don’t know if there’s time.”
“You just get the papers and show up at the church. We’ll deal with the rest there.”
“And what will these new papers say?”
She grinned. “It’s time you learned from the master.”
Blair stood in the nursery of the First Presbyterian Church, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her wedding dress was on a hanger behind her. She’d never been like most girls, Megan and Libby included. She hadn’t thumbed through bridal magazines and picked flowers and wedding colors when she was in high school. Blair wasn’t a romantic kind of woman—at least not the capital “r” type of romantic many women went in for—yet she’d had some ideas of what her wedding would be like.
And this was so not it.
“Why are you doing this?” Megan pleaded for what had to be the millionth time. “Why are you marrying him?”
“I have my reasons.”
Her friends had been so dismayed when she called to tell them the wedding was still on, Libby most of all. In fact, she still hadn’t shown up. It was vaguely reminiscent of Megan’s wedding. Only Blair had been the hold-out then.
And Megan and Josh had been in love.
Blair sucked in a deep breath. “The wedding is in twenty minutes. I need to get dressed.”
“You don’t want to wait for Libby?” Megan asked in dismay.
“She’s not coming. Not that it matters.”
“How can you say that?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Are you going to help me or not?”
The door opened, and Libby walked in, already wearing her red taffeta gown. “You should be in a Hallmark commercial. One for anti-romance.”
“Zip it, Libby,” Blair said, stomping over to her dress and pulling it off the hanger.
Megan grabbed her arm. “Blair! It’s obvious your heart’s not in this. And how could it be after your night with Garrett?”
Blair closed her eyes and fought tears. After the events of the morning, she was certain the relationship was unsalvageable. But she couldn’t let herself think about that now. “I don’t want to talk about Garrett.”
“It wasn’t how it looked, Blair,” Libby said in disgust. “If you would get off your self-righteous high horse, you might be able to see that.”
Blair sucked in a breath and turned to her. “You have to trust me, Libby. Can you please just trust me?”
Libby shook her head. “I’m here as your friend, becaus
e I love you, but this is without a doubt the single worst mistake of your life.”
“Libby!” Megan shouted.
“You know it’s true, Megs,” Libby shot back. “You’re just too busy trying to pretend everything is okay to point it out.”
“This is Blair’s decision. We have to respect it.”
Blair ripped off her robe and grabbed the waist of her dress and started to step into it.
“Blair,” Megan protested. “Let us help you.”
“I don’t need your help. I can do it by myself.”
She poked her right arm through the sleeve while Megan stood in front of her. “But you don’t have to do it yourself. Asking someone for help isn’t a weakness.”
If only people would stop telling her that. Blair shoved her other arm through the sleeve. “My mother taught me that depending on someone too much is a recipe for self-destruction. I will never make that mistake.” Again. She was dangerously close to losing it. Well, all she had to do was make it through the service. Then she could fall to pieces.
A familiar voice called out from behind her, “I hope that isn’t the only lesson I’ve taught you.”
Blair spun around and gasped. An attractive blonde woman stood in the doorway, worry filling her eyes. She looked like an older version of Blair. “Mom.”
Marla Hansen took several steps into the room. “Girls, I think I need a moment with my daughter.”
Megan and Libby shot each other a look and hurried out the door as Blair’s mother moved toward her.
“Oh, Blair. You’re as beautiful as a bride could be, but you look absolutely miserable.”
To Blair’s horror, she started to cry.
“You’re a difficult woman to find,” her mother teased. “No one knew where you were all afternoon.”
“I lost him, Mom.”
“Who?”
“Garrett Lowry. I found him again, and then I lost him.”
“Megan told me.” Her mother pulled her over to a sofa, then wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Do you love Garrett?”
She let out a sob. “Yes.”
The Wedding Pact Box Set Page 60
