by Kati Wilde
“It was all true. It just wasn’t my reason for not telling you.”
“Then what was your reason?”
Her beautiful face is a picture of misery as she hunches deeper into her coat. “So you would still think that you needed to marry me to defeat the Wyndhams. I didn’t want you to find out that you’d basically already won before the wedding, because I was afraid you might cancel it. So I lied. But I should have given you the choice instead of trying to deceive you. That’s not how we should start a marriage—and you didn’t lie to me earlier because you said it would make you an asshole. So I’m an asshole for lying. And I understand if you’re angry with me,” she adds in a tiny, wavering voice. “Or if you don’t want to marry me anymore.”
“I’m not angry, baby.” Far from angry. So much relief balloons inside my chest that I’m lightheaded with it.
Relief…and hope. She lied so that I’d marry her? That’s the best goddamn thing I’ve ever heard. Because it sounds a hell of a lot like what I was doing—so desperate for her to marry me, I concealed the truth behind my reasons.
But I’m not holding back anymore. So in a rough voice, I admit, “Though I have my own confession before we make a clean start. And I think we should tear up that marriage contract.”
She seems to stop breathing. “You do?”
“I do.” Now it’s my throat that feels real fucking raw. “Because I don’t want to get married for the reasons I gave you in that proposal. I want something that means more. Not just spite and money—or even sex.”
Though we’ll still have plenty of that.
“Something more?” Anguished yearning fills her expression as her shadowed gaze searches my face. “You mean…love?”
“Yes, Audrey.” My heart feels as if it’s about to explode, because all that yearning I see in her—that’s exactly what I feel. And for the first time, I wonder if she’s a lot closer to falling for me than I believed. I wonder if she already has. My voice is ragged with all the threadbare hope I’ve pieced together when I tell her, “I want to marry for love.”
Her eyes become shimmering pools, and she pulls in a quick, shuddering breath. “Okay. But even without a contract, I’ll still pay for the lawyers if you need me to.”
“All right,” I agree and start back across the room, intent on kissing her and holding her—because if she’s still talking about lawyers, maybe she doesn’t feel safe enough yet to admit her love. So I’ll keep telling her about mine.
I’ll tell her over and over again.
But on my first step closer, a choking noise erupts from her throat. Blindly she reaches for the door handle, and on a high-pitched and thready, “I’ll tell Jessica to cancel the wedding,” she flings open the door and is gone.
Completely stunned, I stare after her. Because I just…? And she seemed to…? But now she’s racing down the stairs. Running away from me. And cancelling the wedding.
Over my dead fucking body.
“Audrey!” I roar her name and head after her. “We are not cancelling any goddamn thing! Do you hear me?”
She had to. Everyone just heard that. I charge out the front door to a chorus of cheers and shouts of encouragement from the patio. And she’s not anywhere in sight. Fuck.
“Did Audrey come that way?” I call down to them.
“No, man!” is the response, along with a “The toga party was last year!”
She’s not there. Panic begins to claw at my gut. Icy concrete burns my feet as I head down the stairs. I head past the garage, my gaze sweeping the yard and the sidewalk—and landing on the black car parked a little ways down the street. Audrey’s driver.
Quickly I cross the lawn, every step crunching through three inches of snow. The woman in the front seat is playing with her phone. She sees me and quickly gets out to open the door, but when I glance into the back seat, Audrey’s not there.
I look to the driver. “Did she go into the house?”
“I didn’t see her come down.” She grimaces and gestures to her phone as if explain why she wasn’t looking in that direction, then eyes my sheet. “Do you want me to go in and—”
“No. Just wait here. But if she shows up without me, don’t leave. At least not until I’ve had a chance to talk to her.”
She arches a narrowed look at me. “Mr. Moore. You’re a very nice man, but if she tells me to go, I’m going.”
“Please.” My voice hoarsens. “Just wait for me. I told her I love her, and she ran away, and I don’t know why.”
Her lips purse. After a long second, she gives a tight nod.
“You’re an angel. Do you know if her assistants are still here?”
She shakes her head. “I took them both home an hour ago.”
But maybe Audrey doesn’t know that. Maybe she went into the house looking for them so that Jessica can cancel the wedding.
Or maybe she was emotionally overwhelmed and raced for the nearest dark room.
I start for the house before the obvious answer hits me. The garage. Because she disappeared so damn fast. But the door is at the bottom of the stairs. And I didn’t lock it when I carried her out of there earlier.
Hiking up the sheet, I head back across the snow, panic easing its grip on my gut. This is simply the same thing she did after the tree lighting ceremony. She got overwhelmed and looked for a quiet place to settle down. There’s no fireworks this time, just all that guilt she’s been suffering over her lie—on top of whatever worry she’s been feeling since this morning after Bradford’s call, and the fear that she might be hurt tonight when I took her virginity. Plus this crowded party, then having sex for the first time, and barely any sleep yet. That sounds like a hell of a day.
And maybe it was. But I’m completely fucking wrong.
I open the garage door, expecting to find her in the darkest corner with her back against the wall, eyes closed. The dim light over the workbench is still on, but I don’t see her.
Instead I hear her. Hear her loud, wrenching sobs. My throat locks up and my chest clenches tight. Audrey told me what this is. It’s the reason I opened her up tonight instead of our wedding night. Because being overwhelmed isn’t the only reason she might run away and hide.
She’s hurting. And I can’t fool myself into thinking that it’s a splinter or that she twisted her ankle on the way down the stairs. She ran away from me.
Something I said or did is making her cry like that.
“Audrey?” Getting her name out through the sudden lump in my throat is like pushing a boulder through a keyhole. It just doesn’t fucking go.
The anguished sounds she’s making claw up the inside of my chest as if my heart is a trapped, feral animal desperate to get free and go to her. I find her on the opposite side of the Corvette. She’s sitting with her back against the wheel and her knees drawn up, her face buried in the wadded ball of my ugly sweater. The heavy knit barely muffles the uncontrollable sobs heaving from her chest, or the agony that fills each one.
“Audrey? Oh god, baby. Please.” Seeing her like this wrecks me. Eyes burning, I crouch beside her, reaching out to touch her knee and gently let her know I’m here. “Whatever it is—”
Her body stiffens and she jerks her leg away, then curls tighter in on herself, still sobbing into the sweater. As if protecting herself from me.
As if she can’t bear my touch.
Reeling from the pain, I fall back while the whole world darkens and shatters apart within my chest. Just a few minutes ago, I thought I had everything. But I have nothing. Nothing at all, except an endless well of desolation within the wasteland that just opened up inside me.
Yet my pain doesn’t matter. Only she does.
With every movement aching in my joints like I’m a dying old man, I settle in beside her, my back against the passenger door—and careful to keep a few inches between us.
“I’ll be here with you, baby,” I tell her in a voice crushed by the devastation of not being able to touch her. “You aren’t alone. I’
ll stay until you stop hurting.”
She must be able to hear me, because that only makes her cry harder. Each great gasping sob has to be ripping up her throat and lungs, but I know she can’t stop them. And I don’t know how to help her.
My vision blurring, I tip back my head and stare blindly out at nothing—trying to remember what I said. What might have done this.
What did I say? That I had a confession to make. That I wanted to tear up the marriage contract.
Ah fuck. The contract that—to Audrey—represented the beginning of our marriage. Not the ceremony, but when she signed our marital agreement. To her, me saying we should tear it up must have been the same as asking for a divorce. And I said it right after she worried that I’d be angry with her for lying…and she was afraid I wouldn’t want to marry her anymore. But I should have been clearer.
“We don’t need to tear up the marriage contract, Audrey. I only meant that I didn’t want the Wyndhams’ lawsuit to be the reason for our marriage. But we can keep it if you want to.” Because the contract doesn’t stipulate that we have to get divorced after I receive my inheritance. One of us would have to initiate the proceedings. And I sure as hell won’t. If Audrey loves me…she wouldn’t have reason to, either. “We’ll do whatever you want, baby. The contract, the wedding—anything you need, I’ll give it. Because I can’t fucking bear to see you like this.”
My reassurance appears to ease her pain. She doesn’t stop crying, but her sobs don’t seem so violent now. Or maybe she’s so physically exhausted that they’re dying out.
Or…she’s trying to stop for my sake. Because I said I can’t bear it.
Shit. I need to be more careful about what I say. About how I say it. And I’m not going to assume anything about her reactions unless she actually tells me how she’s feeling.
I’ll just wait for her. I would wait forever, but only another ten minutes pass before her sobs ease into hiccuping gasps.
She lifts her face from the sweater but doesn’t look at me. Only straight ahead, her eyes swollen and her face ravaged by her tears. They’re still spilling down her cheeks when she shakily whispers, “I swore that I’d never ask for more than you want to give.”
Because she doesn’t want to be like her mother. But she never could be. She would never need to be. There’s no limit to what I’d give her. Not now. I’m done holding back.
“Anything you want, Audrey, just ask. I’ll give it.”
“Oh, Caleb. You’re always so sweet to me.” Her eyes close, more tears sliding from beneath her lashes. “It’s not right for me to ask this. But…can I have a week?”
“A week?” To reconsider the marriage? Something else? I won’t make any assumptions here, either. “Just tell me what for, baby.”
“You want to marry for love. So I understand why you don’t want to marry me now that the will contest is done with. But if I can just have one more week with you—”
She glances over as I begin shaking my head—not saying no, but in sheer disbelief at what I’m hearing. She thought I didn’t want to marry her for love? This isn’t about the contract, but because she still thinks I don’t love her? I can barely take it in.
But in that gesture of stunned incredulity, she sees rejection. Her wavering voice shatters.
“A day, then? Just one last…one last—” Anguish crumples her soft mouth. Curling forward, she covers her face with the sweater, and the rest emerges on jagged shards of breath. “Just one…more day…with you. Please.”
That final plea is a keening cry, her body wracked by agonized sobs that seem to rip her apart inside. Each one shreds my heart. In a million fucking years, it never would have occurred to me that she would hear me say that I want to marry for love and not understand that I’d fallen for her.
But how could she know? I held back everything, never showed her or told her that I wanted anything more personal from her than sex.
“Audrey. Baby.” Voice thick, I kneel in front of her. My shaking hands hover so close to touching but I can’t yet, I can’t. I have to fix this first. I wasn’t direct enough before. I will be now. “You can have a day. You can have a week. You can have forever. I want to marry for love, which means I want to marry you. I love you, baby. I’m so deep in love with you, I’ll never get out. And I’ll never want to.”
She goes utterly still and quiet except for the uncontrollable shuddering of her breath.
Each word choked by emotion, I tell her again, “I want to marry you because I love you. But I’ll love you if you don’t marry me. I’ll love you no matter what you do. But I do want you to marry me. Not for spite, not for the inheritance—but for love.”
She lifts her head, her teary gaze searching my face. Her throat works, and her voice is only a faint rasp when she says, “I’m not marrying you because I love you.”
“No?” I don’t believe it for a second. Not after this. “I think you do love me.”
“Of course I do.” A deep hiccuping shudder moves through her. She wipes her tear-streaked face with the back of her hand, and I give her the edge of my sheet to use as a tissue. “But it’s not why I’m marrying you.”
Of course I do. My heart swells up so fucking big. “Why, then?”
“Because you asked me to marry you,” she says simply. “That has always been my reason. I would have pursued you regardless, but that’s only dating. The reason I’m marrying you is because you brought me a proposal—which became a marriage contract.”
The one I wanted to rip up. “And we’ll let that contract stand. It doesn’t matter. But what we clearly need is another proposal.”
Her mouth curves into a watery smile. “Do we?”
“Yeah.” And I’m already kneeling in front of her. Gently, I take her hand—and she doesn’t stiffen or pull away. Instead her fingers intertwine with mine, and my voice is raw with emotion when I begin. “I want you to marry me, Audrey Clarke. I want you to love me and let me love you for the rest of our lives. Will you?”
Sheer joy glitters in her eyes. “Yes.”
All the shattered pieces of my world slide back together. Everything empty fills again, then overflows. My hands shake with the force of my emotions as I bring her fingers to my lips and press a kiss to her engagement ring, then the backs of her fingers, one by one, before tugging her forward.
She rocks up onto her knees, so we’re face to face—but although I intended to kiss her, I’m stopped by her warm hand cupping my jaw. She looks up at me, amazement shining from her beautiful eyes.
Wonder fills her voice. “You’re the only person who has ever loved me.”
Oh, baby. Heart aching, I capture her mouth. All the love I feel burns through every brush of our lips, every slide of our tongues. Suddenly it’s so much clearer why she never suspected that I would marry her for love. She truly believes that nobody does.
But I can’t let her go on believing it. Resting my forehead against hers, I tell her gruffly, “I’m not the only one. Jeremy and Jessica love you. Reverend Foster loves you. Mia loves you. And these are just the friends of yours that I’ve met. I bet there are plenty more.”
Doubt clouds her expression, but hope lifts her tone. “You think they do?”
“I know they do.” I cup her face in my hands. “I suppose no one really goes around saying it. Especially employees to their employers. Or adult male mentor figures to teenaged girls. It’s too easy to be misunderstood as something sexual or romantic.”
“Yes,” she agrees softly.
“I’ll say it to you. So much you’ll get tired of hearing it.”
Her mouth curves. “That won’t ever happen.”
“And I won’t ever get tired of saying it. Hell, every time I kiss you, I’ll be saying it.” I demonstrate with another taste of her lips. “And you love your friends, too?”
“Of course.”
Always ‘of course.’ As if loving is so natural for her. But usually being blunt and open is natural for her, too. “Yet you never said
anything to them? Or to me, either. That’s not like you.”
“I didn’t want anyone to feel obligated to reciprocate my feelings. Especially since no one is going to…” She trails off, as if once again grappling with the idea that there are people who love her. In a small voice she says, “You really think they do?”
“Yeah, baby. Maybe they’re not in love with you like I am. But they love you.” And I’d bet my left nut there’s more than a few unlucky bastards out there who are in love with her, too. “Because you’re so damn lovable. As soon as they get to know you, my friends will love you, too. So will our kids.”
“Our children?” Pained yearning darkens her eyes. “You think they’ll be able to?”
Not wondering if they’ll be able to love. Wondering if they’ll be able to love her.
Her parasite of a mother and shit stain of a father have a hell of a lot to answer for. Because of them, the most incredible woman in the world has spent most of her life believing she wasn’t loved. That she couldn’t be loved.
Yet Audrey still spent so much of that time quietly giving her love to others. That has nothing to do with her parents and everything to do with who Audrey is.
My throat tight, I nod. “I’m sure they will, baby. Our children are going to love you as much as I do.”
New, happy tears glisten in her eyes and a beautiful smile curves her lips. “They will love you even more…my big, sweet, sexy marshmallow.”
“Full of gooey stuff just for you.” I grin when she delicately snorts out a laugh. “You want to go upstairs and practice making those kids?”
Because I don’t want to hold back anymore.
Though temptation lights her face, she shakes her head. “I want to, but…I’m really tired. And a little bit sore.”
I’ll rein it in, then—and send her home, so she can sleep in tomorrow morning rather than wake up when I go to work. “You’ve had a hell of a day, baby. I’ll walk you to the car.”
And the next time I see her, she’ll be walking down the aisle toward me. Almost thirty-six hours of sheer torture while I’m waiting to make her mine.
At the car, the driver flashes me a discreet thumbs-up while she opens the door—then she tactfully slips into the front seat, leaving me standing alone on the curb with Audrey, still only wearing my sheet. With concern, Audrey glances down at my bare feet but I stop her before she can say a word.
