Anything But Love

by Abigail Strom

  OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES:

  Almost Like Love

  Nothing Like Love

  Other books by the author:

  Winning the Right Brother

  The Millionaire’s Wish

  Cross My Heart

  Waiting for You

  Into Your Arms

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Abigail Strom

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503936768

  ISBN-10: 1503936767

  Cover design by Damonza

  For Vanessa

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ben Taggart hated suits, social obligations, and most of the people he’d grown up with, and Jessica Bullock’s wedding would be the perfect storm of all three.

  The last thing he wanted to do on a summer Saturday was attend the nuptials of a woman from his Upper East Side past. He and Jessica were barely even acquaintances anymore, so why the hell was he going to her big society wedding?

  Because his mother was making him. He was a grown-ass man, and he was going to put on a tie and go to this stupid shindig because he couldn’t say no to his mother.

  “That’s adorable,” Jamal Baker told him as Weisman dribbled around them both, sinking a three-pointer with ease. “I had no idea you were such a mama’s boy.”

  Ben made the rebound and passed the ball to Jamal. “I can’t help it. She’s like a human ASPCA commercial. I take one look at those big sad eyes and it’s all over.”

  Jamal dribbled toward the other basket. “Your mother has big sad eyes?”

  “Like a golden retriever.”

  Jamal attempted what should have been an easy layup, and the ball ricocheted off the backboard.

  “That was pathetic,” Ben told him as Garrett made the rebound, passing the ball to Weisman.

  “I know,” Jamal acknowledged, panting as the two of them attempted man-to-man defense against their far more skilled opponents. “Explain to me again why we’re subjecting ourselves to this humiliation?”

  “Because when a former student gets drafted by the Knicks and asks if you want to join him and a teammate in a pickup game, you say yes.”

  “I used to admire you for getting so involved in your students’ lives. Now I think it’s time for you to get cynical and jaded.”

  Ben grinned as Garrett made a superhuman leap and dunked the ball over Jamal’s head.

  “And miss moments like this? No way.”

  Jamal called for a mercy time-out and went over to the bench where he’d left his water bottle. “You have to reconsider moving to Chicago,” he said. “If you leave New York, who’s going to remind me that I’m getting old and can no longer play a decent game of basketball?”

  Garrett and Weisman had joined them. “I will,” Garrett promised. “Right after I remind you that if you and Mr. Taggart hadn’t gotten me through high school, I wouldn’t be here to kick your asses.”

  A little while later Ben and Jamal, having graciously conceded defeat on the basketball court, were walking through Fort Tryon Park toward the 190th Street subway station. It was a beautiful June day: perfect for basketball, jogging through the park, or anything that didn’t involve sitting in a church watching two people recite empty wedding vows.

  “How do you know they’ll be empty?” Jamal asked.

  Ben used the hem of his T-shirt to wipe the lingering sweat from his forehead. “I’ve known Jessica for twenty years. I have no idea why she’s getting married, but it’s not because she’s in love.”

  “I thought you said you haven’t seen her for a while.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe things have changed. Maybe she’s fallen for someone.”

  “She hasn’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because the only person Jessica Bullock could ever really love is herself.”

  “Wow. Harsh.”

  Ben shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve known her a long time.”

  “Yeah, but aren’t you the guy who’s all about redemption and second chances? It’s never too late to change. Isn’t that what you tell the kids everyone else has given up on?”

  “It’s easier to reach kids who grew up with nothing than it is to convince Park Avenue royalty that there’s anything wrong with the way they live.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you a royal yourself?”

  “A former royal.” Ben swiped his card and pushed through the turnstile. “I’m the exception that proves the rule.”

  Two subway stops and a short walk later, the two men were back at their Washington Heights apartment building.

  “You’re coming tomorrow, right?” Jamal asked when the elevator stopped at his floor.

  Ben drew a blank for a second. “Coming to—? Oh, your poetry slam. Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Jamal stuck his hand in front of the elevator doors to keep them from closing. “I find your lack of enthusiasm disturbing,” he said in his best Darth Vader voice.

  “Sorry. This wedding has me off my game.”

  “It’s only a few hours out of your life,” Jamal said, stepping out into the hallway. “How bad could it be?” he added as the elevator closed behind him.

  A few minutes later, unlocking the door to his apartment, Ben asked himself the same thing.

  How bad could it be?

  Here was an even better question. Why was he so riled up? As Jamal had said, it would all be over in a few hours. He could cut out of the reception early and erase the memory with cheap beer in a local bar. Why was he letting this get under his skin?

  He tossed his keys onto the table inside the door and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. As he passed the refrigerator, he saw the invitation his mother had stuck under a magnet the last time she’d stopped by—a gentle reminder of the event he’d promised to attend.

  Mr. and Mrs. William Bullock

  request the honor of your presence

  at the marriage of their daughter

  JESSICA ANNE

  to

  THOMAS HARRISON SHELBURNE

  He pulled the invitation off the fridge and laid it down on the counter. As he stared at the elegant script spelling out Jessica Anne, two very different images came into his mind.

  One was a memory of Jessica from junior high, when the two of them had still been friends. The other was a memory from high school, when they’d been enemies.

  Maybe enemies was too strong a word. But when Jessica had come back from camp the summer before ninth grade—her parents had sent her to an exclusive fat farm for teens—she’d been
like a different person.

  A person who wasn’t interested in his friendship anymore.

  She was twenty pounds lighter and dressed in the kind of fashionable clothes she used to despise. She started wearing makeup, and she stopped talking to him.

  It had taken him a few days of the new school year to realize what was happening. But the third time she walked past him in the hall without even making eye contact, he got the hint.

  Jessica was making a new place for herself in high school, and he wasn’t going to be part of it.

  He spent the first few months of freshman year trying to find his own place. He was good at sports, but he wasn’t a jock; he got good grades, but he wasn’t a brain; he liked gaming and science fiction, but he wasn’t a geek.

  He wondered for a while if he’d always be someone who could visit different groups without ever belonging to one. But he started to make a few good friends, and after a while he realized that what they had in common wasn’t what they liked but who they were: Kids who could enjoy a lot of different things but didn’t want to be defined by them. Kids who would stand up to bullies and didn’t care as much about being popular. Kids who knew they wanted to make a difference in the world even if they weren’t sure yet how they’d do it.

  With a lot of different interests and a group of new friends, Ben had enjoyed high school for the most part. His life became busy with school and activities—but that didn’t mean he forgot about the friend he’d lost. The friend who’d turned her back on him.

  He’d been too proud to ask her why, even though their parents’ friendship had given him plenty of opportunities. At least once a month he saw her at a family function, either hers or his, but he never took advantage of the circumstances to talk to her.

  He’d figured she was putting distance between herself and anything that reminded her of her “fat” past. The funny thing was, he’d found her far more beautiful when she was twenty pounds heavier. Once she was skinny and a better fit for society’s definition of beauty, his feelings were a lot more complicated.

  It was hard to separate her changed appearance from her apparently relentless pursuit of popularity, something that had never mattered to her before. And of course the fact that she’d turned her back on their friendship so completely was a factor, too. But as much as he’d tried to dismiss her from his mind the way she’d obviously dismissed him, he hadn’t been able to.

  All through high school, as much as he’d hated the person she was becoming, he couldn’t make himself hate her. Somewhere under the superficial exterior she’d constructed for herself was the thirteen-year-old girl he’d had a crush on—the girl who never met a stray cat or dog she didn’t try to rescue, who volunteered at the local animal shelter every weekend. He couldn’t believe that the Jessica Bullock he’d known so well had just disappeared.

  But the more time that passed the more it seemed she had disappeared, leaving only a beautiful shell behind. His friend had turned into an aspiring Park Avenue socialite who didn’t seem to care about anything but herself.

  Now she was getting married—to Tom Shelburne, of all people. Tom and Jessica had been friends since high school, but Ben had never gotten a romantic vibe from them. The only thing he knew they had in common was wealth and social prominence. Because of that, it was easier to imagine their marriage as a kind of business merger rather than a love match.

  It shouldn’t matter to him. But as he stared down at the invitation and remembered Jessica as she’d once been, he realized that it did matter.

  Which made no damn sense at all. He hadn’t even seen Jessica for a couple of years now. Watching her walk down the aisle to marry a man she probably didn’t love shouldn’t affect him in the slightest. So why the hell was it getting to him?

  He crumpled the invitation in his hand and tossed it into the trash as he headed for the bathroom. It was time to get ready for the wedding he didn’t want to go to.

  Suck it up, he told himself as he turned on the shower. As Jamal had said, it was one afternoon out of his life.

  A few hours and it would all be over. How bad could it be?

  A few hours and it would all be over.

  Jessica repeated the words in her head like a mantra. A few hours and it will all be over.

  It was her wedding day, and the perfection of her physical appearance was the culmination of years of effort. Diets, exercise regimens, facials, manicures, seaweed wraps, waxing, makeup consultations . . . the list went on and on.

  How many thousands of dollars had she spent on the quest for beauty over the years? If she included her wedding dress and the fat farm her parents had sent her to in junior high, she was probably close to six figures.

  She was twenty-eight years old now, and it all came down to this. The ultimate photo op; the portrait that would grace her mantelpiece—and her parents’ mantelpiece—for the rest of her life. She would be captured at this moment of perfection for all time.

  “Jessica? Are you all right?”

  It was her sister, Vicki, who ate what she wanted and didn’t care what she weighed.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Vicki came up beside her and met her eyes in the big mirror. “You were staring at yourself. Is something wrong? You look perfect.”

  “I know.”

  Vicki patted her shoulder. “That’s my modest little sister. Are you ready to go? The limo’s here.”

  Her bridesmaids chattered during the ride, but Jessica didn’t join them. She stared out the window at the city passing by without seeing a thing.

  That’s my modest little sister.

  Vicki thought she was being vain or proud by acknowledging that she looked beautiful, but she wasn’t. She was only being accurate.

  She was beautiful.

  But she was beautiful like one of those elaborately decorated Ukrainian Easter eggs. As time passed, the egg inside dried out until only the shell remained. You picked one up expecting it to have weight and heft, but it was lighter than air.

  Empty.

  A year ago she and Tom had made a pact. They’d get married, share a home, and live separate lives under the cover of conventional normalcy.

  At least Tom knew what he wanted to do with the space and freedom this false life would provide. Jessica still had no idea.

  As the wedding itself approached, that was what scared her the most.

  For a long time now she’d been too numb to be afraid. It had been a welcome numbness, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other and dealing with externals. French onion soup or walnut goat cheese salad? Swing band or rock and roll? Pale pink or dark pink for the ribbons on the centerpieces?

  There had been a certain satisfaction in those details. They had given her something to focus on—a distraction from the emptiness inside her. Her perfectionism found an outlet in the obsessive world of wedding planning, and for a year, that had been her whole world . . . along with renovating and decorating the apartment she and Tom would live in.

  Now all that work was done. The apartment was finished; the wedding ceremony was imminent. Tomorrow morning she and Tom would head to Bermuda for their honeymoon, which she was actually looking forward to.

  But after the honeymoon?

  She had no idea.

  For now, though, numbness was still her friend. Or at least, it was until they arrived at the church and the minister greeted her with a smile, showing her and the bridal party to the private room where they would wait for their cue.

  She wasn’t just lying to her family and friends. She was lying to God.

  Religion had never played a big role in her life, but something about that phrase—lying to God—pierced her heart somehow.

  Her mother was bustling around, fussing with bouquets and the bridesmaids’ hair. Every so often she said to Jessica, “Just keep breathing, sweetheart. You’re doing great.”

  Heather, the only one of her bridesmaids who was married, squeezed Jessica’s hand. “I was a nervous w
reck before my wedding. I remember shaking like a leaf and being terrified I’d trip or drop my bouquet, but of course it wasn’t really about that. It’s the getting married part that freaks a person out. Even when you’re marrying the man of your dreams, it’s still pretty scary.”

  Jessica gave Heather the same mechanical smile she’d given her mother. It was obvious that any tension in her demeanor was being put down to nerves.

  But then Simone Oliver put a hand on her shoulder.

  Simone had been one of her college roommates. She wasn’t the kind of person Jessica had associated with in high school, but they’d become friends freshman year—and in spite of many surface differences, they’d stayed friends ever since.

  “Hey, Jess—can I talk to you for a sec?”

  “Now?”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Well . . . all right.”

  Simone led her far enough away from the others that they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “You probably already know this, but Tom’s a great guy. He’s smart and sweet and funny, and I think it’s wonderful that you’re going to marry him.” She gripped Jessica’s arm. “But hypothetically speaking . . . if there’s anything making you unhappy, any reason you don’t want to get married . . . well, then, we can get the hell out of here. We can hit the ATM and take a cab to Florida. We can hop a freight train and ride the rails to California. Whatever you need.”

  Jessica didn’t say anything for a moment or two. When she did speak, her voice shook a little. “Wouldn’t that be a nice story for page six. I can see the headline now: ‘Park Avenue Princess Turns Runaway Bride.’ ”

  “So what if they say that? Who gives a damn? This is your life, Jessica. That’s all that matters.”

  Jessica stared at her. Simone had figured out, somehow, that something was wrong—and she was offering a way out. For one crazy minute, she actually thought about saying yes.

  But even if she were willing to do that to her parents, she couldn’t do it to Tom.

  She shook her head slowly. “I can’t. I can’t. I . . .” She shook her head again. “Tom and I have been friends forever. I do love him, even if it’s not . . .” She stopped. “I love him,” she said again. “And I feel safe with him. I made a promise, and I—”