The Bridal Chronicles

by Lissa Manley

  Actually, she probably could have waited to call Ryan until later in the day, or until tomorrow, but she wanted to see him, wanted to enjoy his smile and dazzling blue eyes and the blissful way he always made her feel right now.

  Though it was drizzling from a leaden sky and the day was on the chilly side, she couldn’t help but smile as she pulled into a guest parking spot in his apartment building’s parking area. Her heart felt light and buoyant and a deep, telling happiness had descended around her.

  Being with Ryan last night, feeling his strong arms around her, hearing him whisper and laugh in her ear while they’d watched a sitcom cuddled up on the couch in his family room, Max snuggled between them, had been sheer heaven to her wounded soul. Ryan had been attentive, solicitous and so darn attractive it was all she could do not to let herself want him forever.

  He was turning into a man who would be so very easy to care about, despite the doubts other men had carved into her heart, doubts that cut so sharply she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forget them.

  Equally as disturbing was the notion that Ryan still thought of her as simply Anna Simpson. He had no idea who she really was or that she was an heiress to an enormous fortune. Was it time to tell him the truth? Surely he would keep her secret.

  Wouldn’t he?

  That tiny grain of doubt dug deep. Too many scheming men had taken advantage of Anna Sinclair for her to reveal her true identity to Ryan just yet. But she would. Soon.

  Wanting back the wonderful mood she’d been in, something that had been missing in her life of late, she refocused on the here and now, ignoring the words that had been circling in her brain all morning.

  How did I let this happen?

  She steadfastly ignored the question as she parked her car and made her way to Ryan’s apartment via the elevator, her heart dancing a two-step in her chest even though she was sailing into dangerous waters.

  She hesitated outside his door, making the effort to calm the telltale giddiness skipping through her. She smoothed the straight skirt of her basic black business ensemble and then lifted her hand and rapped on the door.

  Ryan answered. “Anna.” His handsome face bloomed into a wide, genuine smile, and he looked as happy to see her as she was to see him.

  Even though she knew she was a fool to be so darn ecstatic to see him, she smiled shakily, happiness brimming inside of her, trying not to stare, feeling a wave of pure yearning move through her. As she would expect, he looked as handsome as ever, though different. Instead of his usual business attire, he wore jeans and a tight black T-shirt that hugged his body like a second skin and accentuated his tan face, golden hair and pearly white teeth.

  And he had a small boy attached to his leg.

  Juan.

  “Hi,” she said to Ryan. She smiled and waved at Juan peeking out at her with big, brown eyes from in back of Ryan. “Hi there.”

  Juan hid his face behind Ryan.

  Ryan turned and looked down. “Hey, buddy. Do you want to meet a friend of mine?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Feeling a little shy?” Ryan asked him.

  His eyes wide, Juan nodded.

  Ryan held up his index finger to Anna. “Just a second.” He hunkered down so he was on the boy’s level. “You want me to hold you?”

  Juan nodded again, and then leaned forward and buried his face against Ryan’s neck. Ryan put his big arms around the boy and squeezed tight. He whispered something in Juan’s ear. Juan giggled, then Ryan lifted him up and settled him tightly against himself.

  The sight of Juan’s small body enfolded in Ryan’s bulging, muscular-yet-gentle arms knocked the breath right out of her. A knot slid tight in her chest, and she struggled to draw a breath. She’d never expected him to be capable of such tenderness, such unselfish caring.

  Warning sirens went off in her head.

  Ryan stood and swiveled toward her. “Come on in. I’ll get your phone.”

  She nodded, unable to speak around the unanticipated lump of emotion in her throat, and waited in the foyer for Ryan.

  Her untrustworthy guard shifted down, collapsing under the onslaught of this compelling, wonderful Ryan. Little by little, she’d been falling further under his spell ever since they’d talked the night before and she’d had a glimpse of the genuine man beneath the polished, smooth exterior. Ryan had become a real man to her in the last twenty-four hours, a person who’d risen from a painful childhood. A man who did more than simply write a check to his favorite charity, one who took care of cute dogs and needy children.

  At this moment, seeing him with Juan, Ryan’s unlikely transformation had become astoundingly complete.

  He was a man she could care about.

  A wave of heady anticipation rolled through her, creating goose bumps under her skin and a flutter in her heart, only to be doused by reality.

  Oh, boy. I’m getting in over my head.

  Before she could consider that worrying thought, Ryan returned, her phone in one hand, Juan still perched in his arms. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t ask you to stay. I have a meeting in Lake Oswego in an hour and I was just on my way out to take Juan home.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Want to walk out with us?”

  She nodded, the spot he’d touched on her cheek blazing.

  They rode the elevator down in silence, stopping at each floor, Ryan explained, so Juan could practice counting backward. It was obvious Juan was behind on his counting skills. He made a lot of mistakes. But Ryan had infinite patience with the boy, gently whispering clues, helping him figure out what number came next without making Juan feel as if he’d made an error.

  It was all Anna could do to keep her eyes focused straight ahead rather than on how sweet Ryan looked with the adoring child nestled close, looking up at Ryan for guidance, his big brown eyes filled with love and trust. Clearly Juan and Ryan had a strong bond, and Anna found herself touched and fascinated. How many single men would take the time to reach out to a needy child?

  They walked in silence to the parking lot, Ryan waited as she climbed into her car. She turned the key in the ignition—and nothing happened.

  Ryan tapped on her window and she rolled it down.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  “I hope not.” She tried the ignition again. No luck. The car wouldn’t even turn over this time. She slumped down in her seat, wishing she’d gone to the car rental agency before she’d come here.

  Ryan leaned down. “Car not working?”

  “Yes. It’s been giving me problems, and I was on my way to take it in.”

  “Need a ride somewhere?”

  She checked her watch. Her meeting with Mr. Lewis started in half an hour. She didn’t have time to catch a bus or wait for a taxi. She grabbed her bag. “I guess I do.”

  “I have to take Juan home first. He lives fairly close. Is that okay?”

  “Sure.” She exited the car and followed them to Ryan’s car.

  “Looks like you’ve got a lemon there.” He pointed back to her car. “I’ll take care of it when I get home, all right?”

  “I’ve already made arrangements to trade it in for another car.”

  He opened the car door for her. “I’ll do that for you.”

  Her heart warmed by his thoughtfulness (darn, why did he keep doing that?), she nodded and settled next to Ryan after he hooked Juan into a car seat in the back of a late model Volvo sedan she hadn’t even known Ryan owned.

  “Why do you have two cars?” she asked.

  Ryan drove out of the parking garage. “Juan can’t ride in my Porsche because of the airbag, so I bought this.”

  “You bought a different car because of Juan?”

  He looked at her and pulled a face. “Of course I did. I see him a couple of times a week. I had to have a car for him to ride in.”

  Her heart rolled over in her chest, smashing the fence around it flat.

  “Contrary to what you seem to believe,” Ryan said when they stopped at a
stop sign. “I am a nice guy, you know.”

  Oh, after seeing him with Juan, she was beginning to believe it, all right. He was a nice guy, a wonderful one.

  Maybe too wonderful for her to resist.

  She sat in stunned silence for the few minutes it took to reach Juan’s apartment.

  Juan’s home turned out to be a wretched, run-down multi-story apartment complex in the heart of the city. Garbage littered the sidewalk near the entrance and many of the windows were either boarded up or barred. Traffic rushed by, billowing exhaust and dust, and she noticed several transients hanging out in the small, shabby entryway.

  Appalled, she turned wide eyes toward Ryan and shook her head slightly. He simply nodded his understanding.

  She waved goodbye to Juan and Ryan got out of the car, opened the back door and helped the boy from his car seat. Anna noticed the seat stayed in the car. Ryan probably owned it.

  An elderly, gray-haired, stooped woman shuffled forward to greet Juan. She smiled toothlessly at Ryan, who put a hand on her shoulder before he reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He peeled off several bills and tried to hand them to the old woman. She eyed the money, then hesitantly took it with the good grace of someone who knew that she had to stuff her pride for Juan’s sake.

  Ryan squatted down and took a now crying Juan into his arms and gave him a good, long bear hug. He then gently wiped the tears from the sobbing boy’s cheeks and said something. Juan nodded woefully, then threw himself into Ryan arms, clinging to his broad shoulders with his skinny arms.

  Anna turned away, tears stinging her eyes, and pressed a shaking hand to her lips.

  Oh, Ryan. Is your heart breaking like mine?

  She turned away from the touching scene unfolding before her, wishing Ryan had turned out to be as shallow as she’d originally thought him to be. She needed to keep her distance, and keeping her distance from a loving, tenderhearted man like him was proving to be almost impossible.

  She shifted uncomfortably on the leather seat. After what seemed like a long time, Ryan climbed back into the car. He sat for a moment, his hands clenched on the steering wheel, saying nothing. Finally he said, “God, I hate taking him back to that dump.”

  Anna sniffed. “Is that his grandmother?”

  “Yeah, and she tries hard. But Juan’s parents are drug addicts and are both in jail, and she has no money and no job. I help out as best I can, but she’s too stubborn and proud to let me do more. I’m trying to convince her to let me move them, but she says this is her home.”

  She stared at him, deeply moved by what he was doing for Juan. “You love him, don’t you?”

  He eased out into traffic, keeping his eyes on the road, then lifted one large shoulder and let it fall. “Yeah, I do.”

  She stared at his profile, one brow lifted. “Weren’t you the guy who told me love doesn’t exist?”

  He glanced at her. “Loving a child is different.” She quickly looked away and gazed out the window, an ache beginning to take root in her chest. “What do you mean?”

  He pressed his mouth into a grim line. “I guess I meant that romantic love doesn’t exist.”

  Slowly the ache that had begun to grow in her spread its roots throughout her body, numbing her from the inside out. He’d stated the unvarnished truth again, verbalized so even a fool could figure it out. Ryan could love Juan, but not a woman.

  He couldn’t love her.

  She fought back sudden, hot, ridiculous tears. “You’re so darn stubborn, you can’t even admit the truth to yourself, can you?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his tone tight. “You still carry the scars of your childhood, and that colors everything you do.”

  He held up a hand. “No way. You’re overanalyzing my life. I like things simple, that’s all.”

  Her shoulders slumped. Obviously he wasn’t ready to face the reality that his inability to admit romantic love existed was tied directly to the love he’d never had.

  He downshifted and stopped at a light, then turned and looked at her, but she stared straight ahead, not wanting him to see the moisture in her eyes.

  “And what about you, Anna? What about the doubt you’ve been living on since who-knows-when?”

  She pulled her eyebrows together. “What doubt?”

  He laughed under his breath. “The doubt that won’t allow you to trust me. I think I’ve proven myself to be a pretty decent guy. I’d appreciate a little slack, okay? Not everybody is out to get you.”

  She threw him a stiff glance. “I don’t think that.”

  “Oh, come on, honey. You’ve been expecting me to take advantage of you or hurt you since the day we met.” He made a quick left. “Are you going to go through life shutting people out because you’re afraid they’ll hurt you?”

  She lifted a brow. “Shutting people out like you do?”

  He stomped on the brakes and pulled over to the curb. “I don’t do that.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re afraid to love anybody because your parents didn’t love you. It’s the same thing.”

  He sat silently, then shook his head. “No, it’s not. I don’t believe in love, period—oh, okay, I do believe in loving Juan, but that’s as far as it goes. You design wedding dresses, for heaven sake, and yet you still deny love exists. Now who’s lying to herself?”

  Her brain twisted into a huge wad of confused thoughts. His words made sense on one level, but on a deeper, more emotional level she was still so afraid to believe in love beyond taking silk, satin and pearls and creating a dream gown for a bride.

  She sat, frozen, unable to summon a response.

  “Anna, look at me.”

  She slowly turned toward him. His eyes turned to a soft, worn-denim blue. He reached out and drifted his fingers across her cheek. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.” He leaned close and kissed her softly, his lips as gentle and tender as the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings. His scent engulfed her, lulling her senses. He wrapped his strong, capable arms around her and she felt safe and complete. “I never meant to make you sad,” he whispered, his voice low and husky.

  She should heed the lessons in her past and pull away. But she couldn’t muster the strength to resist him. A now familiar sense of utter belonging settled down around her like a tangle of flowering vines, wrapping her in a feeling she had never, ever experienced before.

  How in the world could she fight him?

  As he eased her closer, kissing her until she didn’t know where she ended and he started, she wasn’t sure she wanted to try any more.

  Somewhere in the very back of her mind, a tiny voice told her it wasn’t that simple, that letting herself believe that Ryan might love her was foolish.

  She hadn’t told him who she really was.

  She would be leaving in a few days.

  He’d been very clear that he didn’t believe in romantic love.

  She didn’t want to take the risk love demanded.

  But she ignored the voice and all of her doubts and nagging worries, unable to focus on anything but Ryan pressed against her, his arms holding her against his heart. She kissed him back with everything in her, feeling bliss and contentment steal through her one heartbeat at a time.

  And everything else faded away.

  Except for the tiniest grain of black doubt in her heart.

  “Oh, my stars,” Anna uttered. She reread the headline in the newspaper she’d come across in the lobby of her hotel the morning after she’d kissed Ryan in his car, not quite believing what it said.

  But there it was, in black and white, although from her viewpoint the headline might as well be written in glaring neon letters that would shine all over the world.

  Anna Sinclair, Philadelphia Heiress, Masquerading As Bridal Designer Anna Simpson In The Bridal Chronicles

  Horrified, she pressed a shaky hand over her mouth and started to read the story. It went on to describe that the woman who had posed as the happy bride to Ryan Cavanaugh, the wealthy owner of
Java Joint, was really socialite Anna Sinclair from Philadelphia, daughter of one of the richest men in America, banking baron Peter Sinclair.

  She crumpled the paper, unable to read the whole thing, and took off her dark glasses—did she really need them now?—gave into her shaking knees and sank down onto a couch in the hotel lobby, her stomach twisting. How had this happened? Nobody in Portland knew who she really was, and she’d been so very careful, except when she’d rushed down to the lobby without her hat and glasses…

  The dry cleaner deliveryman.

  Of course! He’d leaked the story. She should have suspected a story was in the works when she’d seen that reporter at the Bridal Show. She looked around, suddenly even more paranoid of the people around her than she’d been in the past, half expecting some tabloid reporter to materialize out of thin air in front of her.

  Darn it all. Trust things to explode in her face when her life was finally coming together. Her meeting with Mr. Lewis yesterday had gone extremely well, and she felt that he was close to signing an agreement with her. She had another meeting with him in a little over an hour.

  She pressed a hand to her mouth. Dear heaven, Ryan would discover her true identity along with the rest of the world! He would know then that she’d lied to him, that she’d let him believe that she was simply modest working girl Anna Simpson rather than the heiress to a huge banking fortune she really was. That was an extremely huge omission on her part, one that she wished she’d rectified sooner but had never found the right moment to do so.

  Ryan might never forgive her for her deceit. And that mattered because…?

  A hot chill swirled through her.

  She was falling in love with him.

  Despite how hard she’d tried to keep him at a distance and to keep herself from becoming involved with a man after her painful experiences, he’d crept into her heart anyway.

  How did she let this happen? How could she let her guard down so easily?

  Deeply confused and shocked by her feelings for Ryan, she shook her head, unable to comprehend how easily she’d let a man close enough to hurt her.