Two Nights with His Bride (13 page)

He gave her a
wry grin. “That’s not all that reassuring.”

“What are you doing here, Wyatt?”

“My invitation must’ve gotten lost in the mail—”

“You know I couldn’t invite you.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get, Nancy. It’s not like I’m your ex. We’ve never slept together. We’ve never even kissed. Here’s what I can’t figure out. Why won’t you take my calls?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“It’s
because you don’t want to listen to what I have to say, isn’t it? Because you know I’m going to tell you the truth, and that won’t be comfortable.”

Anger welled up inside her. “What is
wrong
with people today? It’s my wedding day, for God’s sake.”

“Today’s the day for me to speak up or forever hold my peace. Sweetheart, I think you’re making a big mistake, and I can’t stand by and stay silent
while it happens. I don’t like him. He gives me the creeps.”

“Good thing I didn’t propose to you, then.” Jared’s voice dripped with barely leashed fury from the doorway, his gaze razor-sharp on Nancy’s hands, still clasped in Wyatt’s. “Get your damn hands off my wife.”

Wyatt kept hold of her. “She hasn’t married you yet.”

“She’s going to, if she knows what’s good for her.”

Dread ran like ice
water through her veins, her fingers instinctively jerking despite the comforting warmth of Wyatt’s embrace. “If she knows what’s good for her?”

The anger slowly ebbed from Jared’s expression, replaced by a placating smile. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I really don’t know what you meant.”

“You’re twisting my words around.”

“All I did was repeat them exactly as you said them.”

His
eyes grew flinty, and his voice held a whip of warning. “Nancy, don’t argue with me.”

“I’m not—”

“Get out of here,” he said to Wyatt. “Now.”

“I’ll leave when Nancy asks me to, not a second before.”

Both men stared at her, and she fought the urge to grab a vase from the night stand and hurl it against the wall. “I think Jared and I need to talk alone.”

“You heard her, buddy. Out.”

Wyatt’s
reluctance radiated off him as he stared hard at her. “You deserve better. Please remember that.”

“What?” Jared scoffed. “You think you’re better?”

“That’s the funny thing, asshole. I’m not here offering myself to her. I’m not here as your rival. I’m here as her friend. And the fact you can’t see that for what it is tells me all I need to know about you. She deserves better,” he repeated. “A
million times better.” Wyatt squeezed her fingers. “I’ll be right outside the room if you need me.”

With one last, long look, he left the room.

“Enjoy your jail time!” Jared shouted after him before slamming the door closed. When he faced Nancy with the full force of his fury, she fought the first twinge of real fear she’d ever felt around him.
He could hurt me. He could actually hurt me.

He crossed his arms. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong.” Except she was starting to see that she had. Something very, very wrong.

“You were entertaining him in your bedroom alone.”

She laughed in disbelief. “I’m in a wedding dress and undergarments that’ll take me an hour to undo. How much entertainment could I be right now?”

He shot across the room so quickly she
only had time to gasp in shock before his fingers dug hard into the soft flex above her jaw. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

“I’m not,” she whispered, sudden terror constricting her windpipe.

“I will not be made to look like a fool. Not by you or anyone else—and certainly not at my own wedding.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“You already have.” His grip relaxed, and relief flowed through her.
But his softly spoken words swept that relief away. “Remember this. You’re nobody compared to me. With one word, your career could disappear.” He snapped his fingers. “Just. Like.
That
.”

Her jaw trembled, and the metallic taste of adrenaline burst in her mouth.

“We signed a prenup, and it had certain stipulations about what would happen if our relationship broke down before we married. Remember
them?”

She didn’t even remember looking at them, she’d been so certain their relationship was rock-solid.

“You would have to reimburse me for the wedding expenses. Remember?”

A million dollars. She could be free for a million dollars. She might be able to—

“Difficult to save that kind of money if no one will give you work.”

Reality crashed down on her. If he ruined her career, she wasn’t
the only one who would suffer. She still owed a few million on the mortgage for her parents’ ranch. If she wasn’t working, she wouldn’t be able to make the mortgage payments. Her parents would lose everything. They would end their lives in the stinking, screaming poverty in which they’d started them.

“Jared…I don’t understand where all this is coming from.”

He tapped her chest. “It’s coming
from you, baby. From your behavior recently. We were all good till you started making me question you. I used to think you were perfect, but now I just don’t know.” He smoothed his palms over her shoulders and lowered himself to look in her eyes. He invaded her space so completely she could hardly breathe. “Now…are you going to show me what a good girl you are and walk down that aisle toward me, or
are you going to make the biggest mistake of your life?”

She swallowed hard and shook her head. She wasn’t even sure which of his options she was denying—maybe this whole screwed up situation. But he grinned and patted her cheek with a patronizing sting. “Good. I’ll be outside waiting for you.”

He strode away from her but paused in the doorway and gave her his killer, Hollywood grin. “By the
way, you look so hot I could do you right now. Too bad your antics have put us behind schedule or I’d give it to you right here.”

He winked and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Nancy yanked open a dresser drawer and puked.

‡

“If you’re going to get married, do it in the morning. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.”

—Warren Beatty

I
t took a
lot of maneuvering in her peacock dress, but Nancy plonked herself down on the edge of the bed and dropped her head into her hands.
If I don’t marry him, my family and I
lose everything. If I marry him…

If she married him, she would live a life of fear and punishment. Belittling comments and outright insults.

How had she deluded herself so completely?

He’s gorgeous, charming and insidious.

And what did that make her? She couldn’t bear to think about it. Ever since that horrifying day with Brady, she’d thought she was too smart to get into another abusive relationship.
But Jared had been slowly tightening the noose around her neck as she’d merrily planned the happiest day of her life.

What a joke.

“Nancylynn?” Nancy’s dad appeared in the doorway, his expression cautious. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what to do, Dad.” Her voice broke, just as her resolve had.

He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “Your mom was just starting to tell
me that something happened up here when that pushy wedding planner yanked me away. What happened?”

If she told him, he would insist she couldn’t marry Jared. Heck, he would grab one of his guns and rot in prison forever. She needed to make this decision herself.

“Nancy,” the wedding planner said from the doorway, “two minutes. Jake Kohl’s running out of songs.”

She nodded. Patting her dad’s
hand, she stood. “Ready to give me away?”

His eyes glossed over and he shook his head. “Never. Remember that. You’re always my girl, no matter what.”

He had to suspect some of the things she’d been blind to. But of course he would. He’d been the one to sniff out what a rat Brady was long before Brady had shown her himself.

When her dad stood, she pressed up on her toes and kissed his weathered
cheek. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“For what.”

“For always showing me what a good man looks like.”

He pressed his lips together so hard they disappeared, and she forced herself to smile. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m beautiful?”

“You know you’re beautiful, baby girl, and there are about a thousand people outside dying to tell you that. I want to tell you something else, while I have you here.”

The wedding planner stuck her head in again. “Nancy—”

“Oh for God’s sake!” her dad exploded. “Tell him to sing ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ if he doesn’t know what else to sing!”

The woman slunk out.

“Daddy—”

“No, you listen to me now. You’ve always known you’re beautiful, but you might not know how damn stubborn you are. You worked hard to afford those pageants you were in in high school, and your
mom and I couldn’t help you much. Then you saved your money and moved to L.A. when we all tried to tell you to invest that money in a beauty school course, like your mom did. Even when you were little, you’d just stick your chin up in the air and say, ‘Nope, Daddy, I won’t do it,’ and I knew I’d lost the argument. You’ve always decided your own course and used your own resources to get yourself there.
So, baby, listen to whatever instinct has steered most of your choices up till now. If that voice went quiet some time ago, shut everything else up so you can hear it again.
Listen
to it. If it’s telling you to marry Jared, then go out there and feel peace that this is the right decision. But if it’s telling you to run, then you run as fast as you can and trust that your mom and I got your back.”
He raised his brows and he looked down at her. “You got me?”

“Yeah.” She drew in an unsteady breath. “I got you.”

“If you need more time—”

The wedding planner poked her head in again, glaring at her dad. “He’s just about finished with ‘Achy Breaky Heart.’ Got any more suggestions?”

“Several,” he snapped. “But if you want a song, try ‘All My Exes Live in Texas.’”

She disappeared, and Nancy
laughed. She laughed until tears ran down her cheeks and she had to press her palm over her mouth to keep the laughter from sounding like wrenching, hiccupping sobs. Big, burly arms wrapped around her, and before she knew it she was being rocked by her dad for the first time in probably twenty years.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“Back atcha, baby.”

She pressed her smile against his shoulder. When she
finally regained control of herself, she pulled back and stared at his suit in horror. “Oh, God! You’re suit’s smeared with my makeup.”

He gave her a wry grin. “And your makeup’s smeared with my suit. You might wanna—” He waved at the vicinity of her face. “—do whatever you do to fix that up. I’ll wait in the other room.”

She briefly considered asking him to call for her makeup artist, but more
than anything she wanted to be alone. When he left, she stared at herself in the mirror and dabbed away her wayward mascara. Her hands surprised her with their steadiness as she reapplied her lipstick and rubbed her lips together. Making a soft smacking sound, she tried to hear that voice her dad had talked about. It’d been so long since she’d heard it that she’d nearly forgotten it had existed
in the first place.

The wedding planner’s voice dripped with sarcasm in the next room. “He’s almost done.”

“‘Friends in Low Pl—’”

“I’m coming,” she called out. “Ask him to sing…whatever song Jared decided should come right before the wedding march.”

He’d changed his mind so many times she couldn’t even remember. And shouldn’t that have been a warning sign? She’d wanted songs she’d watched
her parents dance to when she’d been growing up, songs that’d given her hope she would one day have a partner as good as her parents were to each other.

But Jared had wanted theme songs from his films. She’d been overruled on the music for her own wedding.

When she walked into the outer room, her dad crooked his elbow, and she slid her arm through it. The wedding planner sprinted out of the
room, whispering furiously into her headpiece, “She’s coming. Places, everyone.”

“Ready?” her dad asked.

“Ready.”

So not ready.

The dress’ train trailed behind her several feet, its weight literally holding her back as she tried to make her way to her groom. She had nothing left in her stomach, which probably explained why it ached so badly. She had to go slowly down the stairs so she didn’t
trip over her hem or heels, though part of her yearned for the reprieve a hospital visit and leg cast would’ve given her. If she accidentally slipped…

She would drag her dad down the stairs with her. Just like she would drag him into the breadline if she didn’t go through with this marriage.

Stubborn voice, where did you go?

Silence.

Ruby and Polly gave her a huge thumbs-up as they sat in
the horse-drawn carriage ahead of hers with Jared’s brother and brother-in-law. Nancy’s dad escorted her to the Cinderella carriage, where Aaron Wilder stood at the open door, looking dapper in an English morning coat and top hat. He’d attached the carriage to a team of her parents’ whitest Arabians, and gave her an encouraging smile as she approached. “You look stunning, Nancylynn.”