Читать книгу Some Like It Scot - Donna Kauffman - Страница 9

Graham’s declaration rang out inside the chapel, echoing and reverberating, then arrowing straight through her—as if the angels and cherubs painted inside each of the pocketed, celestial domes above their heads, and sculpted atop the pillars that lined the interior of the old church, had all taken up playing their trumpets and strumming their harps at the same time—creating a cacophony inside her head…and heart.

Katie stared, her gaze locked on the wild-eyed man who was not proclaiming his wish to marry her as part of some family obligation, but staking his outright ownership of her. She should have laughed. Hysterically. Because her life was nothing if not ridiculous already, so why not have a mad Scot turn her A-list attended, excruciatingly planned-to-perfection, media-and-marketing-coup-of-the-century sham wedding into utter chaos? It was certainly the high point for her.

“Katie?”

Blaine gripped her arms, jerking her gaze from the kilted man who, not ten minutes earlier had unknowingly offered up a bizarre, yet tantalizing option to the immediate future she’d thought her only choice. Blaine held her gaze, but not her attention. Her thoughts were a complete scramble. Her stomach was a clutched knot, and her heart threatened to beat straight through the hand-beaded satin and Irish lace presently binding her chest and waist so tightly she’d been short of breath since being cinched into it.

She was very much afraid she might throw up. In fact, she wanted to throw up. Surely that would make her feel better. Or pass out. Yes. Passing out, quite dramatically, in front of the entire church assembly, would be perfect. Not to mention a clever way of getting out of dealing with any of it. At least right that very second, anyway.

Except hadn’t she spent the past six months getting out of dealing with any of it? Hell, if she were honest—and why not, better late than never—her whole life had been an exercise in avoiding confrontation and doing whatever it took to keep the people in her life happy. And by people, she meant family. Hers, and Blaine’s.

“Katie.” Blaine shook her, albeit lightly. He would never harm her. Never. Poor, sweet, adorable, and adoring Blaine.

She forced herself to look at him directly, to focus. And struggled to find the words she knew—knew—she had to say. And had said, so many times, inside her own head, too afraid of subverting her entire life to contemplate saying them out loud. But being brave on the inside didn’t count.

Hence her standing there, inside the chapel her family and Blaine’s had attended since its earliest inception several hundred years earlier, in a wedding dress she hadn’t picked out, carrying flowers she didn’t know the names of, about to marry a man she adored above all others and had loved her entire life…like a brother. Not a husband.

“I’m so sorry, Blaine. I can’t marry you.” She held her breath, her pulse drumming so loudly she couldn’t tell if she’d really said that out loud, or just imagined she had. Again.

He frowned, and looked confused, which meant she’d finally gone and done it. Oh my God. She tensed—froze really—but there was no going back. No taking it back. Even if she wanted to—which, of course, she didn’t. She just had to figure out how to survive the next five seconds without having a heart attack or stroking out.

She kept her gaze pinned on Blaine and only Blaine, carefully keeping even so much as a glimpse of anyone else—especially the anyone elses presently crowding the front pews of the church—out of her range of vision. Just Blaine. Other than her grandfather, he’d been the only safe haven she’d ever had, the one port in the storm that was a constant in both their lives. The one person she could always trust, who would always be steady. Rock steady. Only she’d just cast herself off that steady rock, hadn’t she? And her grandfather was gone. She was out to sea, with no port…and a very big storm brewing that was only moments from crashing over her.

“I’m am sorry,” she whispered, never meaning the words more. “I can’t. We can’t. You know that, right?”

“I don’t know anything of the sort. Katie, what’s going on? Who is that guy?”

She had no answer for that, of course. Other than his name, she had no idea who he was. A lunatic, clearly.

And a port. If she dared.

But didn’t leaping from steady rock to utter madness make her the lunatic? Clearly. Though who could blame her? Other than every member of her family, and Blaine’s. Yet, given what she’d had to contend with, was it any surprise, she was having some kind of psychotic breakdown? It wasn’t that farfetched—was it?—she’d finally hit her breaking point on her wedding day, standing in front of the pastor, God, and every single important person in her life, his life…and most importantly, because it was always most important, her parents’ lives? Surely that was the case. What else could explain the fact that she was teetering on the brink of ruining the rest of her life…and possibly that of the only man she’d ever really loved.

“You know I adore you, Blaine. But we—I—can’t do this.”

“We don’t have a choice,” he whispered furiously and his grip grew surprisingly firm.

“Have you been working out?” she asked, shocked by his display of strength. “Did you finally call that personal trainer I told you about? Because, that’s a pretty impressive—”

“Katie,” he said, shaking her. “What in the hell has gotten into you?”

She was losing it. Rapidly. Stop blabbering. Focus.

“You know we shouldn’t marry each other. I mean, we’re supposed to, destined to since birth, blah blah blah. But we really can’t. It’s too much. Too far.”

“We’ve talked about that,” he ground out. “Endlessly. And we agreed—”

“You agreed,” she corrected. “And I…was too afraid to go against you. Or, more to the point, them.” She twitched her veiled head in the direction of the front pew. She could hear their guests getting restless, the murmuring growing. Time was running out. “I just want to be happy. You should want to be happy.”

“Katie, we’ll make it work. We always do. No one else could possibly understand what it’s like for me—for us. You’re the only one I can trust. Could ever trust.”

She’d never seen him look so intense, so…well, virile. It was kind of hot, actually. Only she knew better than to let that affect her. Way better. “I’m not the only one,” she said, hoping her gaze was as intense, as pointed. “And you know that. It’s time everyone else did, too. There is another way. For you.”

His eyes went from furious to terror-filled. “Don’t,” he said, more order than plea. “You wouldn’t.”

“Of course I wouldn’t. But you should. You have to. So you can start living your life. I want to start living mine.”

His expression turned heartbreakingly bleak when he seemed to realize she wasn’t kidding. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll make it work, Katie. We will. I’ll make your happiness my main priority.”

“That’s just it, Blaine. I want you to make your happiness your main priority. And that means not marrying me. If you really love me, really want me to be happy, then do this. For yourself. For me. Whatever it takes. This is ridiculous. You know that, right? They can have everything else they want. But they can’t have this. It’s too much. The price is too big. For both of us.”

“But…there’s a way. I know there is,” he said, clearly panicked. “Katie, come on, it’s too late now. We’re here. It’s all set. We have to follow through, then we can…figure things out.”

“That’s just it, it’s not too late. And now is the only time we can fix this. I have to take a stand. I know I should have a long time ago. I’ll regret forever doing this to you here, now, you know that, right? I didn’t plan this. Any of this.” Truer words had never been spoken. She looked past Blaine to his best man, Tag, who had gone completely pale, then back to the man who had been her best friend since birth. “We’re allowed to be happy, Blaine. I don’t know what—or who—will make me happy. But you do.” She looked pointedly at the man standing behind him, who, by all rights, should be standing where she stood. “I want the chance to find out. Right now is your chance—which means this is our chance. Possibly our only chance.”

“Katie, please,” he begged, breaking her heart. “Don’t. Don’t ruin this. Don’t ruin me. If you’ve ever loved me”—he framed her face with his hands—you can’t do this,” he said, his tone somehow fierce and shattered at the same time. “I won’t allow it.”

To his shock, and certainly to hers, she smiled. It was as if a sudden, otherworldly calm descended over her. Her heart slowed, her mind cleared—like she was having an out of body experience and was floating overhead with the angels and cherubs, looking down on the travesty that her wedding day had become. Had always been, actually. “You don’t get to allow or disallow. No one does. Just me. If you do trust me, then believe me when I say I’m doing us both a favor.”

She turned then and faced their gathered families and invited guests…along with a certain uninvited one. She purposely looked beyond the front pews, where her parents, and Blaine’s, were making noises that indicated her moment to finally stand up for herself was going to be very short-lived if she didn’t act swiftly. She honestly had no idea what they would do, as she’d never risked finding out before. There always was too much at stake. Or so it had seemed. Funny, how standing there, with her own life and her very future at stake, it felt, for the first time, like hers was the more important one.

She looked past her family, and Blaine’s, and found Graham. She spoke directly to him. “Did you mean what you said?” Her voice sounded far more steady and confidant than she felt. Her gaze remained locked on the Scot, who was easily head and shoulders bigger than pretty much everyone in the room. Her port, she thought, and felt oddly steadied by it. By him. She could certainly do worse.

He was still wielding some crumpled piece of paper, like a proclamation, in front of him. “Aye,” he stated, that deep, gravelly burr ringing clearly and quite commandingly throughout the chapel, despite the fact that the hushed silence of a moment before had already begun erupting in small, little volcanoes of chatter…with the biggest eruption surging to the surface in the front row as her parents stood and took their first steps toward her.

“Then I accept.”

Vesuvius McAuley-Sheffield blew approximately one second later as the entire chapel rose to its feet, as one, and looked ready to descend upon her. She went into survival mode, working off some instinct she’d never known she had. It was purely self-preservation, but when had she ever considered that an option?

When she finally put her own self first.

She turned to Blaine and slid the engagement ring off her finger. “You know I love you,” she said, quietly and fiercely, as she pushed it into his palm. Then she stepped past the gape-mouthed Blaine, and thrust her ridiculously over-the-top bouquet straight into Tag’s chest. She lowered her voice so only he could hear her. “You’ve officially caught the bouquet. You’d better stand by him and love him the best way you know how. Or I’m going to come back and personally kick your ass.”

She turned back to Blaine, grabbed his face in her palms and kissed him soundly on the mouth. “I love you, Sheffie. More than life.”

“Mac,” he choked out, using his own childhood endearment for her, tears swimming in his beautiful brown eyes. “Don’t leave me.”

She held his cheeks more tightly. “You don’t need me. You only need you. Now go, be happy, dammit.”

Her mother rushed toward the stairs as Katie turned, a rather terrifying expression carved into her already rigid features. Her father was right behind, looking equal parts exceedingly angry and deeply disappointed. He’d had plenty of experience with both of those expressions where Katie was concerned—where all the women in his life were concerned, actually.

Well, she was about to give him one less woman to concern himself with.

She made a quick sidestep and danced around the pulpit. “Sorry, Father Flaherty, I really, truly am. Say prayers for me. I’m going to need them!”

Her Scot—at least he wasn’t anyone else’s—had worked his way quite easily through the guests thronging into the aisle and had made his way to the base of the deep blue carpeted steps leading up to the altar. She hadn’t noticed, in the prayer garden, how big he truly was. So tall. And brawny. She might have thought it a trick of the plaid that cascaded over one shoulder, only he made everyone in the growing chaos surrounding him look small and ineffectual by comparison. There had to be something to that.

“Katie,” he said, his voice rising easily above the din. He reached for her.

Without a second’s hesitation, she launched herself off the top step, knowing he would catch her. And he did.

“Oh!” she gasped, as strong arms closed instantly around her. He shifted her into his arms, dress cascading over his arm, as if they’d rehearsed it dozens of times, to get the timing so perfectly right. If it weren’t for the abject terror starting to creep in around the defiance and righteous moxie she’d been filled to overflowing with the past few minutes, she might have felt positively princess-like. “We need to get out of here,” she whispered fervently. “Fast.”

“Wait just one minute there!” Her father, sounding superior and autocratic. Like a king, ruling his subjects, expecting total obeisance—or off with their heads. He’d had lots of practice with that.

To her surprise, her rescuer actually paused. “No, no! Keep going. This is my only chance.” She looked up at the length of chiseled jaw, then he looked down, and their eyes met, close up, and just like that, the rest of the world fell away.

“You are a woman grown, aye? Of legal age to decide for yourself your course of action?”

“You don’t understand, it’s…complicated. So very, very complicated. I need you to get us out of here, before—”

“Katherine Elizabeth, what on earth do you think you’re doing? Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve made a spectacle of yourself. And of us. That’s what you’ve done.” Her mother had somehow managed to wedge her svelte, size two frame squarely in front of her daughter’s Scot. How a woman who was easily a full foot and a half shorter—even in her one-of-a-kind, Ferragamo, hand-dyed satin pumps—than the man presently towering over her, managed to look down her perfect, aquiline nose at him, Katie would never be able to figure out. Her mother was a force of nature. Rather like a tsunami. Or a monsoon. Sweeping in, blowing down, and drowning anything that got in her path.

“Now you’ll kindly get back up on that dais, apologize—profusely—to everyone here, and proceed with this wedding. I’ll make certain none of this…incident…remains digitally viable with any of our photographers.”

She turned slightly and raised her voice. “If anyone here even thinks about using their phones, or breathes a word of this outside this chapel…well, surely that’s not something anyone has any interest in doing.” She looked back to her daughter. “We can salvage this. I can salvage this. But it will take some doing. Now, for heaven’s sake, let’s get back to business here.” She clapped her hands together, as if expecting time to spin backwards and all to be as it was five minutes prior. Katie wasn’t entirely sure her mother couldn’t do just that.

“You’ll kindly use a different tone when speaking to your daughter,” Graham quietly informed Mrs. McAuley, making the room gasp collectively. “She’s made her decision, and while I understand your disappointment, you’ve naught to do but accept it. Now, if you don’t mind. We ’ve a plane to catch.”

“A plane!” her father blasted. He was more thunderstorm than monsoon. Lots of wind and booming noises. Occasionally incinerating things with blistering bolts of lightning. “If you think you are taking her out of this chapel, much less out of this town, you are—”

“Going to be late,” Graham replied, seemingly unfazed—which was shocking all on its own, but then, he wasn’t from here. He had no idea who he was dealing with.

“Graham,” she said, keeping her voice low. “You rock in ways you don’t even know. But we might want to move it along, before—”

“How could you! How dare you humiliate my darling son!”

Mrs. Sheffield gets here, Katie finished silently, somehow managing to stifle the deep, shuddering sigh that accompanied the thought, along with the much desired eye roll. Katie was a master of the stifled eye roll. Along with the imaginary foot stomp, finger-down-the-throat gesture, forefinger pistol, and the ever popular middle finger salute. “Graham, really, we have to—”

“I’m gettin’ the general idea,” he said, his words quiet and meant only for her.

Something about that accent did all kinds of delicious, tingly things to her insides. Possibly enhanced by the fact that she was being held in his rather brawny arms, and could feel his heart beating just below her cheek. In fact, were he to turn, and lower his mouth just a scant few inches…she could find out what those lips of his tasted like.

Her own parted, without permission, then snapped shut again as his gaze lowered to hers. His dark pupils punched wide, swallowing up that crystalline gray, and broadcasting what looked like a very similar desire.

Oh. Oh my. Her heart fluttered, then she shut that down, too. So inappropriate, Katie! It was probably nothing more than a panic reaction to the pandemonium she was in the midst of—that she’d created. But still, no point in compounding things further.

Oh God, she thought, as her mind—and heart—raced ahead again. I’m really doing this! Reality started to crash in, along with the rest of the wedding party and most of the guest list. It was when the first flash went off that Graham finally took action.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said, ever so politely, as he gently but firmly bullied his way, shoulder and kilted hip first, past her gaping mother and furious father, past a mottled-faced Cricket, past the wedding photographers and videographers, who Katie prayed weren’t the ones using the flash. They’d never work in Annapolis again if that were the case, and were already going to be out a tidy sum for the event.

It should have been more difficult, but somehow Graham had them at the soaring chapel doors seemingly seconds later. It wasn’t until he pushed through them, launching them into the streaming sunlight and fresh air, that she realized she’d been holding her breath the entire time. She was gulping in air like a beached fish.

“Hold on,” he instructed.

Like she was going to do anything else. Her dress wasn’t exactly made for expedient transportation on foot. “Where are you going?” she asked, as he ducked left.

“My car is in the park, in the rear.”

“Limo. Curbside. Much closer.”

“But—”

Just then the doors burst open behind him, purging a throng of satin- and suit-clad people from the inner sanctum of the chapel.

“Limo it ’tis,” he said, and carried her down the stone steps with both a speed and agility that, at any other time, she’d have paid proper homage to, but at that moment, just hung on for dear life and prayed they made it to the limo in one piece. “Sir,” Graham shouted at the driver. “If you could be so kind as to start the car!”

The driver, who was leaning against the far side of the car, smoking a cigarette glanced up, his eyes widening in surprise—which wasn’t all that odd, considering the spectacle they were making. His eyes widened farther as he spied the throng descending behind them.

“Right now, if you dinnae mind,” Graham shouted, as he closed in on the rear, curbside door.

The driver finally snapped to attention, automatically moving around the back of the car, ostensibly to open their door, as he was trained to do.

“I have it,” Graham assured him, as he held Katie more tightly with one arm. He fished his other hand out from the sea of streaming satin and lace to grapple with the door handle. “Just drive. Due haste, man.”

Katie wasn’t sure if it was the accent, the outfit, or both, but the driver sketched a quick salute and dashed for the driver’s side door. “You can put me down,” she told him. “I can manage the dress, if you’ll just—”

But he’d gotten the door open by then, and after a quick look past her shoulder, turned and all but stuffed her into the back seat. “Sorry,” he said, clambering in behind her. And there was a lot of him to clamber.

She was sorry the sudden waterfall of veil that flipped down over her face prevented her from getting a glimpse of what he wore under that tartan. Not that she’d been thinking about that. Of course she hadn’t. She’d just run out of a church. On her wedding day. Creating chaos and leaving her poor, beloved Blaine behind to handle God knew what. The very last thing she had any business thinking about, even in the most abstract of terms, was whether her partner in crime was going commando under his kilt.

She fought her way clear of the veil as the driver peeled away from the curb, sending her sprawling toward Graham, who was getting his own self situated on the seat next to her and couldn’t brace himself for the collision.

“Oh!” she gasped, planting her hands on his chest—his broad, well-muscled chest. How was it, back in the garden, she’d thought him a kind of gentle giant, albeit a bit of an odd soul as well, who’d just happened across an angry bride and tried his best to console her? Because the man who’d stood up inside her family church and loudly proclaimed her to be his, who’d caught her in his arms, then boldly confronted her parents before making his way through an angry throng, leaping down old stone steps and carrying her swiftly to their escape chariot…wasn’t anything like that guy in the garden.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to extricate herself, but her veil was hopelessly caught and knotted on the giant sword he had pinned to his plaid, keeping the tartan from slipping off his shoulder. Like it would dare.

“Stop squirming for a wee moment,” he instructed, trying to blow the netting off his face. “Just—”

She reached up and tugged the whole thing off her head, sending a number of pins and clips flying. She didn’t care, although she was certain her veil-hair look was ever-so-delightful. But it wasn’t like she had to worry about the after-ceremony photos. “There,” she said, thrusting it at him. “It’s not like I need it anymore.” Then it hit her, all over again. What she’d done.

Had she really, truly, just done that? Walked out on her family?

How wrong was it, that on her wedding day, when she’d left a man standing at the altar—a man she did love—it was leaving her family that scared her more.

Graham took the veil from her, frowning, and held it in his hands, not looking at it, but staring at her.

She noticed, and paused in her attempts to tame the skirt of her dress into something she could actually sit in, while simultaneously keeping her tightly laced boobs from not cutting off her breathing entirely. “What?”

He snapped out of his reverie, and ducked his chin as he went to work, carefully untangling the veil from his sword. “Nothing, nothing a’tall.”

He sounded like the man in the garden—which would be interesting at any other time. She dared a glance out the rear window as the limo careened around the corner, mercifully cutting the church from view. She let out a deep sigh of relief, which did absolutely nothing to quell the wave of nausea climbing rapidly up her throat. “Driver! Pull over! Pull over!”

The driver immediately swerved to the nearest curb, sending her once again sprawling across Graham’s lap. She shoved the door handle and pulled herself straight over him, just in time to get her head past the running board, and…nothing. Dammit. She’d feel so much better, so much…freer, if she could just—

She froze when she felt his fingers moving along her spine. “What”—she cleared her throat, and it had nothing to do with the tightness of her dress or the urge to toss her cookies—“are you doing?”

“Ye canno’ breathe in this…contraption,” he said, and went to work unlacing the back of her dress.

“Seriously, you can’t do—oh.” She stopped speaking as her ability to take in a deep breath became a possibility. She breathed deeply twice more. Then sighed—heavily, for a change—in abject relief. “Thank you,” she said, never more sincerely. “But…you need to stop, uh, or I won’t have—”

“Give me a moment,” he said, every bit as calm and collected as he’d been in the garden.

Her port in the storm, indeed.

He tugged gently on the laces, but not so much that she felt constrained. He fiddled about a moment longer, then said, “There. All set.”

She fumbled and reached behind her, then struggled to sit back up. He helped her by all but lifting her from him and settled her back in her seat. The way one might a stuffed doll. Albeit a doll one had affection for, as he’d done it as gently as possible.

“Thank you,” she said again. “I can—” She paused, breathed, and realized she didn’t feel nauseous anymore. “Thank you,” she repeated.

“Are ye all right?” Graham asked. He had one steadying hand on her shoulder. And it was steadying. Also distracting.

“I’m sorry for the drama there. I thought I was going to…you know.”

“And are you?”

She shook her head. “I just wanted to.” Right before curling up into the fetal position and doing her damndest to forget the entire day had ever happened. “I’m good now. It was the dress, I guess.”

Graham tapped on the divider window with his free hand, and the town car pulled away from the curb and resumed their journey. He lifted his hand from her shoulder and pushed the tumble of hair from her face. “I’m certain it was more than the dress. But I’m glad that much has been resolved.”

He pushed the last wayward strand from her cheek, which was such a soothing gesture, she caught herself pressing lightly against the palm of his hand. It was hard, and callused…but also warm, and gentle despite being broad enough to cup most of the side of her head in his palm alone. The acid wave in her gut was gone. Instead she had to contend with a sudden burning sensation behind her eyes. No. She was not going to get emotional. McAuleys didn’t get emotional.

Though she’d always thought that rule was restrictive bordering on cruel, especially when she’d been a youngster, all that training should be good for something. Right then, crying was not going to do her any good. Later, when she was alone, it was going to be the sobfest of the century, accompanied by a gluttony of chocolate if she had anything to say about it. And possibly large quantities of whatever adult beverage she could get her hands on.

But not yet. She’d done the hard part. Okay, so part one of the hard part. Certainly there was worse yet to come. She could not allow herself to fall apart at the first sign of someone showing concern or caring. She’d just claimed her independence, literally in front of God and everyone. She was on her own, her own woman. Hear her roar.

And though she hadn’t been in that new stage of her life very long, she was pretty sure being independent precluded leaning on anyone. Certainly not inside the first five minutes, anyway.

“I’m okay,” she said, forcing the words past the lump in her throat, then forcing that down, too. She removed herself from his warmth and care and concern. It would be her undoing if she allowed herself even a second more of it. It was all catching up to her in a giant rush of reality and she wasn’t prepared to deal with that part yet. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready.

“Where to, sir?” The driver’s voice crackled through the intercom. The glass partition between them was smoked, making the driver nothing more than a shadowy figure on the other side.

“Airport,” Graham said. “Baltimore.”

Katie didn’t argue. In fact, hearing the word airport helped yank her brain back to the matter at hand. She had not a prayer of figuring out what to do with the rest of her life, much less the catastrophic ramifications of what she’d just left behind—especially during a hell-for-leather limo ride in her half undone wedding dress, with a gigantic, mad Scotsman who claimed he owned her, as her only support system. That would not be happening. All she really had to do, right that very second, was figure out what to do next. The rest would work itself out in time.

An eon or two should do it.

She had no idea what Graham had in mind, although she assumed it was a flight back to the U.K. Scotland, however, was not on her itinerary. Not that day. Not ever. She and Blaine were supposed to be flying to Italy for an extended tour through wine country, followed by a river cruise through the Gota Canal in Sweden. She had all the tickets and documents tucked in her bags in the trunk of the limo. While a part of her wished, badly, that she could have somehow gotten Blaine out of the country and away from the fire and brimstone and hell hath no fury that was surely happening back in the church, she also knew that by leaving her family behind, she’d had no choice but to also leave Blaine. They couldn’t continue to be partners in crime if only one of them wanted the prison break.

She had realized for some time, their co-dependancy was the biggest part of the reason why they’d put up with their families’ respective crap as long as they had.

So she’d go to Italy. Alone. And maybe Sweden, too. Though the canal part had been for Blaine. He was an engineer trapped in the body of an heir to an empire he didn’t want. Seeing one of the great wonders of the engineering world was to have been her wedding gift to him. It was as close as he would come to realizing his own dream of designing new infrastructure systems to help solve engineering issues in underdeveloped countries. Maybe she’d overnight his tickets to him from the airport. Encourage him to go on his own. Or take Tag. Whatever. Maybe he’d embark on the new chance she’d given him by finally, mercifully, breaking them both free.

She wondered if he was doing that…or if he was already struggling to patch things up. At least, leaving as she had, clearly showing that he’d had no knowledge of it, he could be the poor victim, and martyr the whole thing. If he wanted to go that way. She fervently, fervently, prayed he would not. If he didn’t use her escape to break free, she knew he never would. And he’d spend the rest of his life living a lie. Multiple lies.

She wasn’t doing that. Not anymore. She’d go to Italy, soak up lovely scenery, drink copious amounts of alcohol, eat an obscene amount of pasta, and figure out what a woman did who’d just turned her back on every scrap of support she had—on her family, on her entire life. If that wasn’t enough of an emotional whirlpool, she was also going to come home to the stark reality of no roof over her head, no bank accounts she could access, and surely no job to report to. And most likely no one to turn to while she got on her feet. She doubted her friends would stand up to the pressure her family was certain to bring to bear on them. She couldn’t blame them for that. Her only true friend was Blaine. And she doubted he’d be opening his door to her after what she’d just done to him.

It struck her then. So obvious, and yet previously so unthinkable. But…What if…Could she just…never go home?

She stifled an urge to gasp. But the skies didn’t open, terror didn’t reign down. She wasn’t even struck by lightning for daring to have such an anarchist thought.

Wow. Could she really not go home? Actually, now that she thought about it, did she really have a choice?

She rubbed a spot over her heart, the pain there like a sharp stab. But what other choice had there been left to make? Her family hadn’t left her much of one. Yes, she should have planned a better exit strategy than bailing out on a lifetime commitment to the joint family empire then ditching it and running away from it on her wedding day.

But…too late! There was no turning back, no do-over.

So, okay. Fine. Good. She’d spent the past six years since completing her MBA making sure that McAuley-Sheffield, a company that employed hundreds of people, ran like a tightly oiled machine. Surely she could figure out how to run a tightly oiled company of one. She’d just pick some new place and…start from scratch. She was educated. She had skills. She had dreams. Okay maybe not actually fully realized ones, like Blaine had, but that was only because she’d been too busy being self-protective. Don’t allow yourself to want what you can’t have, and life went a lot more smoothly. With her thirtieth birthday in viewing distance, she was finally daring to dream.

So what if, at the moment, it felt a lot more like a hallucination.

The idea should have terrified her, or at the very least caused a case of semi-hysterical giggles. Instead…it excited her. In a terrifying, semi-hysterical way. The kind that didn’t so much make her want to giggle as to throw up again, but she could work on that part. It was early yet.

She looked at Graham, who was still unknotting her veil. More likely he was simply politely leaving her to gather herself, and her thoughts. She appreciated both. She looked away from him and through her passenger window as her beloved waterfront hometown passed by in a blur. There was a slight prickle behind her eyes again. Nothing was ever going to be the same. Would she ever walk the docks there again? Eat ice cream at Storm Brothers? Chat up Dixon over at Waterbend? She might have issues with her family, but she loved her hometown. Deeply. In many ways, it was her only other true friend. She fought back the tears, but her deep sigh brought Graham’s head up.

“Ye’ve done the right thing, you know.” He said it with quiet confidence, as if she’d just carried on her entire internal debate out loud. It was exactly the kind of unquestioning support she needed. Except he was a complete stranger and had absolutely no idea the enormity of what she’d just done.

“I dinnae claim to understand what all you’re dealing with,” he said, as if reading her mind. “But you wouldn’t have been out in that garden, so angry and upset, if being inside and saying your vows was the right thing to do.” He tucked the netting in one hand and reached out with his other. “I know what I said, back in the chapel, must ha’e sounded like the rantings of a lunatic. I-I honestly don’t know where that came from. Heat of the moment, perhaps. I did mean what I said in the garden, though. I promise you, we’ll talk it all through, come up with a working plan, that does the best by both of us. You’ve my word on that.”

He laid his hand over hers then, and she wanted to yank it away, to tell him right then and there that while she might have agreed to things back in the chapel, she had no idea what she’d been saying either. Guilt took the place of the sadness of watching her hometown fall into the distance behind them. But she couldn’t let that undo her.

She’d thank him for getting her out of there, and make it worth his while, if there was any possible way to repay a man for saving her life. But she wasn’t going to Scotland with him. And she certainly wasn’t going to marry him. She’d just run from one arranged marriage.

She’d have to be crazy to even consider running toward another, regardless of the reasons behind it.

But she didn’t yank her hand away. Nor did she tell him any such thing. Instead she lifted her thumb and stroked the sides of his warm, strong fingers, guiltily allowing herself, for those few moments, to drink in his easy strength, his confidence.

He was both haven and shelter. He was on her side. It was wrong of her to take that shelter and not tell him the truth. She knew that. But she had no one else. Very soon she wouldn’t have him, either.

She’d already used up all the backbone she had in her for the day. Possibly a lifetime, comparatively speaking. It was purely about survival. She’d apologize for that, too. Later. As soon as they got to the airport and escape was in sight.

After all, she’d already left one man at the altar. How hard could it be to leave another at a ticket counter?