Читать книгу His Brother's Fiancee - Jasmine Cresswell - Страница 14

CHAPTER THREE

EMILY DIDN’T NEED to ask where everyone was when she finally managed to fight her way through the crush of city traffic and return to the Chambers’s house. The sound of loud, angry voices informed her she would find a large gathering of furious people in the family room at the rear of the house.

Feet dragging, she walked slowly down the hallway, fighting a cowardly urge to hide in one of the formal reception rooms, where the heavy antique furnishings provided cover, and Victorian oil portraits of Chambers ancestors looked down at the goings-on of their descendants with bland indifference.

The irate voices grew progressively louder, with Mr. Chambers’s upper-crust baritone booming over a cacophony of other speakers. Her mother sounded as if she might be crying, and Emily winced in anticipation. The prospect of opening the door to the family room and facing the hurt and disappointment of her parents was almost enough to have Emily turn tail and run as fast as her legs could carry her in the opposite direction. But the thought of Mr. Chambers berating her mother put some steel into her flabby backbone. Reminding herself that a canceled wedding barely rated as an earthshaking problem in the grand scheme of things, Emily opened the door.

The family room was little used and quite small, converted from a combination of the old butler’s pantry and housekeeper’s sitting room. Right now it appeared crammed to overflowing with irate people. Her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Chambers. Michael. Jeff Greiff, his campaign manager. Michael’s brother, Jordan, was also there, standing a little apart from the others and staring out of the window. He was the only person who wasn’t yelling, shouting or crying.

Emily swallowed hard. The tension swirling around the room was powerful enough to squeeze the air out of her lungs. Her vocal chords stubbornly refused to function and she pressed her hands to her rib cage, trying to speak, but no words came. Surprisingly, it was Jordan who noticed her arrival first, even though his back was toward the door.

“Emily’s here,” he said, half turning. He spoke quietly, but his cool tones penetrated the hullabaloo, and the babble of exasperated voices stopped for a few seconds while everyone swiveled around to stare at her. She’d noticed before that Jordan rarely needed to raise his voice in order to make his presence felt, and she wondered why his family seemed unaware of the fact that on the rare occasions when he wanted to, Jordan could dominate any situation he found himself in.

Amelia Chambers spoke first, her voice acid with sarcasm. “Well, it’s the vanishing bride! How good of you to put in an appearance. Finally. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.”

Emily flushed. “I had an appointment on the far side of town, Mrs. Chambers. I’m sorry to have kept everyone waiting.”

Amelia was standing by the fireplace, her hand resting on the mantelpiece. At Emily’s reply, she drew herself up to her full, imposing five feet nine inches and squinted down her narrow, patrician nose, her nostrils flaring with temper.

“You had an appointment across town?” She sounded incredulous, as if Emily had admitted to taking off for a brief trip to the planet Mars.

“It was a long-standing commitment. A business appointment.”

“Oh, well, that explains everything. I appreciate your finding time to squeeze us into your busy schedule.” Amelia rarely lost her temper, but when she did, her sarcasm could corrode steel. “Perhaps, now that you’re here, you’d be kind enough to give us some clue as to why you’ve chosen to ruin my son’s life?”

“You’ve no call to talk to my daughter in that nasty tone of voice!” Raelene Sutton, plump and petite, sprang to her daughter’s defense like a sparring bantam hen, giving Emily no chance to speak for herself. “If she’s called off her engagement to your son, you can be sure she has a good reason for it.”

“Yes, and I’d like to know what that reason is,” Sam Sutton said fiercely. “What did your son do to my little girl that she doesn’t want to marry him anymore?”

Sam was a good six inches shorter than Michael, but that didn’t deter him from confronting his daughter’s former fiancé. Hands on hips, lower lip thrust out, he looked as if he’d as soon punch Michael’s nose as listen to an explanation.

Michael stepped back, alarmed. “I didn’t do anything to your daughter!” he protested, sounding aggrieved. “Emily, tell everyone the truth! Explain to your parents that you called off our engagement because we were incompatible. You have to convince them you’re okay with this! Nobody seems to believe me.”

Emily sent him an astonished glance, although she didn’t really look at him. Couldn’t look at him and maintain any pretense of being in control. Was this how Michael had resolved the dilemma of explaining that he’d called off their wedding? By blaming it all on her? If she hadn’t felt so numb—so bludgeoned—she thought she might have been angry.

How little Michael understood her, she reflected wearily. After three months as her fiancé, he still didn’t recognize that she was a conformist to the core of her being. But unlike Michael, her parents knew her well enough to realize she would never have suggested canceling the wedding at this late date except in the most dire of circumstances. No wonder they were worried sick, imagining what those dire circumstances could be.

When she didn’t immediately speak up, Michael came and stood at her side, his confident manner suggesting that he harbored no real doubt that she’d go along with his version of events. He obviously assumed she was still such a captive of his charm that she would meekly accept whatever story he cooked up, Emily thought, seething at his attitude. Had she really been such a wimp in their relationship? Was it only a few hours earlier that she had found his arrogance appealing?

“Tell everyone that you want to call off the wedding, Emily. Help me out here.” Michael flashed one of his cajoling smiles, reminiscent of Bruce Willis at his most endearing. Smiles she had previously considered irresistible and now found repellant. “Please tell them that you don’t want to go through with this charade, honey. Tell them it’s a mutual decision.”

Emily had new insights into Michael’s character now that she hadn’t enjoyed this morning, and she felt sure he hadn’t lied about their breakup in order to save her injured pride. He was laying the blame for their broken engagement on her doorstep simply because his jaunty confidence was a sham. Deep inside where it really counted, he was too gutless to stand up and take responsibility for a mess that was entirely his own creation.

Despite her anger, if he wanted to pile all the blame on her, she didn’t really care. Nothing could avoid the humiliation that was building inexorably toward tomorrow’s climax, when 350 guests would gather for a wedding that wouldn’t happen. In the circumstances, did it matter how the guilt was apportioned? In fact, she could only agree with Michael about their incompatibility. Whatever the true reasons for his last-minute decision to call off the wedding, she probably ought to be grateful that he wanted out. After today’s events, there was no avoiding the conclusion that they were wildly unsuited to each other. It seemed inevitable that their marriage would have ended in crushing failure. Better that it never take place.

Right now, though, it was difficult to feel gratitude, with Holt and Amelia Chambers looking so disgruntled and her parents looking so devastated. Still, she couldn’t give her parents false hope. The wedding was off and, since there was no way to change that, she needed to confirm that the break between her and Michael was beyond mending. There were business considerations at stake here, in addition to everything else. Holt Chambers and her father had signed a preliminary agreement to develop Laurel Acres, a major construction project in the hill country region north of San Antonio. If her marriage to Michael didn’t take place, that deal might be at risk. Her father had old-fashioned values and tried to do business only with people whom he respected. He might not want to continue in partnership with the Chamberses if he decided that Michael had treated her badly.

Michael’s father wasn’t a warmhearted man, but he’d been as kind to her as his uptight nature permitted, and she knew he needed the projected partnership a great deal more than her father, whose canny judgment and hard work had made him a millionaire many times over. By contrast, since her engagement, she’d come to realize that the Chambers family was long on ancient lineage and seriously short of ready cash.

Emily knew she had it within her power to wreak revenge on Michael simply by telling the truth. For a moment she was tempted, then her better nature won out. No point in punishing Holt Chambers because Michael had turned out to be a jerk.

Her silence had already gone on way too long, and she spoke quickly, before her good intentions melted in the heat of disgust for Michael’s behavior. “A marriage between the two of us would never have worked,” she said woodenly. “We don’t love each other enough to make a go of our relationship. Under the circumstances, we decided to cancel the wedding ceremony tomorrow. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Very sorry.”

She spoke to a spot angled somewhere between her parents’ concerned faces. Which, by an unfortunate fluke, brought her slap bang into visual contact with Jordan Chambers. He looked at her quizzically and she felt heat flare in the pit of her stomach. From the time of their disastrous encounter in Mary Christine Bernauer’s bedroom, Michael’s brother always produced that effect on her, and Emily intensely disliked the sensation.

Cheeks burning, she dropped her gaze and stared fixedly at her shoes. Even though she could no longer see him, she knew instinctively that Jordan continued to look at her. She felt the touch of his gaze as a physical entity, unsettling, but compelling. His silent inspection continued and the heat in her cheeks spread through her body, blazing all the way to her toes.

With a liberating sense of release, Emily realized there was no longer any reason for her to conceal her dislike of Michael’s brother. She jerked her head upward and sent him a gaze of fulminating fury. Here was a genuine blessing about her broken engagement, she thought grimly. At least she would never have to be polite to Jordan again.

He held her gaze for several tense seconds, then turned back to his original position at the window, staring outside as if fascinated by the view of the barren, sun-drenched courtyard. Emily drew in a shaky breath, determined to get a grip on herself. She could only hyperventilate about one disaster at a time, and right now, her antagonistic relationship with Jordan Chambers shouldn’t even be registering on her personal disaster scale. She had bigger problems to worry about.

She was concentrating so hard on ignoring Jordan that she jumped when Jeff Greiff spoke. “You and Michael need to come up with a better explanation for the breakup than being incompatible,” the campaign manager said. “When a celebrity couple splits and tries to claim incompatibility, the media just invent a more interesting story. Gone are the days when keeping a discreet silence ensures that gossip dies down faster. Nowadays, silence is an open invitation to scandal. Mega scandal.”

Jeff puffed out his cheeks, looking self-important and vaguely ridiculous to Emily’s jaundiced eyes. “You can’t afford scandal right now, Michael,” he went on. “Quite apart from the disastrous effect on our fund-raising potential, you’re just starting to get some name recognition with the voters. Negative publicity could sink your positive ratings to a point where they can’t be salvaged. We can’t afford any negative press right now.” He scowled at Emily. “The timing for this breakup really sucks, you know.”

Emily almost apologized, then stopped herself just in time. Michael’s campaign problems were not of her making and she had zero sympathy for his plight. In fact, given the weakness of character he’d revealed today, a dose of negative publicity might not be a bad thing. The people of Texas deserved better than a man who broke promises and then tried to weasel out of the consequences.

She finally brought herself to look squarely at her former fiancé, letting him see her scorn. He stared back at her somewhat helplessly, then ran his hand through his thick, glossy hair, looking a great deal more worried now than he had when he announced the ending of their engagement. “This is a hell of a mess,” he said, handsome jaw clenched.

“You could certainly say that,” Emily agreed. “Personally, I suggest we stop tossing around blame and make up our minds what we’re going to say to the 350 people who are expecting to watch us get married tomorrow.”

Michael sucked in a nervous gulp of air, then scowled. “My God, this is a public relations nightmare.”

“You should have thought of that earlier, I guess.”

“I did think about it. But I didn’t have much choice—“ He scowled. “Damn! Why couldn’t all this have come to light weeks ago? There would be no story for any reporters to run with if it weren’t for the fact that the wedding’s only hours away.”

“You’re right. It’s the wedding ceremony itself that’s the real problem.” Jeff Greiff paced nervously. “The guest list includes three U.S. senators and the secretary of defense—”

“Dear lord,” Amelia whispered, fanning herself. The poor woman looked truly ill. “What in the world are we going to do? What shall we say?”

“The out-of-town guests are all due at the dinner tonight, so there’s no way to head them off,” Jeff said with gloomy relish. “They’ll have left Washington already. What kind of spin can we put on this? My God, Michael, if you’d set out to piss off the movers and shakers who’ve supported your candidacy for governor, you couldn’t have done a better job.”

Amelia stopped glaring at Emily long enough to direct an icy glance at her son’s campaign manager. “This horrible situation isn’t improved by using coarse language, Jeff.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” Jeff turned away, rolling his eyes once he was out of Amelia’s line of vision.

Raelene broke into a fresh burst of tears. “I don’t care about the senators or any of your other fancy guests,” she wailed. “All I care about is my daughter. I don’t understand, Emmie. You looked so beautiful when we went for the final fitting on your wedding dress yesterday. You seemed so calm, so sure of yourself….”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Emily interrupted, unable to bear any more reminders of how naively content she’d been a mere twenty-four hours earlier. “I guess Michael and I discovered we weren’t in love—”

“Now, now, muffin, you know we aren’t going to believe that load of garbage.” Her father took her hand, patting it as much to comfort himself as to reassure her. “We’re not angry with you, Emmie, we just want to understand. At breakfast you gave us no hint—none!—that you were having second thoughts. What happened between breakfast and lunch to make you change your mind?”

Emily opened her mouth, then shut it again, unable to think of a single intelligent thing to say. She wanted to help Mr. Chambers salvage his business partnership with her dad, but she realized that might be impossible. Her parents simply knew her too well to believe the story Michael was trying to pass off on them.

“I know it’s out of character for me to do something like this,” she said in a final attempt to make the incredible sound reasonable. “The truth is—”

“The truth is that you and I need to talk,” Jordan interrupted. “Now, Emily, before you say anything more.”

“Excuse me?” Emily stared at him, sufficiently astonished to forget that looking at Jordan invariably produced an absurd and troublesome rush of heat. Their eyes met and, on cue, her cheeks flamed, but for once she ignored the sensation. “I can’t think of a single thing that you and I might need to discuss, Jordan.”

“You’re not handling this the right way,” he responded coolly. “Trust me, Emily, we need to talk.”

She glared at him. “Have you ever noticed that it’s only people who are completely untrustworthy who tell you to trust them?”

Jordan flashed her a brief, hard smile. “Darling, this isn’t going to get us anywhere, you know. We need to discuss the situation privately. Just the two of us.”

He’d called her darling. Emily’s stomach performed a back flip. She was sufficiently stupefied by Jordan’s endearment that she forgot to reply, just stared at him with her mouth hanging open. What in the world was going on? This was the man she despised, the man who had never yet spent ten minutes in her company without saying something that provoked an argument. Was the entire Chambers family going mad?

If they weren’t collectively nuts, perhaps she was. Maybe this crazy cancellation of the wedding was a nightmare, and she would wake up any second. Surreptitiously, Emily gave her arm a hard pinch and waited in hope.

Unfortunately, it seemed that she wasn’t dreaming. Jordan walked across the room and touched his finger to her chin, gently closing her mouth. She opened it again to speak, but Jordan closed it once more, this time with considerable firmness.

“Not here, dearest.”

First darling, and now dearest. She’d definitely slipped down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, Emily decided.

Jordan turned to the assembled company. From their silence, Emily deduced they were all as bewildered as she was. “Excuse us,” he said. “Give us fifteen minutes, will you?”

He didn’t wait for a response, just put his hand under Emily’s elbow and propelled her from the crowded family room, shutting the door on the explosion of questions that followed their exit.

“They’ll be hot on our tail within minutes,” he said as soon as they were in the hall. “We’ll have to use the library. That’s the only room with a lock on the door.”

“I have no intention of going anywhere with you, least of all into a room where we’re locked in—”

Jordan swung her up into his arms, carried her into the library, and set her down on her feet, turning the key in the door behind them. “Sorry about that,” he said, strolling over to the fireplace and standing with one foot resting on the old-fashioned fender, his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. “I’m not trying to lock you in, Em, I’m trying to keep everyone else out while we talk.”

Emily tugged at the linen jacket of her suit, her breathing shallow and her heart thudding. She refused to let him see the turmoil she felt, and she addressed him coolly. “Tell me, Jordan, is the insanity you and your brother suffer from hereditary? If so, I guess I should be grateful that your brother decided to dump me. Much as I want to have children, I’d prefer them not to be crazy.”

Instead of appearing insulted, Jordan grinned. “You might have had girls,” he said. “I’ve heard rumors that the Chambers women usually escape the family affliction.”

“You mean insanity really does run in your—“ Emily broke off, pressing her hands to her forehead. “No, of course it doesn’t. You’re not going to do this to me today, Jordan.”

“Do what?”

“Distract me. Confuse me.” She hadn’t intended to admit that he had the power to discompose her, and she hurried on. “We’re going to have a brief, rational conversation and then I’m going back to talk with my parents. Why have you dragged me in here, Jordan?”

“I thought it might be a good idea if we got married tomorrow.” Jordan made the suggestion with a casualness that would have been entirely appropriate if he’d been suggesting that she might like to try out a new restaurant for brunch on Sunday.

Emily clutched the back of the nearest chair. Jordan had asked her to marry him. She was quite sure she’d heard him do that. Unless she was hallucinating. Was she? She felt her mouth start to drop open again, and she hurriedly closed it.

This library was not a good place to be alone with a Chambers male, she decided. First Michael had called off their wedding for no reason at all. Now Jordan was suggesting something even more totally crazy. So crazy, in fact, that Emily felt a spurt of genuine alarm. She hadn’t been serious in suggesting Jordan and Michael were suffering from the onset of insanity. Maybe she should have been.

“I don’t think marriage would work out too well for us,” she said, trying to keep her voice soft and nonthreatening. She even managed a small, reassuring smile. When dealing with lunatics, it was best to be gentle. “Thanks for asking, Jordan, but if you remember, we don’t like each other. I have this quaint, old-fashioned dislike of men who sleep with other men’s wives.”

Damn! If he was mentally unstable, maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the fact that they disliked each other. Much less reminded him of their disastrous second meeting, a couple of days after their formal introduction, when she had discovered Jordan romping under satin sheets with Mary Christine, the twenty-three-year-old wife of Emily’s sixty-year-old client, Ted Bernauer.

All things considered, escape from the study seemed like a truly excellent plan. Either Jordan was nuts or she was. Why hang around to find out who? She was closer to the door than Jordan, so keeping her smile fixed in place, she tried to back up toward it without drawing attention to her movements.

Jordan might have lost his mind, but his vision remained acute, and his physical coordination excellent. In three quick strides, he crossed the room and pulled her away from the door, spread-eagling his body between her and her escape route.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding sincerely apologetic as he pocketed the key. “But I really need you to listen to my proposal.”

“I already had one of those from Michael,” she replied tightly. “I believe I’m a little burned out on proposals from the Chambers men.”

His gaze narrowed. “Proposition might be a better word in my case. I’m offering you a face-saving deal, Emily. You owe it to yourself to listen. Marry me tomorrow, and the joint business venture between my father and yours can go on as planned. Marry me tomorrow, and the ceremony will probably be over before half the guests even notice that you’re exchanging rings with the wrong brother.”

“Thanks again for the generous offer, Jordan, but before we get carried away, let’s remember there’s one teensy-tiny problem with your scheme.”

“What’s that?”

“Half the guests might not notice that I’d married the wrong brother, but I would.” Emily spoke more harshly than she’d intended, mostly because for a few insane seconds, she’d actually found herself considering his proposition. Surely she was hitting a new low to even contemplate accepting Jordan’s proposal just because it would provide a groom for tomorrow’s ceremony.

Jordan shrugged. “It wouldn’t be a lifetime sentence,” he said. “We can have the big, splashy wedding our parents planned, and then, in a few months, we can get a quiet, civilized divorce.”

“Divorce is never civilized,” Emily said. “It’s a heartbreaking betrayal of promises.”

“There would be no heartbreak in our case. You can’t betray promises that were never made. We’re not promising each other anything except to go through a ceremony and live in the same house just long enough for the media to lose interest in the Chambers family. These days, I’d figure that’s about a week.”

“You’re forgetting Michael’s campaign for governor.”

“Hmm…true. In view of my brother’s prominent position, the media interest might have a lingering half life. I guess we’d better agree up front that we’ll stick it out until the start of the new year. Michael’s campaign should be firmly established by then.”

“That’s more than four months from now!”

Jordan shrugged. “Four months is hardly a life sentence. We don’t have to live in each other’s pockets the whole time. In fact, we should probably give the marriage a year. That would allow the Chambers-Sutton land development deal ample time to get off the ground.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly understanding Jordan’s motives in making the offer to marry her. She quashed an entirely irrational twinge of disappointment. “So that’s what this proposal is really about—money. You’re worried that my father’s money is going to vanish from the Chambers bank accounts if I don’t marry your brother.”

Jordan didn’t contradict her. “Your father and mine have put together a complicated business deal that requires a lot of trust on both sides. My family is giving up land that we’ve owned for generations. Your father is supplying development capital and design ideas. A feud between the two parties isn’t going to make for a successful development. If this project isn’t a success, both parties could end up losing their shirts.”

She was surprised that Jordan had been paying sufficient attention to know some of the details of the proposed Laurel Acres partnership deal. He was notorious for his lack of involvement in his family’s investment and banking business. To his parents’ dismay, he had dropped out of college in his junior year and struck out on his own, claiming that he wanted to become a carpenter. The Chamberses considered any profession that involved sweat and hammers beneath them, so they were seriously unhappy about his choice of career. Their complaints got louder and more frequent as Jordan’s circle of blue-collar friends expanded and his visits to the family mansion became less and less frequent. Even Michael was annoyed by his brother’s refusal to participate in the complicated network of social events that bound together the rarefied world of Texas high society.

Jordan remained unmoved by his family’s reproaches. He never argued with them—he simply refused to change his career or drop his friends in order to suit their sense of what was socially acceptable. Ignoring bribes and threats from his parents, he designed a line of inexpensive kitchen cabinets, found financial backing, set up a manufacturing plant out in the boonies, and seemed to make enough money to live comfortably. He often disappeared for weeks at a stretch, leaving no clue as to where he had gone or what he was doing. His parents and brother, whose business, social and political ambitions were tightly interwoven, found his elusiveness absolutely infuriating.

Unlike the Chamberses, Emily had no problem with Jordan’s choice of career, and she admired his ability to make a success, however modest, without turning to his father for startup capital. She even understood his need for independence, since she’d struggled with similar issues with her own parents. It was his moral code she couldn’t tolerate, especially the fact that his romp with Mary Christine was rumored to be only one in a long series of affairs with married women.

“Why the sudden interest in the Laurel Acres project?” she asked him. “I thought you made a big deal out of the fact that you weren’t involved in any of the Chambers business ventures.”

If she’d hoped to penetrate Jordan’s self-possession, she should have known better. “I made an exception in this case. I got involved.”

“Running short of money, Jordan?”

He sent her a glance that was somewhere between cynical and indifferent. “I don’t need my father’s money. I have access to plenty of my own.”

“Got a new rich girlfriend?” she asked spitefully, then wondered why Jordan invariably managed to provoke her into bad behavior.

His smile betrayed not a twinge of shame. “Of course.”

She turned abruptly, more hurt than she understood or wanted to acknowledge. “Jordan, this conversation is crazy. I would like to go back to the family room so that we can start a serious discussion of exactly what we’re going to say to the guests tonight.”

“Before you worry about what you’re going to tell the guests, don’t you think you should at least tell your parents the truth?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your engagement didn’t end by mutual agreement,” Jordan said. “Michael called it off. He left you absolutely no choice in the matter, and yet you’re still protecting him. Why? I don’t believe you love him that much.”

“How do you know Michael called off the engagement?” she demanded.

“You don’t lie very well, Emily. Besides, I’m a hundred percent sure you’d never have pulled a stunt like this hours before the ceremony was due to take place.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think—”

“Maybe not. But you already told me yourself that Michael was responsible.”

“I told you? Of course I didn’t—”

“‘Is the insanity you and your brother suffer from hereditary?’“ he quoted. “‘If so, I guess I should be grateful that Michael decided to dump me.’“

She had said that, Emily realized. It was yet another of the disconcerting things about being with Jordan. Her normal barriers seemed to crumble and she let drop information she would never have revealed to another person.

“I’m not protecting your brother,” she said tiredly.

“No? Seems to me he dumped you, knowing darn well you’d cover his ass. And he was right.”

She flushed. “There just doesn’t seem to be any point in getting everyone angry with everyone else. The engagement is over, there isn’t going to be a wedding, and we need to move on.”

“Good thinking,” he said. “Is that what you plan to say at the bridal dinner tonight?”

Jordan asked the question without expression, yet Emily reacted with a sickening lurch of her stomach. She knew she spent too much of her life worrying about making a good impression, but however much she wished she could throw the inhibitions of a lifetime out the window, she couldn’t. She cared that she was going to humiliate herself and her parents in front of a very large crowd of very important people.

To her dismay, her throat tightened and she felt tears well in her eyes. It had been an exhausting, emotion-charged day, and she was afraid that if she started crying, she would be sobbing hysterically within seconds. She fumbled in the pocket of her tailored pants for a tissue and remembered they were all in her purse, which was still in the family room.

The first tears started to roll down her cheeks. She ordered herself to stop crying, but before she could get herself back under control, Jordan was at her side.

“Don’t cry,” he said softly, taking her into his arms, stanching the flow of tears with his thumbs. “Come on, Em, cheer up. It’s only a bunch of stuck-up old geezers who aren’t worth worrying about.”

She would have expected mockery from Jordan, or at least indifference. His sympathy was so unexpected that it had the disastrous effect of shattering what small remnant of self-control she still possessed. Aware at some deep level that she was allowing herself to do something incredibly dangerous, she laid her head against Jordan’s chest and gave way to the luxury of a noisy, uninhibited bout of weeping.

She heard the tattoo of multiple footsteps coming down the hallway but paid no attention until the pounding began on the study door.

“What’s going on in there?” Michael demanded.

“Let us in!” her father said. “Emily, Jordan—it’s been fifteen minutes already.”

“Are you all right?” Raelene asked anxiously. “Emily, honey, I can hear you crying!”

Jordan’s arms tightened fractionally around her. “I have to let them in,” he said.

“Yes, I know you do.” She tried to drag herself back together again.

He held her at arm’s length, wiping away a final tear. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She looked at him, unsure of herself, but surprisingly unembarrassed. “Thanks, Jordan.”

“You’re welcome.” He unlocked the door and everyone spilled into the library.

“Why are you crying?” Michael demanded.

“What did you need to discuss so urgently with Emily, Jordan?” Amelia sounded barely more friendly to her son than she had been earlier when speaking to Emily.

Jordan was still standing close enough to her that she could see the almost imperceptible flicker of a muscle in his jaw. “We were deciding that Emily really needed to tell you the truth about her broken engagement,” he said.

Her father sent Jordan an approving look. “That’s about the only sensible remark I’ve heard so far today. Since you seem to know what’s going on here, and Emily won’t tell us, why don’t you explain why the wedding’s been called off at the last minute?”

Jordan clamped his arm around Emily’s waist. “She wants to marry me,” he said. “We’ve been trying to fight our feelings for each other, but we couldn’t. Since you have a wedding planned for tomorrow anyway, we were hoping you’d all agree to go ahead on schedule. Except with me as the substitute groom.”