Читать книгу The Bridegroom's Secret - Melissa James - Страница 5

CHAPTER TWO

Eight Weeks Later

NEVER in his life had Matt thought he’d be reduced to fighting this dirty. But here he stood outside The Wedding Belles, Julie’s place of work, ready to—

Stop thinking about it. Just do it.

Standing next to his car, Matt tightened his jaw and flipped open his phone. “Hey, Callie, I’m outside. Is everything ready?”

“All systems up and running,” The Wedding Belles’ florist, Callie, replied, with a low laugh. Then, after a short silence, she whispered, “I’m used to doing… unusual things, and this has to be the most romantic way I’ve ever helped out a friend. But are you sure about this? This really is a federal offence.”

“Not if she’s willing, and since she’s my fiancée, I think we can assume she will be,” he replied lightly enough to reassure Callie. But inside, the gripping of his stomach, clenching over and over, signaled his desperation. Would Julie be willing once she knew what this was really about?

He’d pushed her to the edge over the past few months, been a fool to keep so many secrets from her—but he knew this one last secret could destroy them. He’d been trying to tell her for weeks, but after the night of their engagement party, even the thought of telling her made him freeze inside. His tongue glued to his mouth, he retreated behind his old friend and ally, silence.

A real man bears his burdens and mistakes alone. And he puts them right alone. His grandfather’s words.

After everything he’d put her through, to tell her now could be the end of them. But damn it, he wouldn’t let her walk out on him. Whatever it took, he’d keep her with him.

Callie’s voice started him out of his morbid thoughts. “Personally, I love what you’re doing. I wish Jared had thought about doing this to me,” she laughed, “but a couple of the girls are scared about becoming accessories to some kind of felony. And Jared’s worried, too.”

He didn’t blame Callie’s husband…in fact, he couldn’t blame any of them. “I won’t force her into anything she doesn’t want to do,” he said. But it was the biggest lie he’d ever told. He’d keep her in the car, in his house, in his life. Whatever it took to win her, he’d do it, short of a real abduction. He wasn’t that crazy.

He was just a man about to lose the woman he adored with a dozen words, and desperate enough to take the biggest risk of his life.

He’d spent a score of sleepless nights during the past eight weeks since the engagement-party disaster, trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, searching for the elusive miracle that would allow him to tell her what he should have told her at the start. But he’d been so lost in the happiness he’d never known before meeting Julie that the right time and the right words had never come.

Now it was too late.

At exactly 4:47 this morning, as the first threads of dawn had stretched their fingers across the sky, he’d squared his shoulders and faced the fact that he’d screwed up. Big-time. He should have told her about this long before he’d asked her to marry him, even before he’d found out McLachlan’s was in trouble. Now she didn’t want to know.

He’d thought giving her time would help. He’d crossed the country on a six-week nonstop selling tour after the fatal night of the engagement party, showing off the land prototype of his converter, and had sold its practical applications to two major players. Finally McLachlan’s was safe for future generations. Now his mother could have the comfortable retirement she deserved…and his workers and their families were secure.

He was finally free to tell Julie everything— to make her hear it. He’d been coming over to The Wedding Belles’, to her office apartment, and calling every day, from wherever he’d been—but she was now the one fobbing him off. She’d been avoiding him since the night of the party, and was using his own defence of “Don’t worry, it’s just work” against him.

The games would stop today. Julie would forgive him when she knew the truth. He refused to accept anything less. She was his life blood, his soul, and he’d fight for what was his. The rest of the plans he’d made with The Belles—the changes for their wedding—would prove that to Julie, when she was ready to hear them.

Hiding the grim resolution, he said to Callie, “So send her out. Let Julie’s kidnapping begin!”

Surely every bride feels this same need to bolt as the wedding gets close….

But Julie knew the stats. She’d reassured hundreds of nervous grooms, but only a few nervous brides in the three years she’d been working at The Wedding Belles.

What was wrong with her? She had everything— a dream wedding, Mr. Right…

Or so she’d thought, and that was the trouble. Since the night of their engagement party, she’d begun to wonder if he’d ever loved her, or if he was merely doing the right thing, the gentlemanly thing, rewarding her for standing by him during the dark times for McLachlan’s.

She knew it was paranoid, but whenever he was in town and came to see her, or when he called, she could hear it—he had something he needed to tell her, but it was bad. His obvious unhappiness at needing to tell her spoke for itself.

He’d been distracted for weeks before the party. She’d thought it was to do with the creation and marketing of the water converter that not only saved McLachlan’s but made him rich again.

Matt and Elise, that was.

She couldn’t face him. Couldn’t let him touch her. She’d never been able to resist him when his hands were on her, and there were too many doubts…not to mention that the wedding had become bigger than either of them. It resembled a runaway train careering downhill at a breakneck pace, and gaining speed by the second.

“Am I missing something, or has the hallway become more fascinating than it was half an hour ago?”

Julie smiled at Callie, the cheeky Belle. She used to use humour to hide her emotions from others; now, ecstatically wed to her high-school buddy turned sweetheart, Jared, whom they’d dubbed “My Favourite Geek”, Callie used humour to dig.

“Uniformity can be a good thing now and then,” she quipped back, hoping the joke didn’t fall flat. Hoping Callie didn’t keep digging. Her friends had all been trying to get her to talk to them for weeks now—since a few days after the engagement party—and it was obvious she was tense whenever she had to be with Matt for another interview or photo shoot. It was so tiring trying to act the happy bride-to-be, especially when every other Belle was a happy new bride or bride-to-be—or ecstatic new wife, in Regina’s case.

But until she’d spoken to Matt, it would be a betrayal.

The trouble was what to say. Three months ago she’d been certain Matt was the love of her life. Now she didn’t feel sure of anything.

“Change can be even better.” Callie said, braking in on Julie’s gloomy thoughts with a mysterious air…and a little wink.

Julie stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Callie shrugged just as Regina and Serena came out of their respective offices, and with conspiratorial smiles, each took one of Julie’s arms. “All work and no play has made Julie a very uptight girl lately. It’s time you had some fun.”

“And we know just the man you should be having fun with…” Regina said, with a mock- demure air.

Natalie and Audra joined the others. Since there were no arms left to take, Audra loosened Julie’s hair from its tight braid—her latest attempt to tame her wretched red curls—and Natalie put her hand firmly between Julie’s shoulder blades, pushing her toward the entryway.

“What have you done?” Julie asked, torn between laughter, dread and a sudden sense of gladness, a soaring hope.

Stupid woman. What are you expecting, hoping for?

Serena, another ecstatic newlywed, laughed. “We’re merely walking you out the door, darling. Welcome to your kidnapping. You’re off to the airport. He arranged everything, and you’d better go along with it!”

Matt had done this? What had he arranged…? Julie’s heartbeat fluttered as anticipation took wings. Was this what they needed? What had he arranged? Flowers perhaps, champagne, an island in the Caribbean? A week or two of the romance that had been stolen from them during the near collapse of McLachlan Industries, and the high- society, very public cancellation that had almost destroyed The Wedding Belles…?

Just an opportunity to talk—

What do we talk about? The secrets he’d been keeping? Elise?

Sudden panic gripped her. She didn’t know if she was ready to hear what he had to say. She tried to gather her thoughts, marshal arguments, but all she could think was time alone for the first time in a long time…with Matt. “But…my desk…”

“Is manned adequately and doin’ just fine, darlin’,” came the ladylike twang of the original Belle. “I haven’t done this in a long while. It’ll be fun. You’ve been a rock here since things started going downhill with the Vandiver cancellation. It’s our turn to give to you. You officially have two weeks off.”

“I already have next month off for the wedding and honeymoon,” she protested, feeling her throat closing up in protest and her heart, her stupid heart doing double time, whispering, Matt, Matt…

“We know,” Regina said gently, and kissed her cheek. “Consider this our prewedding present to you. You’ve covered for us during the past few months while we’ve fallen in love, beaten you to the altar or reconciled.” She smiled with quiet happiness, and Julie tried hard not to feel eaten up with envy, knowing each of the Belles deserved what they had. “And you never once complained.”

“So go.” Belle waved a hand with the Southern grace that allowed no room for dissent. “Get out that door, feel the sunshine and wind on your face and enjoy some time with that good-looking young man of yours.”

“It was your love story that helped us all find ours,” Callie said softly as they all marched her down the front passageway to the outside door. “We owe you, girl, big-time. Nobody deserves some happy time more than you and Matt. Now go.”

They pushed her gently through to the front of the building that housed The Wedding Belles. And beside the simple sedan he’d bought when he’d sold his beloved Jaguar to pay for her engagement ring, stood a tall, dark- haired man with touches of grey threaded through it, eyes like Antarctic ice, and a mouth so beautifully formed, so male, she ached to kiss him, long, slow and hot, until the fire blasted to life and she forgot the world existed.

Just as always.

The man of her daydreams, and more recently, her day-nightmares. Matt.

And, just like her daydream, he had flowers in one hand—but though he grinned and winked at the Belles, it was the expression hiding in his eyes that caught her breath in her throat. Bleak. Haunted. Resolute.

Nothing had changed.

It was time…and she definitely wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say.

After Matt handed Julie into the car with his customary courtesy, the remaining Belles sighed and looked at each other with a mixture of uneasiness and determination.

“I hope we did the right thing,” Natalie said quietly.

All of the Belles nodded. Not one of them had been truly fooled by Matt’s “kidnap” plan. Things had been strained between Julie and Matt for too long to be fixed with a quick romantic getaway, and Matt was far from stupid.

And they, too, had seen the look in his eyes.

Callie bit her lip. “I know how it feels to be with the wrong man. What if we just helped push Julie the wrong way?”

Audra sighed and looked bleak. Serena frowned, shading her eyes as she gazed after the departing car. “No. She loves Matt. I know she does…”

But her voice lacked its customary briskness and confidence.

Oddly enough, it was Regina, the least confident Belle unless she was behind her camera, who ended the indecision. “If Julie’s lost her faith, girls, we have to have it for her. No fears shown. No hesitation or uncertainty. I nearly lost Dell because of a lack of faith. I kept everything a secret, from him more so than from you, but all of you as well.”

“Me, too, with Kane,” Serena added soberly.

“Pride, fear and embarrassment can be a recipe for disaster,” Audra sighed.

“I believe we all met for a reason, and that Julie came to us for a reason. And I believe it’s partly because of Julie and Matt that we’re all so happy now. It’s our turn to give.” Regina looked around at each of her dearest friends. “I think Belle’s right. If Julie won’t share her worries with us, then we’ll keep throwing her together with Matt and see what happens. And believe the best will happen for them both, because we love them. Now, I don’t know about you girls, but I have a four-thirty about to come in and I have to turn the studio into a Carnivale in fourteen and a half minutes.”

The others smiled at Regina, still with the same uneasiness, but turned and walked into the building.

He was about to lose the entire contents of his stomach. Or maybe it was his heart that was coming up. It sure felt as if it was in his mouth about now.

Despite his plans to win her over, all the things he’d worked out to say, he barely spoke until he took the turnoff to the airport. He couldn’t make the words form. All he could think to say was, Do you still love me? But how could he, when he was almost sure he knew the answer and there was no way in hell he was prepared to hear it?

The clock was ticking. He had less than ninety minutes left to tell her, and trust that she’d be the strong, understanding woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman he’d relied on through the worst time of his life. His beautiful Julie…

“So,” she said, holding her flowers with fingers about to snap the stems, her voice over-bright. “The girls said we’re going to the airport. I hope you had things packed for me? Where are we heading—skiing? The Caribbean islands?” The final two words bordered on sarcastic. Obviously, his silence had given away that this wasn’t the kind of surprise it seemed.

She’d given him the opening he needed, but he refused to jump in and say it, to shock her that way. “Jules, you know I’ve been trying to get you alone since the day after our engagement party. I need to tell you something important, but you’ve been—” he paused so she’d get the full sense of his meaning “—very busy. But I knew you wouldn’t say no to the Belles if they helped me arrange time off for you.”

She flushed, as he’d expected she would. Julie’s honesty compelled her to say what came next. “I know it seems like I’ve been avoiding you…”

“Seems like?” He heard the rip-roaring fury in his voice, and knew it came from months of hurt. “You have avoided me, for almost two months now. You don’t call me or come to see me. When we have to be together, you only touch me in front of the cameras or to reassure your friends.” He held up a hand as she began to speak, her face filled with weary resentment. “And I’m sick to death of hearing that it’s the job. I see the other Belles spending time with their men, so stop making excuses.”

“So you’re more intelligent than me,” she snapped. “I believed your excuses for months on end. And your work never came in a prettier package than Elise.”

He refused to dignify that with a retort. Surely she must know he’d been faithful to her! Her problem had come from finding out about his work arrangements from a stranger. “You’re right about my making excuses. I have done that, but not for the reasons you think.” Once he’d turned onto the freeway leading to Logan International Airport, he said, “Time’s run out, Julie. It’s time for us to be honest—both of us.”

Beside him, he felt her freeze. “So, I gather this isn’t the romantic getaway the girls believed it was when they helped you?”

“No.” He kept his gaze on traffic. “But you already knew that.”

“So you lied to them, to our friends?”

He shrugged. “They drew their own conclusions. I didn’t correct them.”

“Sliding out of the truth is lying in my book,” she said, her tone left sarcasm behind, and headed straight into belligerence.

You ought to know, you’ve been doing it for months, he almost said; but an innate sense of honesty made him admit she was right: she’d only followed his example.

She’d been flashing her anger as bright as sunlight. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She didn’t want to know. Avoiding him had been all she could do to stop this final confrontation from happening—and time was up. Luring him into a fight was her last stand against the end.

“It wasn’t their place to know, Julie. I had to tell you first. After today, everyone will know anyway.”

The blood drained from her face, making her freckles stand out in sharper contrast. “I see,” she whispered. Her head lowered to where her thumbnails scratched at her index fingers. One of a legion of nervous habits he’d learned to read: she was nervous as hell and hiding it with belligerence.

But why? Why didn’t she take the opening he’d given her, and ask him to stop the car so she could get out, or just throw the ring back in his face?

The Belles. She’s staying in this engagement for her friends’ sake.

Since the Vandiver cancellation, the mammoth event that had gone belly-up without payment, the whole business had been on the rocks. Proud and fiercely independent, the women of The Wedding Belles wouldn’t take a cent from their men to stay afloat. But when it had hit the media rounds that The Belles, in debt themselves, were giving Julie and Matt the best wedding they could afford, Julie Montgomery and Matt McLachlan were suddenly hailed as the love match of the year, and the Belles as “wedding planners with heart.” Since then, brides and their mothers had flocked to The Wedding Belles to book their weddings…but, as ever with this kind of business, payments were slow to come in. They couldn’t afford a single cancellation now.

The Belles couldn’t afford to lose the McLachlan-Montgomery wedding.

He couldn’t be angry with her for caring about her friends, no matter how it hurt, no matter how damn rejected he felt, how alone in a love story he’d believed was forever.

What he had to say, to ask, was far too important to blurt out in anger, or in retaliation for whatever she threw at him. Given what he’d put her through, he deserved it.

“You haven’t asked why we’re headed to the airport,” he said abruptly.

Her mouth was half-open, ready for a retort, but then it closed. As she thought, her lower lip pushed out, almost like pouting but far sexier because it was natural. Like her sensuality, it was so much a part of her she didn’t think about it.

Suddenly his body reminded him that it had been a long time since she’d shown him the full extent of that loving sensuality. He ached with the need for her touch, for the beauty of their union—and even more he ached for the connection that, to him, meant he’d found his one and only, the commitment to forever he’d made in his heart the night she’d said the words he’d cherish all his life. “All I want is you.”

A shaft of pain pierced him like a gunshot, as he thought of the way she’d loved him right from the moment she’d tripped and landed at his feet the first day. She’d looked up, laughing at her clumsiness, willing to share the joke against herself in a way he’d come to know was uniquely Julie. Then the look in her eyes turned to wonder as she saw him. “Here’s my number,” she’d said within a minute in that adorable accent of hers, writing with a permanent marker on his hand. “And here’re my lips,” she’d whispered when she’d finished writing. She’d kissed him with a sweetness and desire he’d never known in his life. It was so amazing he’d forgotten they were in the middle of a milling crowd on a busy city street. He’d forgotten he was in a convenient, please-the-parents relationship with Elise, and he’d vowed never to cheat on a woman in his life. He hadn’t been able to think beyond the moment, the woman whose name he hadn’t even known. He’d drawn her into his arms and kissed her right back.

She hadn’t known his name, either. For the first time a woman hadn’t known he was Matthew McLachlan of McLachlan Marine Industries, one of Boston’s most eligible bachelors. And when on their second date he’d told her, she’d said, “Oh?”, with a semblance of polite interest when she so obviously didn’t care that it had made him laugh out loud, something he’d rarely done in his lifetime. “So does that mean I don’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay for dinner?”

And she’d stood by him after his father’s sudden death eight weeks later, and he’d discovered how deep the problems at McLachlan’s ran. The mess in which his father had left the business with schemes and investments that had failed time after time.

“I never had wealth in my life to care about, Matt,” she’d said, holding him close. “I care if it hurts you—but whether you want to save the business or you want to start over—no matter what, I’ll still be here.” And then she’d said those beautiful words he’d never forget. “All I want is you.”

He was about to test “no matter what,” and “all I want is you” to their limits. Would she still be here tomorrow? Would he still be all she wanted? Would she want him at all?

“So, why are we going to the airport?”

In their fourteen months together, he’d never heard such a distant tone from her.

He exited onto the airport turnoff. They were almost there. He swallowed the bitter bile rising in his throat and said the words he’d rehearsed ever since he’d recruited The Belles to help him “kidnap” her. “I realise this is terrible timing. I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to see me again. But I’m asking you not to walk away, not today. I need you, Julie.”

After a few moments, she asked, simply, “Why?”

There was nothing else to do but blurt it out. “My ex, Kirsten, was married on Saturday—”

“You…you were married?” The shock, the pain of quick jealousy in her voice made him want to hit himself, and yet a small part of him rejoiced. What a stupid jerk to shock her like that—but she wouldn’t feel any pain, surely, unless she still cared?

“No,” he was quick to reassure her. “We never married. Kirsten’s my ex-girlfriend. But that isn’t the point. We had—have a child together. Molly’s seven, and she’s on her way to stay with me for two weeks while Kirsten and Dan are on their honeymoon. Her plane lands in an hour.”