I could go back. I could scrape by, pretending to be a raging success while doing last-minute balance transfers and praying for a new client in order to pay the most pressing bills. Fake it until I made it. Work until the holidays, when I would go on my family’s yearly ski trip so I could see them all being blissfully married while I was relegated to the air mattress on the chalet’s living room floor. Endure the little comments and jabs about my spinsterhood, pretending they didn’t hurt. Explainagainwhy Henry had dumped me when he would’ve been the perfect addition to our family, him being a successful hotelier who owned the most popular wedding venue in the state of New York. Move in with my parents. Die a little inside. Date someone else. Get dumped by someone else. Rinse and repeat, year after year after year.
With wedding singers as parents, a florist for a sister, and a superstar videographer for a big brother, my failure to acquire a ring for my finger wasn’t just embarrassment. It was existential. I didn’t belong in my own family. My success as a wedding dress designer had been a lie. I was a big ole hypocrite. And now that my business had finally fallen apart, the reality would be exposed.
I had nothing leftto lose.
“Let’s do this,” I said, throwing my shoulders back. I took one single step—and winced as pain sparked up my ankle.
Gideon shifted, the line between his brows turning into a chasm as he frowned. “You’re hurt,” he rumbled.
I straightened, glaring at him.Nice try, buddy. He wasn’t going to use this as an excuse to call off the wedding. “I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not.” His arm extended slightly toward me, as if he wanted to touch me. Then he dropped it, because I was repulsive to him.
“Do you make it a habit to tell women how they’re supposed to feel?”
He faced me fully again, and the weak, spineless, self-destructive part of me preened; all his attention was back on me. “Put your weight on your foot, Sadie,” he said, voice deep and unimpressed.
He knew my name, and it sounded lewd when he said it like that. Not that he was saying it in some special way—that was just his voice. And of course he knew my name. He would’ve gotten the same profile that I got. Name, occupation, likes, dislikes. A three-page distillation of everything that I was and had and wanted.
Barring a few little fibs, of course.
Still, I was so far gone that the sound of my name on his tongue made my heart convulse. He watched me, waiting for me to tap out. But I wasn’t going to let him use a measly twisted ankle to call off this marriage. I wouldn’t allow it. I would make it to the end of the aisle if it freaking killed me.
I gritted my teeth and took a step. As soon as my heel bore my weight, pain darted up my leg. Not unbearable, but not exactly comfortable either. It throbbed, but I lifted my chin andmet Gideon’s glare. I was sure that I hid my pain—I had a lot of practice, after all—but his eyes still flashed as his jaw tightened.
“Fucking hell, woman,” he muttered, then swept me into his arms. It shocked me into silence, and all I could do was cling to his shoulders and hang on. Warm arms banded around my back and under my knees, his chest a solid wall by my side. I stared at his face, startled and on fire. Apparently, I loved being manhandled by him.
That’s when I realized that fate’s cruelest prank wasn’t the fact that I was beautiful but sexually dysfunctional. No. Her biggest laugh was that I’d never been more attracted to a man who wanted nothing to do with me.
Gideon didn’t spare me a glance. In a muttered breath, he said, “Stubborn as all hell. Fucking figures.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to swear in the house of God,” I pointed out.
“I’m already going to hell,” he said, and turned us toward the altar. “It can’t get any worse than this.”
“Wow,” I said. “Wow.”
That made his hard blue eyes slide over to meet mine. Our lips were inches apart. My hands had found their way to his neck, my forearms propped on his shoulders. His skin was sowarm. I curled my fingernails against his nape, relishing the way his chest moved with a sharp inhale. I could feel every finger of his hand pressed against the backs of my ribs, every heartbeat thumping against my side, every harsh breath filling his lungs. “You know this is a bad idea,” he told me.
“So it’s a compulsion.” I nodded in understanding.
“What is?”
“Your habit of telling me what I think and feel.”
He stopped and set me down on the first step of the dais that held the altar. In my heels, on that first step, I was slightly taller than him. I used the opportunity to look down my nose at him, which was very satisfying but didn’t seem to bother him one bit. He just met my gaze and snorted. “Maybe I made the mistake of assuming you were a rational person, but you’re here, so.”
“So, what? Finish the sentence.”
“So obviously you’re out of your mind.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “Oh yeah? And what’s your excuse?”
“I’m a hopeless romantic,” he deadpanned. “Emphasis on the hopeless.”
Outrage burned the inside of my ribs. The little devil sank his claws into my shoulder, cackling as he held on. I opened my mouth?—
“Gid,” his brother and best man cut in. We both turned to glower at him, and he lifted his palms in response. “You guys good?”
