AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirty
Wedding receptions are meant to be…what? Fun, I suppose. It's a celebration of the couple's love for each other and their bright future together. But I don't feel like celebrating. How can I? Emery married me because I seduced her into believing our arrangement would benefit her, that she would have the freedom to do what she wants. Yet all she seems to want is to change me. I'm not the sort of man she needs. We both know that. I should give her the money and let her go, now, tonight.
But I can't give her up. I want Emery to be mine. I can't love her, or anyone, but I need to possess her. It's selfish and wrong, but I lost all my senses on that day when I dragged Emery into a magistrate's office in Colorado Springs. She has done everything I demanded of her, and I've given her nothing.
The reception takes place on the first floor—not the ground floor, as the American guests believe, until I explain the layout of this castle to them. The buffet is downstairs in the dining room, but the actual event takes place in the great hall on the first floor where Scots and Americans gather to dance and joke and do whatever other bollocks wedding guests enjoy. We also opened up the long gallery on the second floor to handle the overflow, considering how many MacTaggarts are in attendance.
The door to my office is closed and locked to deter anyone from sneaking into my sanctum. I don't want any randy couples using my office as a location for sexual encounters. Only my wife and I enjoy the privilege of shagging on my desk.
I'd meant to lock the office door, but suddenly, I can't remember if I did that or not. Too late to worry about it now. Besides, everyone is too busy having a good time to think about breaching my private space.
Time seems to crawl along one second at a time while I avoid my blethering relatives and try to make my stomach want food. I fail. Eating won't help the pain in my chest or the gaping hole deep inside me that nothing can fill. I excavated that hole myself, using the pain of three disastrous marriages as the shovel.
A flash of white draws my attention to the other end of the great hall and to my wife, who's hurrying away.
I want to rush after her and…do something. But I just stand here, immobilized by indecision. What if she wants to be alone for a wee while? I should give her that much. My feet decide for me, compelling me to race after her, down the stairs and out the vestibule door into the night air.
Emery stands near the outside wall of the vestibule—talking to Graham Oliver.
They're at an angle to me, so they don't notice I'm here, especially since I hover just inside the doorway with shadows concealing me.
Graham warps his mouth into a nasty smile. "Sorry I missed the ceremony. I predict the marriage willnae last a week more."
My wife bars her arms over her chest. "Your predictions don't mean diddly-squat to me."
Graham scratches his chin. "But my next article will."
I step out of the doorway into the moonlight.
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" I snarl as I stalk up to Graham, seizing the man's collar. "Leave my wife alone."
The bastard sneers. "Ye donnae know your bride as well as ye think, MacTaggart. I've seen sides of her bound to make ye cringe."
"Dùin do ghob, ye scunner."
"I'll shut the fuck up when I see fit."
Fisting my hands in Graham's shirt, I hoist him off the ground. Then I growl through my clenched teeth, "Go home to your sewer and stay away from my wife."
I hurl Graham away.
He crumples to the ground, scrambles to his feet, and brushes grass off his trousers. "I'll be seeing ye both. Soon."
The slimy cacan runs for one of the vehicles parked in the vicinity of the drive. I glare at the black sedan until the shadows of the forest engulf it.
"Relax," Emery says. "Don't let him ruin this day for us."
I grunt.
She slips her hand into mine. "Let's go back inside."
My wife leads me back to the great hall, and we enter the reception hand in hand. Everyone we pass looks at us as if we're the king and queen of Dùndubhan, the perfect couple with the perfect relationship, but they have no idea about our arrangement. We aren't soul mates, or whatever rubbish they're all thinking. Five minutes after we reenter the fray, Lachlan and Aidan spirit me away to a far corner to talk about shinty and other meaningless topics. I want to know what Graham Oliver is plotting, and I can't stop thinking about what he said. My next article. The scunner plans to smear my wife with his lies, I'm sure. If he humiliates her with those pictures that Sebastian Zegers took, I will throttle the lying bod ceann.
While my brothers chat about sports, I scan the crowd until I see my wife. She's talking to her mother and her sister, at the opposite end of the great hall.
While I watch, Penny Granger inserts two fingers from each hand into her mouth and lets out a whistle so loud and piercing that everyone stops talking. All gazes veer to my mother-in-law.
"It's time for the bride and groom's first dance," she announces.
