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It was a very bad moment to regret her choice of wedding dress. The strapless, classic gown fastened in back with no less than sixty-two cloth-covered buttons. Cate held her breath for the first dozen.
She had imagined Jason helping her out of this dress in their fancy room at the Ritz-Carlton where they were planning to stay overnight before leaving on their honeymoon. Instead, big, ornery Harry Harrington attacked the back of her gown as if every little button was an affront to his male pride.
He made it to just below her waist before giving up and ripping the two sides apart, sending buttons flying everywhere.
“Hey,” Cate said indignantly, grabbing the bodice close to her breasts to protect her modesty. “I could have sold this on eBay if you hadn’t destroyed it.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ll pay you for the dress if it’s that important. Besides, I doubt anyone wants a wedding gown with bad mojo.”
She gaped at him. The brutally honest comment surprised her after he had been so caring earlier. Maybe pretending to be a decent human being had taxed his acting abilities.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. It was all she could do not to cry again. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
In the bathroom she stared into the mirror and hit rock bottom. She looked like hell. Her eyes were puffy and red. Even worse was the raccoon-ish mask forged of smudged mascara and salty tears. With her hair half up and half down, she looked like someone who had been on an all-night bender.
Suddenly, she had a desperate urge to be clean. Fortunately, Harry’s guest bathroom was fully stocked. She wrapped a big fluffy towel around her hair to keep it dry and hopped in the shower. The hot water felt like heaven. She washed her face and then everything else.
Since she had been wearing nothing but a thong under her dress, she washed the undies as well. When she got out, she felt a hundred times better. At least until she put on Harry’s shirt and glanced in the mirror again. She was pretty sure anyone who looked carefully could see her nipples.
Using the hairdryer, she dried her undies and put them back on. They were next to nothing, but she needed all the armor she could muster. After that, the only thing left was to take down the rest of her hair and shake it loose as best she could without a brush or a comb.
The hair salon had used half a can of spray on her up-do this morning. It would take a ton of hair products to get herself back to normal.
Thinking about tomorrow brought back the hole in her chest. She had no clue what the next day would bring, no idea what she would do. Instead, she concentrated on getting through the next half hour. And then the next half hour after that. When she heard the doorbell ring, she found the courage to leave the bathroom.
She arrived in time to see the young delivery boy smiling broadly as Harry tipped him. “Thank you, sir.”
Harry closed the door and held up the bag. “Do you want to eat in here or in the kitchen?”
“Here is fine.”
They sat down on opposite sides of the coffee table. With her knees pressed together and the shirt pulled down over them, she still felt the need to drape the small blanket across her lap.
Harry didn’t waste time with small talk. Instead, he opened the bag and handed her a share of the bounty. He’d not been lying about the hamburgers and fries. Cate gobbled down half of hers, barely pausing to breathe.
While she had been in the shower, Harry had opened a bottle of pinot. She drank recklessly, hoping to blunt the feeling of desperation that made her ill. It was all well and good to pretend she could hide out in Prescott Harrington’s glamorous apartment indefinitely, but her reprieve would likely be measured in hours.
“Thank you for the food,” she said.
He wiped his mouth on a napkin and nodded. “At least it put some color in your cheeks.” He gathered the remnants of their meal, stuffed it all in the large white paper sack and crushed it between his two big hands. “Jason is waiting outside the door.”
Cate shot to her feet. “No. I don’t want to see him.” Her newly manicured fingernails dug into her palms. “I won’t.”
“You owe him that much, Cate. The man is a mess. Let him speak his piece.”
Her jaw dropped. “Iowehim? Are you insane?Hebetrayedme.”
Harry shot her a steely-eyed stare. “We both know that Jason is one of the finest men who ever walked this earth. He had a good reason. I don’t know what it is, but the two of you both live in Buckhead. You move in the same circles. This has to be settled. One way or another.”
“It must be nice to be God.”
“Settle down. It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. Do it fast and let the healing begin.”
She loathed him in that moment. Actually, she loathed the entire male sex. Every damn one of them thought they had all the answers. “Fine. Bring him in. Why not end this wretched day with more pain and sadness? I won’t break.”
It was a brave speech. Unfortunately, the underpinnings were like cotton candy in the rain. As soon as Jason walked into the room, her chin wobbled, and a painful lump filled her throat.
Just inside the door, he set down her trio of matching suitcases and her purse. The lightweight trendy luggage had been a gift from her parents at her first wedding shower.
