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He schooled his features. His eyes, so much like her own, turned cold. The fury seeped out of his face. When he spoke, his voice was no longer hot with anger. “This is what you want?”
She couldn’t contain the sharp bark of laughter that bubbled up. There was no humor in it.
“What I want? When has it ever been about what I wanted?”
His eyes narrowed until just a little of the soft blue of his iris was visible. A shiver skated down her spine and chilled her. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, Cynthia, but I will tell you this. If you decide to do this—if you defy me—you are no longer welcome in this family.”
Pain splintered her heart. She might be at odds with her parents at the moment, but she loved them.
“What are you saying, Father?”
But she knew. Breaking off the engagement had been her one act of defiance. Even though she had tried to get Max back, he’d been lost to her from the time she’d ended the engagement—not that he had ever been hers to begin with. He’d finally acknowledged his feelings for Anna, and there was nothing Cynthia could have done about it. And now there was nothing she would do.
“You were raised to make a good match. And you did with Max, but you fucked that up.” She flinched at his unusual use of vulgar language. “I thought maybe we could find you someone else, but you’re a laughingstock. Going to the wedding of the man who dumped you for a tramp.”
“So, what? Now that you can’t sell me, you don’t want to have anything to do with me?” She couldn’t stop the little catch in her voice.
He pursed his lips before flattening them in a straight line. “I’ve given you your choices.”
He turned without another word and left. His angry footsteps echoed down the hall as he stomped away. She swallowed the hurt and anger but felt another twinge in her tummy. Before leaving the bathroom, she grabbed up her medicine and took her dose. After downing the pills, she looked at herself in the mirror, squared her shoulders and told herself it didn’t matter.
It did, but she wouldn’t let it bother her today.
Today, she had a wedding to attend.
* * *
Chris Dupree watched Max tie his bowtie as he grinned like a fool.
“You sure you want to do this?” Chris asked, eyeing him with speculation. Max’s grin grew wider.
“You’ve met Anna.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Chris, causing Chris to laugh. “And besides, you’re looking at a fool in love.” Max turned to check out his tux in the full-length mirror. There wasn’t much room for anything else in the church’s groom’s room other than Max and himself.
Chris snorted. “I understand the fool part.”
Max flashed a smile at him in the mirror but said nothing. Chris had been surprised, to say the least, when he met Anna. Bold, beautiful, and exactly what Max needed, in Chris’s opinion. Just the opposite from what he’d expected Max to choose.
As rigid as Chris was laid back, Max needed someone who wouldn’t put up with his heavy-handedness. Because Chris wasn’t one to suffer fools, the two of them had hit it off almost immediately when they’d met in college. They’d made an odd couple for a friendship, especially on the campus of conservative University of Georgia. Max, the white son of landed Southern aristocracy; and Chris, middle-class kid, the product of a Creole mother and white father, had somehow clicked when they met in their first macroeconomics class. They were sharing an apartment by the end of that semester, both graduated with honors the same semester, and even after Chris relocated to Honolulu, they tended to talk on a regular basis.
“So, is it true your ex-fiancée is going to be here today?”
“Yeah. Anna insisted. Which is amazing, because—well, if you hadn’t guessed, she has a bit of a temper.” He faced Chris. “But Cynthia smoothed things over at the country club up in Valdosta for Anna. You remember Freddy, don’t you?”
Chris nodded, remembering Anna’s ex-boyfriend and how their fist fight with him landed both Chris and Max in jail.
“He tried to cause problems for Anna and me. Mainly Anna. He used some of his influence to try and keep her from booking the place for the reception. Cynthia took care of it. She’s gone out of her way to make sure everything runs perfectly for the wedding.” He paused, and his smile faded. “I just worry about Cynthia a bit.”
Max grabbed up the ring box and tossed it to Chris.
“Worry about her?”
For the first time since Chris had arrived, Max frowned. “You know her father, Justin Myers. He’s a jackass, thinks women are in two categories—slut and Madonna. And he doesn’t think women have any brains. She’s been raised to make a good marriage, that’s it. So, now that she has defied her father, she’s probably close to getting disinherited. And she’s…a little fragile.”
“Hmm.”
A sharp knock sounded at the door. Without waiting for an answer, a petite blonde dressed in a conservative suit walked into the room.
“Cynthia, you could have waited for me to say come in. I could have been undressed,” Max said with a smile.
