Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Or at least, Landon had. Con had somehow managed to break out of it for Lily.
I thought about Landon’s face after Emma announced I could get married here. Blank, inscrutable, like the old days. And then when I’d asked him about it, he’d kissed me. Again, just like the old days. We’d always had a physical connection, but it looked like our communication was as stunted as it had ever been.
Two of the bridesmaids were talking to another, a girl with long, dark hair and high cheekbones. She was beautiful, like a model, and she looked familiar. It took me a minute to figure out why. I’d seen her picture on a mantle just the other night – she was Con’s daughter Halley. She was making a face while the other two laughed.
“That’s gross,” Halley said to them, trying not to laugh herself. “They’re like my uncles.”
“Yeah, and I could be your aunt,” a redhead said, her dark eyes sparkling.
Halley pretended to gag.
“I’ll take the silver fox,” one of the girls said. “What’s his name again, Hals?”
“That’s disgusting, but you probably mean Dominic.”
“Dominic,” the girl relished the name.
“What’s the dark-haired one’s story? The one with the green eyes.”
“Landon?” Halley snorted. “Fat chance. Women have been trying to lock him down my whole life. Models. Actresses. Heiresses. A different one every time I see him. He keeps them around for a couple of months, max. I don’t think he’s ever even had a serious girlfriend.”
“Is he gay?” one of them wondered.
“No, I think he just, like, really doesn’t want any attachments.” Halley shrugged blithely, completely unaware that my gaze had become riveted on her as she talked about Landon.
Models. Actresses. Heiresses. How many had there been exactly? Landon and I had never talked about our past relationships. I hadn’t had any worth talking about, and I’d assumed he was the married-to-his-work type. It had taken me weeks to break down his defenses and convince him to go to dinner with me. According to Halley, though, he’d had too many to count.
The orange juice I’d drank for breakfast curdled in my stomach. I tasted the citrus tang again, sour in the back of my throat. Emma was trying to get my attention, but I couldn’t hear her around the buzzing in my ears.
Landon’s silence.
Halley’s words.
Landon’s stony face.
Halley’s laugh.
I suddenly felt like the walls of the spacious, high-ceilinged room were closing in on me. I mumbled some excuse to Lily’s mom about why I had to go, grabbed Emma’s hand and escaped.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Emma asked as I pulled her along behind me, trying to remember how to get back to our rooms.
“Nothing, baby. I’m just…tired.”
It was true. I was so, so tired. Tired of fearing one man and tired of loving another one who could never love me back. I had more freedom than I’d had in weeks – Landon’s men kept an unobtrusive distance – but I still felt claustrophobic. Trapped.
Somehow, I managed to get Emma and I ready for the wedding. I hardly remembered curling my hair and stepping into the dress I’d chosen, but somehow, there we were in the mirror. Emma in her bright pink dress with a tulle skirt, me in the silky lavender sheath.
“I love dresses,” Emma said enthusiastically.
“Me too, baby.” I smiled at her in the mirror, coming back to myself a little. Yes, I was tired. Yes, I had put myself in exactly the same bad position I had before – loving a man who might never want me the way I did him. All of him. But I had Emma, and no matter what happened with her father, she was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I would be fine as long as she was safe.
An hour later, I watched Lily and Con pledge their love and devotion to one another in a haze. It was all so beautiful. The fairy tale bride with spun gold hair and the pure white dress looking up at the handsome, dark-haired prince. The bridesmaids in blush pink. It wasn’t lost on me that their gazes kept straying past the couple to fall on the four groomsmen. I didn’t blame them. If there had ever been a more devastating and distinguished wedding party, I hadn’t yet seen it.
If I hadn’t been in such a daze, the contrast would have amused me. The eyes of the bridesmaids were bright with happy tears, their smiles wide over their pearly teeth. The groomsmen, on the other hand, all looked faintly bemused, like they couldn’t quite believe they were lined up behind Con, that one of their own was really getting married.
Landon’s face was impossible to read, of course. I kept hoping he would look over at me during the vows. That our eyes would lock while those immortal words were read and my horrible, overwhelming doubts would be put to rest. But he never did. He stayed facing forward, his mouth a flat line.