He looked her right in the eye and broke her heart. “I’m not.”
“You’rekidding!” she shrieked, the reality setting in. Everything he’d promised her. Everything she’d done at his urging… The kick of reality was immediately followed by white-hot rage. Suddenly a punch to the face seemed entirely reasonable, and she kicked off her shoe so she could pummel him with it. “You said you couldn’t wait to be my husband. Youpushedfor this wedding when I just wanted something smaller… We have three hundred people eating shrimp and hundred-dollar-an-ounce caviar downstairs. Imported fromRussia. Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s better this way.”
“Better?” Her voice cracked. “That’s…there is no better way to do this. When did you…What about everything you said at the rehearsal dinner?” He’d gazed into her eyes and said he couldn’t wait to have children with her. That she’d make a wonderfulmother. “You liar. You stupid, stinking, aw-ful l-liar.”
Strong arms circled her waist as her voice cracked and the tears started to fall, as Stephen stepped backward onto an elevator car she hadn’t seen him call. Those arms turned her around and held her against an even stronger, warmer chest as she started to sob.
“He lied to me,” she hiccuped into Logan’s chest. He held her tight, not caring that she’d just been incensed at him, too.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“He made promises…”
“I know.” His voice cracked, from rough to strained. “I’ll kill him if you want me to.”
That just made her cry harder, and after a time Logan had to pick her up and carry her into the suite when she finally sagged against him in defeat.
He carried her straight past her sisters, holding her curled against his body, so she only had to hear their shocked and sympathetic whispers, and didn’t have to see their faces. He set her on her bed, then stepped back outside for a minute.
She heard him murmur something about telling her father, who could make a general announcement, and then he was back, curving around her where she’d slumped sideways on the bed.
The hiccups came after a while. She was all sobbed out, but every time she tried to start talking—because there was stuff to do. Three hundred guests.Oh my God—her chest would seize up and her diaphragm would stutter, and Logan would make a shushing sound in her ear.
“I want out of this dress,” she finally managed.
“I’ll get one of your sisters,” he murmured in her ear.
“No.” Suddenly the lace and satin she was still bound in felt like iron chains, and they had to go right away. She reached behind her and started tugging ineffectively at the ribbons. Her breath hitched as she felt sobs returning, and she shook her head roughly. No, no, no. She shook her hand, pointing toward her bags. “I need something else to put on. Can you grab me a t-shirt from that suitcase there?”
He hesitated behind her, then agreed in a rough voice.
“There’s a big one of yours, from a fun run you did a few years ago.” She got her fingertips into the loops and yanked, but that just made the dress tighter. She gasped and stood up. “Fuck.”
He came around in front of her and handed her the navy blue t-shirt, worn and soft from many wearings. Stephen had always side-eyed that she wore Logan’s t-shirts, but when she asked him for one of his to sleep in instead, he’d rolled his eyes and said it didn’t matter.
And see? It hadn’t. Because she’d been ready to become his wife today, and he’d…
And he’d…
Her breathing hitched as another round of sobs tried to get started again in her chest, and Logan got right in front of her face.
Logan.
She gave him a weak smile, and he returned it. His wasn’t weak at all though. His crooked smile was full of rueful knowledge, steady and understanding.
Now the tears were flowing free, her cheeks wet. “I thought he loved me.”
“I thought he did, too.”
“You never liked him.”
He gave her a weak shrug. “Nobody will ever be good enough for my Tori.”
Oh God. She knew he meant it in a nice way, but that wasn’t what she needed to hear right now.
“Dress off, now.” She tugged the t-shirt over her head, sliding her arms into it before turning around. “If you just loosen the ribbons, I can get out of the rest of it.”
