My heart goes into a spasm, my body thrumming with excitement until I realize who he is talking about.
Eloise.
It hurts even though I already knew it. He chose Eloise, not me. I can’t be angry. I’m the stand-in. At the end of the week, the bride he wants will beintriguinghim herself.
“Why does my reasoning matter? Aren’t you glad the family business doesn’t have to be sold off?”
“It stopped being the family business a long time ago.”
He looks taken aback. “How so?”
The memories are old, the pain soothed by a decade and now sitting like a dull, distant ache in my chest. “My mother was an artist—her art hung all through the first B&B my father owned—and she would teach guests how to paint. When she died, my father focused on expanding the business and turning it into something that didn’t remind him of his heartbreak.”
“But that added to yours.” His voice is soft, understanding. “Your mother is the reason you draw.”
I nod. I missed those days, when my father was full of passion and my plans revolved around following in my both my parents’ footsteps, running the family business and adding my art to the walls beside my mother’s.
But now my mother’s artwork sits in a storage container, and my father’s drive to outrun his heartbreak has turned our idyllic bed-and-breakfast family business into a large boutique hotel chain that his excessive spending almost bankrupted.
“My father isn’t a safe bet in the hotel industry.” (She shouldn’t say this because she is doing this for her father. Need a section where Owen understands why she is doing this)
“He has valuable experience in the avenue my father and I wished pursue.”
“Boutique hotels?” I ask.
“Hotels that cater to a younger demographic.”
A demographic that includes Eloise’s followers on social media. Is that why he chose to marry her and not me? “So the marriage is just a business decision?”
Does that mean he isn’t attracted to Eloise?
Before I can stop it, excitement starts to build inside me.
“Partly. It was also to stop the gold diggers. Since my father’s death, I seem to attract a lot of women with expensive tastes. I hoped a wife would make them back off.”
He shakes his head and lets out a self-depreciating laugh.
His embarrassment is cute and endearing.
“Why did you kiss me at the wedding?”
“Selfishness.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “You were right when you said I could have any woman I want.”
One long finger traces a path from my knuckle to my fingertip. “I want you.”
The excitement fizzles in a bucket of ice-cold reality.
Does he want me or the woman he thinks I am?
“Here we are.” The waitress is back and pouring two glasses of wine. “Did you decide what you want?”
His gaze darts to his arm where the waitress touches him, then lifts to meet mine.
I feel sick.
Panicked.
Guilty.
