After we’d eatenwhile watching the sun rise over Nashville, Ida Jane excused herself into the bathroom. I’d put on a new suit I’d ordered through the personal shopper and my trusty black dress shoes I’d owned for years. Maybe I should have gotten new ones, but I was superstitious enough to believe these had brought me luck. I’d been wearing them when I walked into the team offices in Detroit and signed my first contract. I’d worn them when I was traded to the Wildcatters. And now, I’d wear them when I married Ida Jane.
I finished my cup of tea and prowled the suite, restless, not liking her out of my sight. Not because I was a controlling bastard—well, maybe I was a little—but because I needed Ida Jane to be wed to me.
I stopped at the windows and stared out, aware that my first thought hadn’t been so that I could continue to play hockey. No, I wanted Ida Jane because Iwantedher.
She seemed to think this was still some type of transaction, that I could have offered this deal to another woman.
Now that I knew her, had slept with her, eaten meals, laughed with her, I couldn’t imagine any other woman in my life. I’d told her father so last night, which was why he’d given us grudging approval, something that clearly relieved Ida Jane as she spoke to him this morning at the table.
“She’s not as committed for our marriage to be forever as I am, sir,” I’d told Jacob Barlow as I paced around the bedroom, my agitation growing as bedtime neared. “But I plan to show her how much she means to me. I plan to make sure she’s the middle of my world—”
“After hockey,” Jacob had broken in. He’d sighed, almost with defeat. “I have boys who play football. My youngest will get drafted. I know what’s what, son.”
“You don’t,” I snapped. “Without Ida Jane, I wouldn’t be able to play hockey for the NHL, and I won’t forget that. Ever.”
I’d meant those words, and they were even more potent this morning after I’d listed my goals. Without Ida Jane, I’d lose the life I’d built in Houston. She was the linchpin holding it all together.
I heard the bedroom door click open, and I spun around. My heart slammed against my chest and my eyes watered.
Ida Jane wore a white gown, just as I’d dreamed. Not sure of her style, though, I’d looked through her Pinterest boards while we were on the flight. I’d forwarded a few of my favorites to the personal shopper who’d chosen three white gowns and three were in shades of blue because Ida Jane had been pinning the icy blue color most recently.
The dress she’d chosen was a silky-soft material with a cinched waist and a playful neckline that pulled some of the skirt fabric forward and up, almost in a vertical bow. The hemline, which was a ripple around her legs, started above her knees. As the top slid down around her luscious tits, the skirt’s hemline also dropped to her ankles. Her pink toenails peeped out from her low heels, also in white.
She’d pulled her long hair back into a coil at the back of her neck. Already some strands pulled free. She wore makeup because her lashes were darker than their normal light brown, but she’d kept it natural. Her lip gloss was a soft pink that gave her lips a subtle and kissable shimmer. Best of all, her cheek was healing, and her eye was open, thanks to the reduction in swelling overnight.
“You look fucking hot,” I growled.
She smiled, but there was hesitation in her expression. “You look quite spiffy yourself.”
I tugged at my suit coat sleeves even as I puffed out my chest. “I wanted you to be happy looking back at the pictures.”
She blinked rapidly, as if assimilating for the first time that this was real.
“I—my face?” Her expression was filled with vulnerability.
I strode over toward her and grasped her hand, twisting her ring that I’d placed on her finger the night before. I bent down and kissed her knuckle.
“Trust me, Ida Jane. We’ll get some nice photos.”
She stared up at me for a long moment. “Okay.”
I held out my hand, and she placed her smaller, cooler one in my grasp.
Chapter14
Ida Jane
It was 9:22 in the morning, and I was married.
In the multitude of shopping bags, Maxim had got me a pretty white dress and clean lingerie, so I wasn’t married in shower-rinsed panties like I thought I’d be. I’d combed my hair in a swoop to hide part of the sickly bruising at my temple that no amount of makeup—not even the fancy new stuff that was in one of the bags Maxim purchased for me—would hide.
Maxim settled the swollen, yellow side of my face against his suit jacket and tucked a few wisps of hair behind my ear.
“Smile,” he rumbled. I felt the vibrations against my battered cheek. They felt good.Hefelt good. I lifted my lips but couldn’t quite manage any genuine happiness.
The past few days were a blur, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up in this quaint brick building with a beaming justice of the peace peering over his spectacles as he snapped photos of Maxim and me.
“Now, hold up the rings,” Justice Ingram said.
