Thick, warm, callused fingertips touch my cheek and angle my face toward the richest brown eyes in history.Concern lifts his thick eyebrows, and a curse leaves his handsome lips.
“You’re okay, sweet pea.I’ve got you,” he rumbles.
My soul cracks wide open, but the years of pain and humiliation festering within are too horrible to express, so I stare in numb silence as he realizes my sleeve is stuck.He solves the issue by pushing the underside of the massive table with his shoulder and lifting the leg off the floor.
With surprising gentleness despite the brute strength needed to lift the table, he curls his fingers around my forearm and pulls me out from underneath.
He picks me up by my shoulders and sets me on my feet as though I weigh nothing.
My head spins.I sway.
“Breathe, Penelope.”
Sebastian’s deep, gravelly voice ends my mental spiral.
I push his gargantuan hands off my shoulders and stumble away.The small gemstone on my ring cuts into my palm as I clench my fists.I catch myself on the table, roll my shoulders back, and lift my gaze.
Up and up.Past his wide waist and impossibly broader shoulders to his corded neck and neatly trimmed facial hair until I finally reach his dark brown eyes.
My words dry up on my tongue.
I turn and flee.
As I push open the side door, I catch his troubled expression in my periphery and know from experience he has no intention of letting me escape.
I can’t do this.
I need to get far, far away.
He steps toward me.
I dart down the hall, but even as the door shuts between us, certainty barrels through me.
Once Sebastian Sterling sets his mind on something, he never relents, and I’ve landed dead center in his crosshairs.
I’m screwed.
Audrey, the bride-to-be and only reason I agreed to be here today, stands in the hall near the bathrooms.
Nervousness and uncertainty pile on top of the panic coursing through me, but I join her and stumble through a greeting.
“Can I talk to you?”I ask.
“Of course.What’s wrong?”she answers.
The concern in her eyes clenches my stomach.
“Nothing, I just…”
She doesn’t believe me.
Urgency pulses through me.I can’t stop my eyes from flicking back toward the dining room door.
Audrey’s face pales.
I’m ruining her day.
“I don’t think I can be your bridesmaid,” I blurt.
