1
WREN
The room is blissfully empty. Quiet. Peaceful.
Bigger than I expected for a dressing room, but I’m sure most brides have at least a few friends to help them get ready. To celebrate what’s meant to be the most important—the happiest—day of their lives.
But I don’t have any of those. Not anymore. Not for a while. Not since my dad announced my engagement to Grant Dalton at dinner one night. Maybe it didn’t happen all at once, but it feels that way.
Somehow, I’m already here. About to step into my wedding dress and walk down the aisle to marry a man I only know enough about to mix dread and fear in my belly whenever he’s around.
The Daltons have always been a name that floated around our house. Dad’s been doing business with them since before his first senatorial run when I was little. I’m sure I’d met Grant’s father a few times growing up.
I don’t remember. Most of my time was spent away from where my dad held meetings, especially when I began drawing those men’s attention at the events I was forced to attend as a teenager, where I made a miniscule number of girlfriends.
Ones that were jealous of my luck in nabbing the heir to the Dalton real estate and construction empire. The soon-to-be congressman my family’s connections would earn him.
Since I would never find another man my father would approve of, I’ve gone along with this. I ven enjoyed the way he complimented me on the dress I chose.
He shouldn’t have ever seen me in it. Not until our wedding, but he came with me to pick my dress. Allowed me to pick it. To splurge on the insane price tag when I fell in love with the lace and tulle. The way it made my waist look tiny and my hips not as round.
It made me feel beautiful the moment I slipped into it.
And the reaction in Grant’s steely blue eyes made my heart beat too fast. At the time, I’d barely met him twice—a serious, beautiful man—and it was the first time I’d ever felt so attractive.
I should never have trusted that feeling.
My fingers dance over the tulle of the skirt. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Delicate and expensive enough to turn me into a princess for a day.
A heavy knock shatters the silence and my peace along with it. Hackles rising, I clutch my robe closed and step toward the door. My muscles don’t want to cooperate.
“Wren.” He says my name like a warning, and I make the last few feet to unlock the door.
It swings open before I’m fully out of the way, and a strong, cold hand grabs me and shoves me against the wall beside the entrance. Fingers clamp around my throat, and whiskey fumes hit me before I see the glaze in those steel eyes.
“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?” My voice is as weak as my argument. Nothing about this marriage is conventional, even though I’ve leaned on that excuse every time he pressed about me going to his place.
Grant frowns down at me, his gaze taking in my state of undress with a leer. The smile that curls his mouth is cruel. “That’s naive bullshit, Wren.”
My one hand clenches the front of my robe and the other comes up to his wrist. The squeeze of his fingers makes me light-headed. Adrenaline trying to combat the dizziness as Grant’s body presses in.
“The same childish way you keep trying to hide your body from me, but you’re mine, Wren.”
He snatches the front of my robe from my grip, those fingers closing around my right breast in an instant, cold through my lace bralette. I jolt, revulsion crawling up my spine, freezing me in place.
I try to shrink away, but there’s nowhere to go.
“Mine,” he repeats, voice low and predatory.
I scramble for a way to defuse, placing my palm gently over his forearm. “The timing of this isn’t right. My mom will be here any minute.”
My touch strokes down his dress shirt to his elbow, up his bicep. My voice stays soft, and I force calm into it. Soothing. Choking down my distress.
His finger and thumb pinches me, a sharp pain shooting fear straight through me.
“Grant, please. It’s less than a day to wait.”
He tightens his hold, and I’m struggling not to tremble, to hide my fear.
