Page 47 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

I laughed again, honestly loving how creative and spontaneous she actually was when she started opening up. I’d forgotten that about her, how deeply fun and bubbly this girl could be. Slowly but surely, I started remembering the weeks before her debutante ball.

Just before my father had ruined everything and I’d thought I might have a shot with the girl who’d almost bitten my finger off just a few years before. Back then, we’d all spent so much time together that for a while there, I’d been stupidly fascinated by her. Maggie had been a splash of color in an otherwise pretty dull world. Even as a teenager, she’d been loud when everyone around us had been careful.

She used to pull me aside for these silly little side quests while everyone else had stood around in their polished shoes, making boring small talk. Meanwhile, Maggie and I went hunting to catch a glimpse of the deer on some or other fancy estate or to see if we could find an open door leading to a rooftop we weren’t supposed to be on.

Warning bells started pinging somewhere in the back of my head as I delved into the memories of those days. The last thing I needed was for my brain to be dragging teenaged Ryan into the conversation.

“Do you think Daniel would give me another chance?” she asked suddenly, breaking me out of my thoughts. “If I decide to do what our parents want, I mean. Do you think he’d even still want to marry me?”

An inappropriate burn of disappointment tore through my gut, but I kept it very far away from my face. “Daniel is a good guy. He’ll give you anything you want even if it is out of sheer duty to both your parents. He’s really nice, Maggie. Genuinely.”

She sighed and looked back out the window. “I’m not sure I want nice. I know there are worse things, but that’s just not exactly a selling point.”

“What do you want?” I almost kicked myself for asking the question, but it was out before I could stop it, and besides, a very bad part of me not even so deep down inside really did want to know. “If it’s not nice, then what is it?”

She turned back to me, for once not joking as she held my gaze. “I want friendship and understanding. Passion.”

The words burrowed deep into the marrow of my bones, heat creeping through me like a wildfire that would be raging out of control very soon. I couldn’t keep sitting here while she was wearing my sweatshirt and looking at me like I was the person she wanted those things from.

If I stayed, I was going to start making terrible decisions. Finding passion would be the least of her problems, so I cleared my throat and stood up. “I need to go to bed.”

“What? Why?”

“We’ll be in Chicago by noon tomorrow. You should get some rest too.” I swiped my laptop off the bed and headed straight for the door. “Goodnight, Maggie.”

Before she could even respond, I walked away, locking my own door behind me. Because if she came in here at any point during the night, I was going to do something exceptionally stupid. God, this is a problem.

A very, very familiar problem I’d thought I’d solved ten years ago, but apparently, it hadn’t been gone. It’d only been sleeping, and now, with her back in my life, it was waking from its slumber and coming back.

With a vengeance. A thirsty, havoc-wreaking vengeance that wanted nothing more than to finally have her.

CHAPTER 20

MAGGIE

When I finally opened my eyes, the sun was sitting so high in the sky that my entire room was washed in its warm rays. Groggy and a little confused about how I’d slept this late, I frowned and pushed myself up to sit on the bed, instantly hit by a wave of guilt over sleeping the day away.

Clearly, the moving train had lulled me into a deeper sleep than I’d realized. Stretching my arms out above my head, I rolled out of bed and brushed my teeth at my small basin, splashing some water on my face before I finally checked the time.

Almost eleven a.m. Holy fudgesicles. What the hell happened?

A voice deep in my subconscious whispered something about not having had anything better to do anyway, but I still felt like I’d done something wrong as I ran a brush through my hair and dressed as fast as humanly possible.

My parents did not approve of sleeping in. Pembrokes were supposed to be above the need to do that kind of thing, I supposed. As I left my room for the dining car, I wondered if my brothers felt the same way about all this as I did, but I doubted they’d tell me even if I asked.

If Pembroke women were pampered princesses, Pembroke men were impenetrable fortresses of strength and authority, with their dashing good looks and charming smirks to hide any trace of vulnerability.

Not that any of them had ever even hinted they knew what vulnerability was. It was probably too pedestrian for them, not something meant to be experienced by those who came from a long line of excessive generational wealth.

I sighed as I walked into the dining car to find Ryan already there. A small part of me might’ve been hoping that he was back in his room and that when we disembarked I could merely pretend I’d been up all along. On the other hand, so far, he’d accepted me exactly as I was.

I guess I might as well find out if Thayers hold the same disdain for sleeping in.

He sat alone at a table near the window, a cup of coffee on one side of his open laptop and his phone on the other. I saw at least half a dozen tabs open on his screen as I approached, but I didn’t look at what they were.

Honestly, I was just trying to figure out if I should join him at all. He looked so serious and controlled that he was giving off some heavy leave-me-alone vibes, his fingers flying across the keyboard while yet another bespoke suit jacket was slung carefully over the back of the chair beside him.

It didn’t take much to figure out that he was already in full work mode, his dark hair perfectly styled and his white button-down supernaturally crisp for a garment he’d changed into on a train. Exhaling a slow breath through my nose, I decided to walk up to his table, but only to say hi unless he gave me some sign that it was okay if I sat with him.