Page 57 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

A few days after I’d returned home and given Ryan back his apartment, I’d called Daniel. Surprisingly, he’d answered on the first ring. It was the most we’d ever spoken, a simple conversation asking if we could talk, hammering out when and where, and agreeing to do it in person.

Daniel had suggested the cafe at this hotel, where I now sat on a terrace overlooking a perfectly manicured garden. The scent of roses wafted on a light breeze and the sky was a clear, perfect blue overhead.

I would have expected a place like this to be packed on a day as beautiful as today, but it was practically empty, only a few other people sitting inside, sipping coffee with their laptops open. Daniel had assured me that we’d be safe if we met here. No looky-loos or random snapshots of us appearing in tomorrow’s paper.

I had no idea how he knew that, but I was also almost too afraid to ask. What if he knows they’re discreet because this is where he brings his women? What if he wants to keep bringing them here after we’re married? What if⁠—

My thoughts slammed to a stop in their tracks when the man in question appeared in the French doors leading to my terrace. Daniel’s broad shoulders filled the frame, his button-down shirt perfectly pressed, and his sleek black hair as perfectly styled as always.

He smiled when he saw me, winding his way around the few empty tables scattered across the space and pulling out the chair across from me. “Hi, Maggie.”

“Hey, Daniel.”

I expected him to sit down, but instead, he came around to my side of the table, leaned over, and brushed a polite kiss to my cheek. It was nothing really. Almost brotherly, in fact. A month after we were supposed to have become husband and wife, and that had been the most physical contact we’d ever had.

To my instant disappointment, I also didn’t feel a single thing over having his lips on my skin for the first time. There were no tingles. No sparks. Just a deep, absolute certainty that if we ever did have sex, even if only purely for baby-making purposes, neither of us would enjoy it very much.

It was clear from the moment he pulled back and looked into my eyes as he sat down that he hadn’t felt anything either. He still looked just as bored and put-together as always. To him, it’d probably been akin to greeting his mother.

Great. Our marriage will be entirely passionless.

Not that I’d been expecting anything else, but if there had been perhaps just a slight flush on his cheeks or even only a single dilated pupil or flared nostril, I would have grabbed onto it with both hands. At least it would’ve given me hope.

Despite how odd only one dilated pupil or flared nostril would be.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out as I looked at him across the table. Apologies weren’t really my thing. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d apologized without being forced, but it looked like I’d unlocked a new level of personal growth. “I mean it, Daniel. I really am sorry.”

Wow. Ryan would be so proud.

Daniel blinked a few times in rapid succession, like he hadn’t expected me to actually come out and say it. Same, bro. Seriously, same.

“Apology accepted,” he said after only the briefest of pauses.

My eyebrows shot up, disbelief winding through me like a serpent. “You’re accepting it just like that?”

“I’m not about to make you grovel for my forgiveness, Maggie. What happened, happened. I don’t like to dwell on the past.”

“Yeah, but do you actually forgive me?” I asked. “Or is it more that you just don’t want to talk about it?”

He gave me a calm, tiny smile. “I’ve had a month to think about it. I’m okay now. Honestly, I forgive you. Neither of us could’ve predicted how we were going to feel or react that day, so while I would like to understand what happened, I don’t blame you for not being able to force yourself to go through with it.”

I almost asked him if he had to force himself too, but there would be time for that later. We were here for my apology tour. The I-want-to-understand-my-future-husband tour would have to wait.

“I was going to do it,” I started quietly. “The whole day and even on my way downstairs from the bridal suite, I was going to go through with it, but then I got outside and saw my dad, and suddenly…”

“It sank in?” he guessed.

I nodded, offering him a half-grimace, half-smile thing I couldn’t stop from taking over my entire face. Bet I really look like the picture of elegance and grace right now, huh, Mom?

“Suddenly, my body just froze. I was so nervous all morning, but when I walked out, I started panicking too and it just…” I trailed off again, took a deep breath, and finally managed to say the words. “It just didn’t feel like me, you know? The wedding was beautiful, but I realized in that moment that I didn’t know most of the people there. My shoes were killing me. I couldn’t breathe in my dress.”

Daniel didn’t interrupt, his eyes fixed intently on mine with no faraway glint coming over them. In that moment, I learned that he was obviously rather patient. He was actually listening instead of peppering me with all the questions I knew he must have and he wasn’t tensing up either, which had to mean that he wasn’t already preparing a counterargument.

“I’m not sure if anyone ever asked you what you wanted,” I said softly. “I don’t know if a beach wedding was your idea or if you even had any opinions at all, but when it hit me that I was at my wedding and I hadn’t chosen a single part of it, it felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” he replied a beat after I’d fallen silent, as if he’d waited just a second to see if I was going to carry on, but when I didn’t, he had felt it was important to let me know as soon as possible that I hadn’t run out on his dream wedding. “My father told me what was happening and our mothers handled the rest.”

“That sounds familiar.”