Page 89 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

I’d chosen to come home, to marry Daniel in a pearly white dress with no carnival, and I had to live with that. It was the only responsible choice if I didn’t want to end up like Viola, in my eighties and still regretting the one who’d gotten away.

She’d actually thought they had a shot, her and my grandfather. They’d gotten married, after all, and sure, she hadn’t known what it meant to be a Pembroke when she’d said those vows, but look at how that had turned out.

All these years later, and she was still heartbroken over him. I refused to let that be my fate. I knew exactly what it meant to be a Pembroke and talking to her had made me realize there was no point in trying to get out of this.

The best I could do was rip off the band-aid before my relationship with Ryan had gone any further and hope like hell that I got over him in time. We hadn’t even really been anything at all. We’d slept together once, but that was it.

If I got in any deeper than that, even just to hear his explanation about taking the money from my family, it would kill me even more than it already was to let him go. I couldn’t let that happen.

Marrying Daniel was set in stone. That was what I had to focus on now.

Cathy sighed but finally glanced at the puppy again. “Okay, then. Does Daniel like dogs?”

“I don’t know.” I glanced down at the puppy sprawled across my chest and fought yet another wave of tears. “I’ve never asked, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

CHAPTER 39

RYAN

Grabbing a coffee in Central Park before going back to the office had seemed like a spectacularly good idea at the time. Derek, one of the marketing guys from Chicago, and I were discussing a campaign Thayer Steelworks was launching to celebrate our partial merger with GlobalStar after a meeting with the New York firm responsible for designing said campaign.

I’d had to tag along to cover the financial implications of our contract with them, but I liked Derek. We got along well, so when he’d suggested grabbing a coffee so he could see a bit of the park while he was in the city, I’d wholeheartedly agreed.

Naturally, that was when it all went to shit.

We’d only just walked away from the coffee truck when I spotted an all-too familiar dog. I saw its head first, then the disproportionately big body it was attached to, then Maggie, and the sight of her damn near knocked the breath out of my lungs after so long.

She was dressed more like the New York version of her than the Massachusetts version, in light blue linen pants, a white button-down shirt, and a light blue, cropped jacket. Huge sunglasses covered her eyes, that dark blonde hair pulled up into a high, sleek ponytail, but it was definitely her.

I stopped walking so abruptly that Derek crashed into my shoulder, barely managing to keep hold of his coffee as he smacked into me. “Shit. Sorry. What the hell, man? Why’d you stop?”

“It can’t be. My luck cannot be that bad.”

“What?” He frowned. “What’s going on?”

I shook my head before turning to face him, drawing in a deep breath as I tried to shake it off. “It’s nothing. A simple case of mistaken interest.”

He laughed. “Almost like mistaken identity, huh? Yeah, I get it.”

As much I tried to keep moving, I kept Maggie and the puppy in my peripheral vision, which meant I saw the moment the dog spotted me. His ears went up and his tail started moving seconds before he started tugging her in my direction.

Maggie looked up, and although I couldn’t see her eyes, I could tell when she recognized me. Her chest caved and her spine went rigid, and for a completely irrational second, I forgot where I was, but then the dog lunged toward me.

“Oh, hell,” I muttered as the puppy took off, dragging Maggie behind him as he veered toward the bike path. As I watched, three cyclists practically flew around the corner, coming straight at them. “Maggie! Let go.”

“No!”

Fuck.

I spun and pushed my coffee into Derek’s hand before I took off toward them. “Maggie!”

Just as she stumbled off the curb, I caught the leash and wrapped my hand around it, hauling the puppy off the path with everything I had. He finally skidded to a stop and one of the cyclists swore at us as he passed, but Maggie landed against my chest, safe and unharmed.

I caught her without even thinking about it, grateful that the crisis had been averted, but before I could say a word, the puppy gave a little yelp and I glanced down at him. “It’s good to see you too, buddy.”

Letting go of the girl I shouldn’t have touched—even to save her life—I dropped into a crouch and scratched the back of his ears. “You have to be more careful than that, boy. Seriously.”

Maggie took a couple steps back like she was only now recovering from the shock. “Sorry about that. He’s stronger than I realized.”