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He held open his arms, ignoring his stiff shoulder, and she walked into them. “It’s a deal.” One she definitely didn’t mind making. “And the dress is beautiful. It’s gorgeous, even.”
“You are what will make it gorgeous. It wouldn’t matter what you wear.”
He kissed her. Soft, sweet, light. The same sort of kiss he’d started with her all those months ago.
“That’s our last kiss when we’re not husband and wife,” she whispered when they finally broke apart.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I promise, the kisses just get better from here. But now I better get going or not only will that not be our last kiss—I might really decide I want one more last something else before we get married.”
She gave him a scandalized grin. “What would Marilyn say?”
He smiled too and cupped her cheeks. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be the one in white.”
“I can’t wait. Lock the door behind me.” He kissed her on the forehead and walked out the door.
Bree locked it, then turned and walked over to the couch and pulled the blanket off her dress. It really was beautiful. Not her maybe, but beautiful. It would make Tanner proud of how she looked when he saw her in it. And that was close enough to perfect for her.
She walked into the small bedroom to get the plastic garment bag.
A knock on the door had her turning away. Maybe it was Marilyn having decided to come back. Good. She could help Bree get the dress into the garment bag. Or maybe it was Tanner wanting more kisses—that was even better.
But when she opened the door it was neither. Jared Ellis stood on her doorstep.
After a moment of shock, she tried to slam the door in his face, but he was too quick. His backhand caught her across the cheek, and she stumbled backward. He quickly took the opportunity to enter her apartment, closing the door behind him.
“You’re going to help me get my wife back.”
Bree spun around, running for her phone. Tanner couldn’t be but half a block away. One message and he’d be back here in under a minute.
But then Jared pulled out a gun.
“If you grab that phone, I’m going to have to shoot you. That’s going to be inconvenient for me and painful for you.”
She was tempted to go for the phone anyway. Given what she knew about Jared, being shot may be more of a mercy than some of the other things he was capable of.
He grabbed her and threw her onto the couch—onto her beautiful wedding dress—before she could make a decision.
“How did you fool the monitoring system?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the gun still trained at her.
Bree wasn’t conceited, but she found it nearly impossible to think that this guy had found a way around the system that she had missed.
“It’s all about weaknesses,” Jared said. “Pressure points in the system. I’m very good at finding pressure points.”
“The system didn’t have any pressure points. I searched it myself.”
He gave a shrug and cocky half grin. “The computer system wasn’t the weakness. It only needed to be circumvented.”
He pulled up the leg of his khaki pants to show the monitor was gone.
“So that alarm I got was correct. You had taken it off. You must have bribed Sowers. He lied about you still being in Denver.”
Jared shrugged. “Bribe is not really the correct word. Like I said, I’m very good at finding pressure points. Sowers’s is his wife and newborn daughter. Once I applied a little pressure to that point, he was willing to do whatever I wanted, including say he was still with me if anybody called.”
His eyes were so cold. So dead. This man was a sociopath.
He pointed the gun a little closer at her. “I’m going to need you to call my Marilyn.”
