Page 375 of The Christmas Wife

Tears prick my eyes. I’ve never felt this welcome before. He’s the patriarch of the family, and when Edward spoke about him,I sensed that he might be much more aloof and standoffish, but I was wrong. G-Pa, for all his faults—and I’m sure he has many—has opened his arms and his heart and made me feel at home in a way my own father hasn’t done in a very long time.

I pull my hand from his, then throw my arms about him and hug him. "Thank you," I whisper.

I sense him clearing his throat, then he pats my back. "I should be saying thank you for your agreeing to marry my grandson."

I sniffle, then lean back and look up into his face. "Actually, he should be the one saying thank you to me.

Edward growls.

G-Pa laughs.

"I assume you took care of the paperwork needed for the marriage to go ahead?" Edward cuts in.

G-Pa snorts. "The Registrar General is my golfing buddy."

All right, then.

Karma smiles, then places her hand on my shoulder. "Shall we get you dressed?"

20

Edward

"The fuck am I doing?" I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Arthur made sure to get me a brand new suit, in the style I favor, and it fits me, too. The bastard thinks of everything. I knot my tie, then swear when it comes out wonky. I untie it, try to knot it again, fail. Anger squeezes my chest. I curl my fingers into fists, and am about to let it fly when I hear a familiar drawl. "The cool emotionless Priest losing his temper? That’s a first."

Sinclair draws abreast and meets my gaze in the reflection. "Need some help?" He nods toward my tie.

When I don’t answer, he steps around between me and the mirror and begins to fasten my tie. "There; all done." He nods in satisfaction.

"Thanks," I murmur.

"Do you remember when I got married?"

"That was what, two years ago?"

"Nearly three." His lips curve. "Remember how nervous I was?"

"I’m not nervous."

"Of course, not," he says in a soothing voice.

"Don’t humor me, Sin."

"I wouldn’t dare, Priest." He raises his hands. "All I’m saying is, it’s natural to feel unnerved. A man doesn’t get married every day."

"I shouldn’t be getting married in the first place." I glance away.

"You deserve to be happy. You deserve a second chance."

Do I?I pivot and walk to the window of Arthur’s manor. No other way to describe it. It’s a ten-bed Victorian home perched on a hill in the center of Hampstead Heath. It has its own private driveway and swimming pool, and underground parking garage. Also, a home theater, a gym, and a den, which is where my half-brothers retired to wait for the ceremony to start. My entire life has turned upside down in the space of a few months. A family who largely hates me, except for Arthur—and he has his own selfish reasons for wanting me to take on the business. A fiancée who I should have never put in this situation. The only blessing is I have the company to focus on. Power and money—the two things ingrained into me as wrong when I was a priest. The two things I crave more than anything else now.

Wait. I can't lie. Now, there's her. She's quickly becoming my new obsession. It doesn’t take rocket science to tell me I was wrong to offer her a job, in the first place. I wanted to keep her close, in the hope of controlling the damage she could do to my focus; but this time, I calculated wrong. I should have walked away from her. Instead, I invited her into my life, and she accepted. And I'm going to pay the price for it?—

No.Once we’re married, I can put distance between us, and everything can go back to being the same.

"You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened," Sinclair’s voice sounds over my shoulder.

"Is that your expert opinion?" I scoff.

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