Page 119 of An Unexpected Love

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But I do know you’re going through with this wedding, if it’s the last thing either of us ever does.”

“But how can you force me to marry you, knowing what you do?”

“It must have something to do with saving my entire family from humiliation,” he continued with the same chilly irony. “That family you claim to love so much. Maybe it’s because I don’t want my mother—who’s worked day and night on this wedding for the past three weeks, who’s looked forward to this day for years—to become an object of pity among her friends. Maybe it’s because I’d have trouble looking my two sisters and their husbands in the eye, knowing they rearranged their entire summer, gave up their vacations, to fly out here for our wedding. Just maybe it’s because I have an aversion to being ridiculed myself. I can’t really tell you what else would reduce a man to drag a womanwho’s rejected him to the altar. But make no mistake, Charlotte, you will marry me.”

“It isn’t that I don’t care for you,” she whispered through her tears.

“Right. You care so deeply that you decided to go into hiding on our wedding day.”

“I know you’re angry…”

“You’re damn right I’m angry.”

“We can’t go through with the wedding, Jason! We just can’t.”

“Oh, but we are, Charlotte.”

“What will we do afterward? I mean, once we’re married and—”

“Somehow we’ll find a way to miss our flight to Hawaii, then, first thing Monday morning, I’ll file for an annulment.”

“But it doesn’t make sense to go through with the wedding—”

“Yes, my darling Charlotte, it does. It makes a whole lot of sense.”

* * *

Charlotte was determined to survive the day, although she wasn’t sure how she’d manage. She’d been a fool to run off the way she had. A fool and a coward. She was an even bigger fool to think she’d appease Jason’s anger by lying.

When she’d left, she hadn’t thought about what she was doing to Jason or his family. She hadn’t been thinking at all, overpowered instead by her own fears.

On the way back, she tried to tell Jason she was sorry, to apologize for the hurt and humiliation she’d caused, but each time he cut her off, saying he didn’t want to hear it.

The ride back to her apartment was like living through the worst nightmare of her life. Jason was so cold, so furiously angry.

He dropped her off at her apartment, took her arm, leveled his steely blue eyes on her and said, “I’ll be by to pick you up in forty minutes.”

“I can’t possibly be ready by then.”

“You can and you will. And, Charlotte, don’t even think about running away again. Do you understand me?”

Charlotte nodded and almost told him it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. Then she remembered the whole wedding was a farce, anyway.

“Fine. I’ll be ready,” she assured him calmly.

She showered, brushed her hair and dressed, but she wasn’t conscious of doing any of those things. Carrie was with her, and Mandy, too, both silent and pale. Worried. What she’d done to them was terrible, Charlotte realized. They were both too young to carry this secret, too young to bear the burden of her foolishness.

Neither girl asked her any questions, and for that, Charlotte was grateful. She didn’t know what she would’ve told them if they had.

Leah and Jamie had arrived within minutes of Jason’s bringing her home. They were both happy and excited. If her complete lack of emotion bewildered them, they didn’t let it show. They chatted excitedly, recalling events at their own weddings, bubbling over with enthusiasm. Charlotte tried to smile, tried to pretend this was the happiest moment of her life. Leah and Jamie seemed to believe it, even if the girls had their doubts.

Jason arrived to escort her to the church, and her futuresisters-in-law shooed him away. She wore the beautiful off-white dress Elizabeth Manning had insisted on buying her, and Leah had woven flowers in her hair.

Before she knew it, Charlotte was at the church. The number of guests surprised her. Tears clogged her throat when she reminded herself that she was playing a role. Tomorrow morning she’d go back to what her life had been before she met Jason Manning. Back to the emptiness. The loneliness.

At the appropriate moment, with organ music swirling around her, she walked dutifully down the aisle, aware every second of Jason standing at the front of the church. His eyes held hers as effectively as a vise, as though he suspected she might try to run even now. And if she tried, she didn’t doubt for a second that he’d go after her.

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