Page 2 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

For life.

1

CHARLI

Six Years Later

I stareat myself in the mirror, soft light filtering through the window beside me. The bright sunshine outside, the sound of birds singing, the distant music played by the string quartet waiting for me downstairs…it’s perfect.

Or it would be. If it wasn’t for the man waiting for me at the end of the aisle.

I smooth my hands shakily along the wedding dress; it’s beautiful, even if it’s not the one I would have chosen for myself. No, James made sure to insist that I choose a dress that covers my arms and my chest, making sure nobody else will be able to see an inch of skin outside of my face—and even that is covered by a heavy veil. I’m in there, somewhere, but it’s hard to make out any part of me.

Exactly why he likes me this way.

Another stab of anxiety thrusts into my stomach, and I try to contain it. Because what am I meant to do about this now,really? It’s my wedding day. Myweddingday. It’s not like I can just go to James and tell him that, actually, I’ve been having some second thoughts and I’d like to rethink this whole thing. Could we just postpone it for a day or two, while I figure out how I’m really feeling…?

The thought sends a shiver down my spine. I know exactly how he would react to that, exactly how he would fly into a rage and scream in my face—how he would count out every cent that he and his family have paid for this occasion, tell me that I’m the only family he has and I should be grateful for him, that this is sotypicalof me, to be so ungrateful when this was all about me in the first place…

Dark spots start to play at the corners of my eyes as the thought crosses my mind. Shit, has he really gotten under my skin so much that even thinking about him blowing up at me scares me? I guess so.

Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m facing a lifetime with this guy that has me so terrified. As soon as I step out of this room—this lavish, beautiful hotel room where my makeup artist and hairstylist have just left me—I’ll be on the path to putting his ring on my finger and becoming his wife.

His wife. His fuckingwife.How the hell did I get here? Sometimes, it doesn’t seem possible, the mess that has unfolded in the last few years since we met—since I met him at a function I was waitressing at, and he homed in on me, insisting on paying my wages for the rest of the night so he could spend it with me. At the time, I was flattered, but looking back now, I can see what a red flag that was—even then, he thought he had some claim over me. He figured out early on that throwing money at me would get me to give him what he wanted, and what have I done but proved him right since then?

And, given who his father is, it’s not as though I could just slip out of the relationship like that. No, because I started to become a regular feature at his father’s fundraisers, and turning up in the press on James’s arm was enough to secure my place there. At first, I thought he was just careful because of how much was on the line for him and his dad, but now…now, looking back, I can see that it was just an excuse to take as much control as he could from me, and to make me pay for believing for a second that I deserved anything else.

And now, we’re engaged. I can hardly remember the night it happened. I was drunk, I know that much. I can recall him telling me, over some fancy dinner, that he knew he hadn’t been the partner he wanted to be, but that he wasn’t willing to give up the connection we had, and then he popped open the ring box, and I stared down at it, and I…

I saw my future in there. A future with him. A future with a family I wasn’t going to lose, the way I’d lost my parents. And that, combined with the promises he was spinning for me, had been enough to convince me to accept the offer.

And the rush that came afterward hardly gave me a chance to think about what I had agreed to. James seemed to know that getting that ring on my finger once and for all was all that mattered, and he did everything in his power to rush this all ahead. And now, here I am, standing in the last room I’ll ever stand in as a single woman…

Knowing that what lies on the other side of this marriage for me is far from a lifetime of joy and happiness.

My eyes slide over to the window, which looks out over the perfectly manicured lawn of the garden beyond. This place is gorgeous, honestly—it’s even better in person than it was in thepictures he showed me. Downstairs, there are a few hundred guests, many of them press, ready to snap some pictures for the lifestyle pages of the Sunday supplement. I will be there, in my dress, my husband at my side, clutching flowers and beaming from behind the perfect painted face they’ve drawn on me.

Anyone who looks at those pictures will think I’m happy. Why wouldn’t they? They’ll see me marrying the senator’s son, turning my life from waitressing to wifedom, and they’ll see it as a success story. Maybe other women will look at it, the image of me like that, and they’ll think—hey, maybe I should go after someone like that too. If she can do it, I can, right…?

The thought stabs a sharp rush of panic into my chest. No.No.I can’t go through with this. If not for myself, then for anyone else who might see me and think this is worth doing. I don’t care how close we are to the actual ceremony, there’s still time for me to get out of here. I just need to run, while I still have the chance…

Something snaps in me, and I rush over to the window, trying to dig my nails under the frame to pull it open—a couple of my tasteful pale pink falsies ping off onto the floor around me, but I pay no attention to them. Adrenaline is coursing through my system—the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end, panic gripping me but urging me onward at the same time. I have to get out of here. I have to…

Finally, the window creaks loudly and eases up an inch or two—my eyes widen, and I whip my head around to the door to make certain nobody has overheard me. I asked for a few minutes to myself to get myself straightened up before I went down to the ceremony, but in a matter of moments, someone is going to come looking for me, and I might be caught in the act.

I pry the window open a few more inches, wincing at every scrape and scratch it makes against the frame. Someone will have heard me, I’m sure. If they walk in now, I can just claim cold feet, and pray to God that nobody mentions to him what I’ve been caught in the midst of.

But soon, I manage to crack a couple feet of space between the window and the sill. It’s not much, but it’s going to have to be enough. Grabbing my skirt and scrunching it up at my waist, I hook one leg over the sill and duck my head down to push myself out. For a horrible second, I think I’m stuck, the window frame pressing down on the back of my neck—but a moment or two later, it pops free, and I tumble into the flower beds next to my hotel room.

My eyes are wide as I spring to my feet, heart slamming against my chest. I shoot a glance this way and that—there’s nobody out here. No, everyone who came to the ceremony is in the main hall right now, waiting for me to arrive, carrying the bunch of pastel-pink roses that match the cummerbund on his tuxedo.

Instead, I spring to my feet, paying no attention to the dirt clinging to my knees and the folds of my dress, and bolt toward the parking lot. I insisted on driving up here myself—I spun some story about it being bad luck for him to see the bride before the day itself, and he’d bought it, allowing me some space to clear my head on the drive over here. It wasn’t like I had bridesmaids to pick up, given that they were all handpicked by his father from his side of the family.

Nor did I really have any friends of my own anymore. Not after everything he’s put me through.

Keys—keys.Do I have my keys on me? Shit, I’ll just have to hope that I left the door unlocked…

I spot my car nestled among all the sleek vehicles in the parking lot—it stands out like a sore thumb, but I don’t give a damn. He’s tried to get me a new one a few times, but I always insisted I liked my little beat-up blue car; she might struggle on hills, but that’s not a problem for me.

---