Page 40 of The Bad Wedding Date

Fraser groaned while I struggled. His strength poured out of him, even with only one arm being used to spin me around before he dropped me back to my feet and stood behind me, his arms circling my stomach. The two of us were bent forward, our breaths mingling, with my back against his chest.

“No,” he said. “This isn’t how tonight ends.”

“Get off me, Fraser.”

“I’m not letting you do this.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“It does now. I told you before: I don’t like people thinking they can do this kind of shit to people who don’t deserve it.”

“Yeah? And how do you know I don’t deserve it?”

“I’m going with those gut instincts we talked about.”

I sagged in his arms, not missing the way he readjusted me in them and blew out a breath. His aftershave drowned my senses, and the weirdest thought running through my mind was how I wanted to feel safe in the embrace of a stranger. How Ididfeel safe—the safest I’d been in such a long time. To have somebody on my side was a strange and overwhelming feeling, and I’d somehow become desperate enough to want to soak it in for a few seconds.

“I can’t go back in there,” I finally said.

“You can, and you will.”

“My dress is a mess.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

He turned me around until I was looking up into his eyes again. His hands came to the tops of my arms. “If you run away now, they win. If you show them that you’re weak, they’ll always win. You’ve gone through the trouble of dragging me into this wedding. You can’t let all of that be for nothing.”

“Why? Why can’t I?”

“Because it’s moments like these that define what you’ll do in your future. It might feel like you’ve got away with it by running—that it’s easier to bury your head in the sand—but someday soon, you’ll have to choose whether you take flight or fight again, and if you keep taking flight, everyone will keep abusing the fact that you have no fight.”

I huffed out a laugh, sniffed up and dropped my hands down by my thighs, letting my shoes bash into one of them with a thud. “Don’t you ever get tired of fighting, Fraser?”

“No.” His jaw ticked.

“I wish I was like that. You’re so strong. So confident in who you are. So—”

“Stop it.” He shook my arms, lowering his head. “Stop it. You have got to stop being so frail. If certain people see you like this, they’ll use it to their advantage.”

I frowned harder, stepping back from him. “What has got into you?”

“You, Charlotte.” He stopped, stepping closer to me. “And whether you like it or not, you’re not leaving this wedding tonight. You’re not running away.”

“Says who?”

“I do. And you owe me.”

I raised a brow, holding his gaze. “Is this about the money?”

“I don’t want your damn money.”

“Then, what do I owe you, exactly?”

“Your time.”

I scowled, letting my silence linger.

“You’re staying here tonight. That can be your payment to me.”

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