Chapter Twenty-Two
“THIS IS WRONG,” Violet heard Ryder’s voice follow her as she crossed the ballroom and stole the linen tablecloth off the cake table. “No. Not that table,” Ryder said.
Violet wrapped the silk material around her hot, warm, and aroused body.
“You did it.” Ryder laughed, and she turned, catching him shaking his head in the moonlight.
From this distance, the silhouette of his body warmed the area between Violet’s legs all over again. Waiting for her on the window seat, his naked body was stretched out on his side and one arm propped on his elbow, holding his head.
Violet giggled and ran across the room feeling like a caped crusader moving through the darkness, but the only person she was rescuing was herself.
“It was the emptiest table,” she defended, stopping in front of him.
He stared up at her, but she didn’t notice as her eyes trailed over his taut muscles. Up close, the light displayed each groove of his body and it was amazing. He was amazing. They were amazing...together.
“Didn’t your mom teach you it isn’t nice to gawk?” he teased, reaching under the material wrapped around her and pinching her leg. “Get over here.”
Violet snuggled into the crook of Ryder’s elbow, as he wrapped the “blanket” around them. Leaning on his side, his legs tangled in hers, he traced his finger along her throat, watching her.
“What are the odds that we are going to get caught?” Ryder asked.
She shrugged, a little tease, at him, but they weren’t going to get caught. No one stepped into her ballrooms the night before a wedding, without consulting her first. No one.
“We could go back to your place,” Ryder said and Violet felt herself stiffen, even though she tried not to. Ryder must have felt it too, because he said, “I want to go back to your place.”
Violet didn’t believe him and she didn’t want to ruin this perfect night. There was so much attraction between them but their differences continued to get in the way, even today. She didn’t want anything to get in the way of how she felt right now.
The best solution was a topic change. “You know, I wasn’t referring to our last visit to this room,”
“Was there another time?” he asked, then mortification filled his face and she thought maybe for a second he remembered. Then he said, “Please don’t tell me this has something to do with my drunkenness at your wedding.”
Don’t tell me? He didn’t remember. Why did that bother her a bit?
“I guess in a way, it did. It was the night of my wedding.” His blank face stared back at her. “Apparently, I’m unsuccessful at jogging the memory of a heart-broken, drunken fool,” she said.
“We were here?” He sounded so surprised, if she hadn’t remembered it so clearly, she might wonder herself. “On your wedding day?”
Violet nodded. “Wedding night. Most of the wedding night. While the guests were dancing and celebrating, we were in here, celebrating our pity.”
Ryder didn’t look happy about that.
“Let’s just say, you were attempting to be the source of my hard liquor.”
Ryder’s face fell and he searched her eyes trying to confirm she wasn’t making the story up. When he realized she was telling him the truth, even more mortification crossed his face. “I got you drunk? On your wedding night? While you were pregnant?”
Violet touched his cheek, thinking he might pull away from her. “I said attempting. Besides, you didn’t know I was pregnant. No one did.” She reached up and kissed him. The lips that spun her world were tightly pinched.
“No wonder you’ve been mad at me all these years. First I ruffled your sister’s dress, and then I try to get you drunk on your wedding night with a bun in the oven.”
Violet laughed. He had intoxicated her, but it wasn’t the result of alcohol. “Don’t put that blame on yourself. You don’t even remember. But I did try to stop you from drinking anymore and when you tried to take your flask back from me, I knocked you off the table.”
Ryder stared at her. He was skeptical.
“Yes, that’s right. I knocked big, muscle man, Ryder right on his ass. And it felt incredible. Then I hid your flask and tried to help you back up.” It had all been an interesting distraction.
“Tried?”
“You’re all muscle and when you’re dead weight, you are heavy as cement. We stayed on the floor. Hung out. You and I spent the beginning of my happily ever after together.”
Ryder’s eyebrows knitted together. “Happily ever after?” he asked.
Violet covered her face, embarrassed as he said it out loud, like it was the fairy tale everyone thought. “Yes.” She uncovered her eyes to find him still staring at her. “It’s what I tell couples who are getting married here,” she explained. “That their wedding day is the beginning of the rest of their lives together. That day is their ‘happily ever after’.” She sobered. “I know, it sounds silly, but couples gobble it up.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you believe in happily ever after?”
She shook her head, her eyes falling to where his hand was outlining each of her fingers. She ended in a shrug. “I did and then I didn’t. Now, I don’t know.”
Could she find her happily ever after with Ryder? After all these years, was it possible?
“I was young then and the term is so appropriate with my clients. They smile and love the idea.” Violet smiled. “Do you believe in happily ever after?” she asked him.
It was Ryder’s turn to shrug. “I guess that depends on the definition of happily ever after. My parents, for example, were madly in love while they were married, but their happily ever after was cut short when my mom died.” His tone changed as he said it. “My dad loved her every single day she was gone, until the day he couldn’t remember. Is that his happily ever after?”
Violet had never thought about it like that.
Ryder sighed and squeezed her hand. “Anyway, we should go.” He sat up and Violet pulled him back down, this time to settle on top of her.
“I don’t want to go.”
He kissed her. “I don’t want to get caught.”
She kissed him. “We won’t.”
“Violet...”
“There’s only two ways to get in here. One through the main french doors and the other through the corridor that leads to the kitchen. For both you need a key card to get in.”
“If it’s so impossible, then how did I get in here on your wedding?”
“Well, because of the amount of guests my parents had invited not only was the gold ballroom kitchen packed with staff preparing meals and cleaning up afterwards, but so was the silver ballroom. From the platter of food you had in here when I found you, I assume you came in through the kitchen.”
He chuckled and she was glad to hear the blame he held for himself was gone. “And, did we sneak back out that way?”
Violet pressed her lips together. The kitchen staff had been long gone by the time her mother had wandered in, finding Violet and Ryder passed out on the window seat...exactly where they were right now. “My mom found us. Sleeping.”
“No.” Shock coursed through his chuckle.
“Yes. She brought me out to wish farewells to the guests. We left you here and I honestly don’t know what my mom did about you. I was sent to my bedroom like a child after the last speech and the party went on without me.” Violet searched his eyes. “Do you really not remember?”
He shook his head.
Violet left their conversation at that. If she told him the truth, she knew his guilt would pull him away. They were better together, then apart.
“Let’s make some new memories in this room,” she suggested, moving her legs up and around his waist.
“I think we’ve made plenty,” he said, but his lips found her throat and his soft touch arched her body harder against him.
“I don’t think we’ve made enough,” she whis
pered hoarsely into his hair.