An enormous weight lifted off Dylan’s chest. Finally, his brother was seeing reason.
“Talk to her,” he said gently. “Tell her everything you’re feeling, man. Maybe you two can work through it and the wedding will go on as scheduled.”
“It won’t.” Chris drew a deep breath, then smoothed out the front of his black suit jacket. “The partners will understand, right?” he said, sounding desperate.
Disapproval stiffened Dylan’s muscles. Was Chris seriously concerned about how his law firm’s partners would react instead of worrying about how his jilted bride was going to feel? Wow. His brother had always been a tad self-absorbed and slightly pretentious, but at the moment, Dylan didn’t recognize the man in front of him.
“Forget about the partners,” he ordered. “Focus on your fiancée. Go find Claire. Now.”
With a quick nod, Chris turned around and left the room.
Battling his disbelief, Dylan took a moment to collect his composure. Shit. This was a complete clusterfuck. Should he find his mother and fill her in? Or should he wait until he knew for certain whether the wedding was off?
No, he ought to get his mom. If anything, she could at least be there to offer Claire some comfort after Chris dropped his bomb.
He was still stressed as hell as he marched out the door and down the pristine white-marble floor in the hallway. He’d just rounded the corner when he heard the click of high heels.
Speak of the devil—his mother was bounding toward him, her teal dress fluttering around her ankles with each quick step she took.
Dylan met her halfway, shaking his head in aggravation. “Thank God you’re here. We’ve got a bit of a situation.”
Shanna Wade’s green eyes were the same pale shade as her sons’ and swimming with the same shock Dylan was currently feeling.
“Dylan,” she said in a grim voice, “can you please explain why your brother just asked me to tell all the guests to go home?”
His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach like a sinking rock. “He did what?”
“He told me to make an announcement that there won’t be a wedding.” She hesitated. “He said you were responsible for telling Claire.”
Dylan’s shoulders tensed. “What? Where is he now?”
His mom’s voice trembled. “He left.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
For once, Shanna didn’t reprimand him for dropping an F-bomb. “He went out the back. I was too flustered and confused to stop him, and then when I finally snapped out of it and ran outside, he was already driving away.”
Chris, you fucking asshole.
Fury whipped through him, along with a wad of disgust that knotted around his insides. He couldn’t believe this. Chris had actually fled without telling Claire McKinley it was over. His brother had actually pulled an Elvis and left the fucking building.
“What do we do?”
His mom’s frantic demand penetrated his enraged thoughts. Taking a calming breath, Dylan reached for her hand and found that it was icy cold. He squeezed her delicate fingers and met her confused expression.
“You’re going to have to make the announcement,” he said softly. “Tell everyone there won’t be a wedding today.”
She looked panicked. “And say what? That my son got cold feet?”
“No. Don’t give any details. Just say the bride and groom had a change of heart, and the decision was mutual.”
Tears filled Shanna’s eyes. “Oh my God. How is this happening? Will you come with me?”
“I can’t. I have something else to take care of.”
“What are you doing?”
“What Chris was too much of a coward to do.” Dylan’s jaw tightened with anger. “I’m going to break up with his bride.”
“Do I look okay?” Biting her lip, Claire stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. The butterflies in her stomach were flying around in crazy circles, making it difficult to focus on the vision in white staring back at her.
“Okay? You look more than okay, sweetie. You look beautiful.” Nora McKinley appeared in the mirror, her brown eyes gleaming with pride and sparkling with unshed tears.
A queasy feeling tickled Claire’s belly. “Mom…”
“I mean it. You’re beautiful, inside and out.” Nora sniffled. “You’re the most wonderful daughter a mother could ever ask for, and I’m so very proud of you.”
Claire’s teeth sank harder into her bottom lip.
“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry. You’ll ruin your makeup.”
She hadn’t even noticed the moisture welling up in her eyes, but that did explain why her reflection was blurry all of a sudden.
She blinked away the tears and turned to face her mother, who looked gorgeous and elegant in a peach-colored empire-cut dress that stopped just below her knees. Nora’s auburn hair was pulled back in a neat chignon, and with her perfect complexion and naturally red lips, Claire’s fifty-three-year-old mother didn’t look a day over forty.
“What’s going on, Claire? Are you nervous?”
“Yes.” She gulped. “But that’s normal, right? People get nervous before their wedding, don’t they?”
”Of course. It’s a perfectly normal response,” Nora said in a gentle tone. “Lots of brides get jittery right before the ceremony.”
”I wish Nat was here,” Claire murmured.
Her mother let out a soft sigh. “I know you’re upset that Natasha couldn’t be here, but you can’t dwell on that. Do you want me to get Michelle? Your maid of honor should really be here to help you get ready.”
”No, it’s all right. I just…I think I need a moment alone. Do you mind?”
A wrinkle appeared on Nora’s forehead, but she didn’t object to the request. “Of course not.” She stepped closer and gently stroked Claire’s cheek. “Michelle and I will come get you when it’s time.”
The second her mother was gone, Claire slid down to the carpeted floor in a pile of white lace.
Was this normal? The nerves, the shaky hands and damp palms? When she was a little girl, she’d constantly fantasized about her wedding, imagined how elated she’d be when the big day finally came. Cold feet had never been part of the fantasy.
And neither had a full-blown panic attack.
The bodice of her dress suddenly felt too tight, making it impossible to breathe, and her hands were shaking so hard she had to dig her fingers into her thighs to still the erratic trembling.
Oh boy, this was bad. Heart racing, forehead dotted with sweat, palms tingling. Her wild gaze darted around the beautiful room, taking in the wood-paneled walls and expensive carpeting, the commanding fireplace and elegant furniture, the scent of money and leather hanging in the air.
Nothing about this felt right. She shouldn’t be getting ready in this fancy room. There shouldn’t be five hundred strangers in that ballroom waiting to watch her get married. And her best friend in the whole world should be standing up at the altar with her, not some random coworker Claire had been forced to ask because her groom refused to accommodate Natasha’s schedule. Since Nat went overseas for three months out of every year as part of a foreign-aid program run by the hospital where she worked as an ER resident, there had been no way for her to fly back to San Francisco for the wedding, which meant that Claire’s best friend of twenty-three years—hell, her only friend—couldn’t be her maid of honor.
Claire had been more than willing to push the date to the spring if it meant having Nat by her side, but Chris’s boss had sprung the Lavender Ballroom gift on them out of nowhere and Chris had insisted it would be rude to turn him down.
He’s changed.
The thought slunk into Claire’s head like a stray animal, but she forced herself to shoo it away.
Chris hadn’t changed. He was just under a ton of pressure. His position at Lowenstein and Tate was stressful, and it didn’t help matters that half his paycheck went to help his mother. Stress like that took its toll on a man.
Do
es stress also turn men into pretentious, inflexible, judgmental strangers?
She pushed aside the mocking thought. Enough. She had to snap out of this. She’d fallen in love with Chris for so many reasons—his work ethic, his passion to help others, his dry humor.
He might be acting…different lately, but once his mother’s finances were in order and his workload eased slightly, he’d go back to being the man she’d fallen for.
Right?
A knock on the door derailed her internal train of panic and confusion. God, if that was Michelle coming to pretend they were best buds and that Claire hadn’t asked her to be maid of honor out of sheer pathetic desperation, then she was literally going to scream.
There was another sharp knock. “Claire, it’s Dylan. Can I come in?”
Crap. Dylan Wade was the last person she wanted to see right now. Actually, he was the last person she wanted to see anytime, but as his knocking became more persistent, she reluctantly walked over to the door and flung it open.
“What do you want, Dylan?”
“Listen,” he began, “I need to—holy fuck.”
The awe and embarrassment that tinged his voice caught her by complete surprise. “What?” she said warily.
Dylan stepped into the suite. His green eyes were glued to her, and the reverent expression on his handsome face was completely unexpected.
“Wow,” he breathed. “Claire, you look…wow…you look so beautiful.”
It took a few dumbfounded seconds for her to fathom that he wasn’t being sarcastic. Since he’d never looked at her with anything other than annoyance or scorn, his visible appreciation compelled her to glance at the mirror again and really study her reflection this time.
A different woman was looking back at her, a woman in a gorgeous satin-and-lace gown with a sweetheart neckline, full skirt and short train. Her auburn hair was arranged in long, flowing waves, slightly pulled back with tiny white flowers threaded through it. Her minimal, shimmery makeup gave her skin a radiant glow, and the heirloom diamond bracelet around her wrist caught the light and sparkled whenever she moved.
God, she did look beautiful.
The realization dimmed some of her panic. If Dylan, a man who disliked her, could appreciate the way she looked right now, then clearly she was about to knock her groom’s socks off.
“Thanks,” she said, keeping her gaze on her reflection.
“Um…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I came by because I needed to tell you…uh…”
The agitation in his normally confident tone had her turning to face him. Okay, weird. Dylan was shifting around as if he couldn’t get comfortable. His hands slid into the pockets of his black trousers, then back out. His black dress shoes tapped the carpet a couple of times, and then he edged backward toward the door, his expression downright pained.
For the first time in three months, Claire was able to look at Dylan without blushing or visualizing the intensely erotic scene she’d witnessed between him and—nope, not going there.
She shoved the memory right out of her head and focused on the odd tension thickening the space between them.
“What’s going on, Dylan?” Fear darted through her. “Is everything okay? Is Chris all right?”
“He’s fine,” Dylan said quickly.
“Then what is it?”
He shuffled awkwardly, raking a hand through his short blond hair.
“Look,” he started, his voice a tad hoarse, “Chris is…um…aw shit, there’s no easy way to say this, okay? So I’m just going to do it, and I want you to know that doing this brings me no pleasure. You and me…we don’t really get along, and then there was that whole visit thing and…you know, what you saw at my place…which you never brought up again, and I’m really grateful for that, by the way—”
“Oh for the love of God,” she interrupted. “Quit babbling and say what you came here to say.”
“Chris left.”
Claire blinked. “What?”
“He left.” Misery flashed across Dylan’s face. “He couldn’t go through with the wedding. He…uh, he doesn’t think you two are right for each other.”
Shock slammed into her, so powerful she nearly keeled over.
Chris was calling off the wedding?
A rush of humiliation joined the unwavering shock. Oh God. The groom backing out at the last minute was definitely not part of her childhood fantasy.
As tears filled her eyes again, she looked at Dylan with dismay. “I can’t believe this.”
He looked upset. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be the one telling you this. My brother is a bastard for running away, and I promise you, I tried to get him to do the right thing. I told him it was his responsibility to talk to you, but I guess he thought it would be too painful or something.”
“Wait a minute,” she burst out, as something suddenly registered. “What do you mean, he left?”
Dylan’s throat jumped as he gulped. “He left. As in, no longer here.”
“You mean he left the country club?” Her mouth dropped open. “He just drove away?”
There was a quick nod.
Her pulse careened into cardiac-arrest territory, her throat tightening with horror when she realized what that meant. “He’s going to make me face all those guests by myself?” Her breathing went shallow. “I’m the one who has to tell everyone there won’t be a wedding?”
Shock flitted through Dylan’s eyes. “What? No, of course not. Don’t worry, my mom will make the announcement.”
Agony and embarrassment heated her cheeks as she pictured Dylan’s sweet mother getting up there in front of hundreds of strangers and telling them they’d wasted their time in coming here.
“You can’t put that on Shanna,” she moaned. “Oh God. This is so humiliating!”
“Claire. Hey, calm down, honey. Take a deep breath.”
She ignored him, her brain continuing to run over all the mortifying implications of Chris’s cowardice.
“I have to tell my parents,” she mumbled between unsteady breaths. “And Father Thomas. Oh gosh, do you think Frank Lowenstein will expect us to reimburse him for renting out the Lavender Ballroom?”
Her hands started shaking again. More and more thoughts flew into her head. “My boss is out there, and all my colleagues. I can’t go out there and have everyone feeling sorry for me.” Her gaze darted toward the mirror again. “Oh shit, I can’t be wearing this gown when they see me.”
The next few minutes were a blur of irrationality, a heart-pounding, panic-induced daze that somehow ended with Claire’s wedding dress turning into a pool of fabric at her feet. She had no recollection of getting undressed—and apparently no sense of modesty, either—but suddenly she was wearing nothing but a strapless white bra and matching thong, completely on display for her runaway groom’s brother.
And yet when it finally dawned on her that she’d just stripped down to her underwear, she couldn’t even dwell on the fresh round of embarrassment because a new realization had swooped into her head.
“Where am I supposed to go?” she said miserably. “Is Chris at our apartment?”
Dylan looked utterly disoriented, his green eyes moving from her nearly naked body, to the discarded wedding gown, then up to her face. “I don’t know,” he sputtered. “Look. Claire. You’re freaking out and you need to dial it down, okay?”
“Where am I supposed to go?” she repeated, raising her voice over the loud drumming of her heart. “I don’t even have a car! My parents drove. Oh shit, my parents. They’ll want to take me home. I can’t go home with them, Dylan! They’ll hover over me and my mom will stuff me with cookies because she thinks cookies are the solution for all of life’s troubles, and—”
A sharp sting on her cheek made her head jerk up.
She blinked in shock and reached up to rub away the pain. “Did you just slap me?”
Dylan’s perfectly sculpted jaw tensed. “No, I flicked you.”
“You flicked me?”
r /> “Yes.” He moved closer and gripped both her shoulders. “Get it together, McKinley. My brother is the asshole in this equation, okay? My mom is handling the guests, so there’s no reason for you to go out there at all. You don’t need to face your boss or coworkers, and if you’re not ready to talk to your parents, then you don’t have to. And fuck all those country club jerks from Chris’s firm. You don’t owe them any explanations. Understand?”
She nodded, feeling numb.
“But you’re right,” Dylan went on. “Chris is probably at the apartment, so maybe going back there isn’t a good idea at the moment. Unless you’re ready to get the big talk over with?”
She shook her head. Talking to Chris was definitely on her agenda, but not now. As furious as she was that he’d taken off instead of handling the situation like an adult, she couldn’t deal with him right now. Not until she got far, far away from this stupid country club and made sense of her muddled thoughts.
“I guess I can go to a hotel,” she said in a tired voice. “Can you drop me off?”
Without waiting for his response, she hurried toward the suitcase and carry-on she’d left beside the door. She and Chris had been scheduled to leave for their honeymoon immediately following the reception, so her bags were already packed and waiting.
She kept her back to Dylan, rooting around in her suitcase and pulling out the first item of clothing she found, which happened to be a bright blue sundress. She yanked the dress over her head and smoothed it down her body, not caring that you could see the white band of her bra, thanks to the dress’s backless halter style, or that the skirt was indecently short. This dress had been meant for Aruba, the first stop on their three-week honeymoon.
Except there wouldn’t be a honeymoon. Or a wedding.
“I can’t believe he just left,” she whispered.
The warm hand on her bare shoulder made her jump. “I really am sorry,” came Dylan’s husky voice.
Claire couldn’t help a derisive snort. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Bullshit.” For the first time since Dylan arrived to drop his bomb, hot tears stung her eyes. “You’re loving every second of this. You hate me and you probably think I had it coming, huh?”