The Bridegroom's Secret

The clock was ticking. He had less than ninety minutes left to tell her, and trust that she’d be the strong, understanding woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman he’d relied on through the worst time of his life. His beautiful Julie…

“So,” she said, holding her flowers with fingers about to snap the stems, her voice over-bright. “The girls said we’re going to the airport. I hope you had things packed for me? Where are we heading—skiing? The Caribbean islands?” The final two words bordered on sarcastic. Obviously, his silence had given away that this wasn’t the kind of surprise it seemed.

She’d given him the opening he needed, but he refused to jump in and say it, to shock her that way. “Jules, you know I’ve been trying to get you alone since the day after our engagement party. I need to tell you something important, but you’ve been—” he paused so she’d get the full sense of his meaning “—very busy. But I knew you wouldn’t say no to the Belles if they helped me arrange time off for you.”

She flushed, as he’d expected she would. Julie’s honesty compelled her to say what came next. “I know it seems like I’ve been avoiding you…”

“Seems like?” He heard the rip-roaring fury in his voice, and knew it came from months of hurt. “You have avoided me, for almost two months now. You don’t call me or come to see me. When we have to be together, you only touch me in front of the cameras or to reassure your friends.” He held up a hand as she began to speak, her face filled with weary resentment. “And I’m sick to death of hearing that it’s the job. I see the other Belles spending time with their men, so stop making excuses.”

“So you’re more intelligent than me,” she snapped. “I believed your excuses for months on end. And your work never came in a prettier package than Elise.”

He refused to dignify that with a retort. Surely she must know he’d been faithful to her! Her problem had come from finding out about his work arrangements from a stranger. “You’re right about my making excuses. I have done that, but not for the reasons you think.” Once he’d turned onto the freeway leading to Logan International Airport, he said, “Time’s run out, Julie. It’s time for us to be honest—both of us.”

Beside him, he felt her freeze. “So, I gather this isn’t the romantic getaway the girls believed it was when they helped you?”

“No.” He kept his gaze on traffic. “But you already knew that.”

“So you lied to them, to our friends?”

He shrugged. “They drew their own conclusions. I didn’t correct them.”

“Sliding out of the truth is lying in my book,” she said, her tone left sarcasm behind, and headed straight into belligerence.

You ought to know, you’ve been doing it for months, he almost said; but an innate sense of honesty made him admit she was right: she’d only followed his example.

She’d been flashing her anger as bright as sunlight. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She didn’t want to know. Avoiding him had been all she could do to stop this final confrontation from happening—and time was up. Luring him into a fight was her last stand against the end.

“It wasn’t their place to know, Julie. I had to tell you first. After today, everyone will know anyway.”

The blood drained from her face, making her freckles stand out in sharper contrast. “I see,” she whispered. Her head lowered to where her thumbnails scratched at her index fingers. One of a legion of nervous habits he’d learned to read: she was nervous as hell and hiding it with belligerence.

But why? Why didn’t she take the opening he’d given her, and ask him to stop the car so she could get out, or just throw the ring back in his face?

The Belles. She’s staying in this engagement for her friends’ sake.

Since the Vandiver cancellation, the mammoth event that had gone belly-up without payment, the whole business had been on the rocks. Proud and fiercely independent, the women of The Wedding Belles wouldn’t take a cent from their men to stay afloat. But when it had hit the media rounds that The Belles, in debt themselves, were giving Julie and Matt the best wedding they could afford, Julie Montgomery and Matt McLachlan were suddenly hailed as the love match of the year, and the Belles as “wedding planners with heart.” Since then, brides and their mothers had flocked to The Wedding Belles to book their weddings…but, as ever with this kind of business, payments were slow to come in. They couldn’t afford a single cancellation now.

The Belles couldn’t afford to lose the McLachlan-Montgomery wedding.

He couldn’t be angry with her for caring about her friends, no matter how it hurt, no matter how damn rejected he felt, how alone in a love story he’d believed was forever.

What he had to say, to ask, was far too important to blurt out in anger, or in retaliation for whatever she threw at him. Given what he’d put her through, he deserved it.

“You haven’t asked why we’re headed to the airport,” he said abruptly.

Her mouth was half-open, ready for a retort, but then it closed. As she thought, her lower lip pushed out, almost like pouting but far sexier because it was natural. Like her sensuality, it was so much a part of her she didn’t think about it.

Suddenly his body reminded him that it had been a long time since she’d shown him the full extent of that loving sensuality. He ached with the need for her touch, for the beauty of their union—and even more he ached for the connection that, to him, meant he’d found his one and only, the commitment to forever he’d made in his heart the night she’d said the words he’d cherish all his life. “All I want is you.”

A shaft of pain pierced him like a gunshot, as he thought of the way she’d loved him right from the moment she’d tripped and landed at his feet the first day. She’d looked up, laughing at her clumsiness, willing to share the joke against herself in a way he’d come to know was uniquely Julie. Then the look in her eyes turned to wonder as she saw him. “Here’s my number,” she’d said within a minute in that adorable accent of hers, writing with a permanent marker on his hand. “And here’re my lips,” she’d whispered when she’d finished writing. She’d kissed him with a sweetness and desire he’d never known in his life. It was so amazing he’d forgotten they were in the middle of a milling crowd on a busy city street. He’d forgotten he was in a convenient, please-the-parents relationship with Elise, and he’d vowed never to cheat on a woman in his life. He hadn’t been able to think beyond the moment, the woman whose name he hadn’t even known. He’d drawn her into his arms and kissed her right back.

She hadn’t known his name, either. For the first time a woman hadn’t known he was Matthew McLachlan of McLachlan Marine Industries, one of Boston’s most eligible bachelors. And when on their second date he’d told her, she’d said, “Oh?”, with a semblance of polite interest when she so obviously didn’t care that it had made him laugh out loud, something he’d rarely done in his lifetime. “So does that mean I don’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay for dinner?”

And she’d stood by him after his father’s sudden death eight weeks later, and he’d discovered how deep the problems at McLachlan’s ran. The mess in which his father had left the business with schemes and investments that had failed time after time.

“I never had wealth in my life to care about, Matt,” she’d said, holding him close. “I care if it hurts you—but whether you want to save the business or you want to start over—no matter what, I’ll still be here.” And then she’d said those beautiful words he’d never forget. “All I want is you.”

He was about to test “no matter what,” and “all I want is you” to their limits. Would she still be here tomorrow? Would he still be all she wanted? Would she want him at all?

“So, why are we going to the airport?”

In their fourteen months together, he’d never heard such a distant tone from her.

He exited onto the airport turnoff. They were almost there. He swallowed the bitter bile rising in his throat and said the words he’d rehearsed ever since he’d recruited The Belles to help him “kidnap” her. “I realise this is terrible timing. I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to see me again. But I’m asking you not to walk away, not today. I need you, Julie.”

After a few moments, she asked, simply, “Why?”

There was nothing else to do but blurt it out. “My ex, Kirsten, was married on Saturday—”

“You…you were married?” The shock, the pain of quick jealousy in her voice made him want to hit himself, and yet a small part of him rejoiced. What a stupid jerk to shock her like that—but she wouldn’t feel any pain, surely, unless she still cared?

“No,” he was quick to reassure her. “We never married. Kirsten’s my ex-girlfriend. But that isn’t the point. We had—have a child together. Molly’s seven, and she’s on her way to stay with me for two weeks while Kirsten and Dan are on their honeymoon. Her plane lands in an hour.”

CHAPTER THREE

ONE moment passed, then two, before Julie made a small, choking sound, then another and another. “You…you…?” Further words were impossible, as she doubled over herself, coughing and spluttering.

But as she choked on her words, she couldn’t stop them going round and round in her head. He has a daughter?

She must have spoken them aloud at some point, for he answered in a restrained, polite tone that made her long to biff him over the head. “Yes. I should have told you about Molly long ago. I didn’t. There’s no excuse I can give you.”

Somehow she found her voice, even if it came out as a croak half-lost in a cough. “Just like that?” The words came out strangled as she coughed again and again, choking on saliva.

He must have pulled the car over sometime in the past minute, because she felt the stillness around her, and a gentle hand patting her back. He didn’t speak until her fit subsided. “What do you want me to say?”

“Maybe an apology, an excuse, a reason?” was all she managed in reply.

He frowned at her, as if she’d said something stupid. “What reason could I have? What excuse would work? Would an apology help you feel better, or make me any less of a jerk for not telling you about Molly before?”

Strangely his admission that he’d acted badly only made her angrier with him. “Maybe not— though it might have helped to have had some preparation time to meet her, say, a bit more than an hour?” She coughed a final few times and finally felt clear—at least in her throat and lungs. “You’re right, nothing could make you less of a jerk now, but it doesn’t mean I don’t deserve an apology, does it?”

“No. I should have told you earlier, Julie. I’m sorry.”

She kept her gaze on her hands, formed into fists on her lap. She mumbled, “Of course you are. Such a gentleman.” The words sounded sarcastic, even to her ears. She’d expected the words—but right now, she didn’t feel like forgiving him.

As if in echo of her thoughts, he said, “Don’t think it, Julie. Say it. Say what you’re feeling, about Molly—and about me.”

That was the trouble. There were too many things she wanted to say, to ask. Would he know the answers? Did she want to hear them?

Suddenly she felt tired of living in this limbo. She hated feeling so cold, so numb inside, filled with fear and regret, not knowing what was going on between them or why. Even the shock running through her veins was better than the nothingness. It was time. She had to know.

“Is that where you went when you flew out of Boston those few times, and didn’t want me to come?”

He nodded. “I don’t see enough of Molly, but I fly down to spend time with her whenever I can. I want her to know who her father is, that I care about her. I want her to be sure her dad didn’t just abandon her.”

Filled with the strangest mixture of fury, betrayal and relief, she turned away. Glad to just feel, words slipped out she never meant to speak. “I wondered, especially the fourth time two months back…”

A short silence. “You thought I had another woman?” He spoke slowly, as if he’d just come to the realisation. The shock in his voice was clear.

She noticed her thumbnail was in her mouth. Chewing her nails under stress was a habit she thought she’d broken when she was seventeen. Pulling it out, she made herself shrug. “What would you have thought had it been me taking off for parts unknown, making obvious excuses for you not to come—especially when you went just ten days before the party? What would you think if I had a male working partner—an ex-lover, no less—and I’d disappeared for a week just before our engagement party?”

After another long stretch of quiet, he answered in a curt tone. “Maybe I’d have thought the same things you obviously did— but I would have asked you about it. If I was given a chance to see you alone, or you allowed me to speak to you, that is.” No longer polite, his voice sounded cold, furious.

“So if you’d seen me alone in the past ten months—since you started disappearing without explanation—and I’d asked if you had another lover, would you have told me about your daughter?” she challenged, turning to face him with a fury to match his. “You wouldn’t have said ‘it’s just work’ again? You might have actually trusted me with something about your life the magazines don’t know?”

His jaw tightened. “You’ve thought that for ten months?”

She sighed. “You should know I would never have become your lover, let alone become engaged to you, if I’d thought it back then.”

He was pale, his face remote, untouchable. “Well, you should know I don’t cheat. I’ve never cheated on a woman in my life. Except the day you kissed me,” he finished with a hard irony that made her feel…feel—“and I went straight to her and told her I’d met you, and ended it. After fourteen months together, you should know better than to accuse me of that. Sneaking around behind someone’s back, saying one thing to one woman and promising the other something else, lying and manipulating and hurting everyone is the act of a selfish loser and pathetic coward.”

There was no way he was lying; but the fury in his eyes—the shadows of something in the past—told her this was a wound he wouldn’t let her touch.

Another door he’d closed in her face.

“I went to see Molly that time because she called to tell me about her mom getting married. It sounded like she needed me,” he informed her, his tone, so restrained and polite, hitting her like a whiplash. “But it was only a week before our engagement party, and it seemed the wrong time to tell you I have a daughter. But right now it feels as if any time would have been a bad time. If you can’t believe I was faithful to you, I was always going to be in the wrong, no matter what I did.”

She felt the heat stain her cheeks, an unspoken acknowledgement that he was right—but it only made her angrier. He had no right to be right…correct—oh, to hell with semantics! He had to be in the wrong now!

“So you think I wouldn’t have understood if you’d told me at the start of our relationship?” she challenged. “Why was it a bad time then? Was it always going to be a bad time to tell me?” A shaft of uncertainty lanced through her. “Am I so hard to confide in? Am I so…so non-understanding? Why was it so intimidating to tell me about Molly?” Or about anything else, it seems…

He shook his head and sighed. “It wasn’t like that. You have your ways of making it hard to confide, but not in the way you mean.”

“I see,” she whispered, looking at her hands again.

“No, I don’t think you do.” His hands gripped the steering wheel. His face was pale and set, looking forward, out to the passing traffic. Shutting another door in her face. Making it impossible to ask what he meant.

“Does Molly know about me? That you have a fiancée?” she asked after a while, but knew the answer before it came.

“Not yet.” Again, no apology. No excuse.

Rebellion rose higher in her throat. She wanted the truth. She needed to hear the answers. She had to know. And she wanted to deck him!

But did she hit first or ask first? She was too furious to ask the question that had been hovering in her mind for months. Why should she ask if he’d ever loved her in truth, or was marrying her to avoid public humiliation on both their parts? He’d only give the perfect reassurance. And he might even believe it was the truth…but she wouldn’t believe it. She wasn’t the trusting fool she’d been a few months ago.

“I don’t know you,” she finally said, and felt a massive sense of relief fill her. That was it, exactly what worried her the most. Worse still, the anger that had sustained her over the past few minutes was fading, leaving her vulnerable. She couldn’t attack him, couldn’t maintain the emotion that kept a distance from him. Truth was all she had left.

The cool, well-bred look disappeared from his face. “What?” His voice rang with disbelief.

“I don’t know you.” She wanted to look away, to put up a barrier against the utter stupidity of the situation, but she forced herself to keep looking at him. “I don’t think I ever did.”

The bewilderment in his eyes told her that it was the last thing he’d expected to hear from her. “How can you say that? You know me better than anyone.”

She shook her head, seeing he honestly believed it. “Tell me how I know you that well—or at all—when you’ve never told me anything that was close to your heart.”

His jaw clenched shut. His eyes were hard chips of ice. It was obvious he wasn’t going to answer, if he had an answer to give.

She sighed. “We’ve been together fourteen months, engaged for five months, and you never told me about your daughter. You never told her about me. What does that say about how much you trust me? If you can’t tell your daughter about me until the day I’m going to meet her, four weeks before our wedding, what does it say about how much you love and trust me?”

His hands gripped the steering wheel until the knuckles showed white. “It wasn’t like that. You’re misinterpreting—”

“How else could I interpret it?” Suddenly she was fighting tears. “The omissions—all of them—speak more than a thousand words. I’m good enough to take to bed, to get a ring and pretty words, but you didn’t tell me one of the most treasured parts of your life. You didn’t want me to meet your own child.” She bit her lip but said it. “You don’t love me, Matt. I don’t think you ever did.”

A long silence, so dark it touched her heart, wounded her like a knife. “This has nothing to do with how I feel for you. Not all families are close, or treasure each other as yours does, Julie.”

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