How To Romance A Runaway Bride

“This. Us.” Zander inhaled a deep, measured breath. Then he finally looked at her. Really looked. Allegra almost wished he hadn’t, because these weren’t the same eyes she remembered from her childhood, full of innocence and hope. She didn’t know the man who belonged to these eyes. “I won’t marry you, Allegra. Not now. Not ever.”

Chapter Two

Zander crossed his arms and told himself he’d done absolutely nothing wrong, despite the glare his mother was currently aiming at him from across the ballroom. He’d probably get an earful from her later on. Emily Wilde was no shrinking violet. She was a woman with strong opinions and a tendency to meddle, and now that Zander’s younger sister was happily engaged as well as dancing with a major ballet company, Emily no longer felt the need to hover over Tessa. The family matriarch had moved on to Zander’s personal life instead.

Oh, joy.

She wanted him married. She wanted grandchildren, preferably a boy, who could ensure that the Wilde family name and legacy would live on long after she was gone. Thus she made Zander curse his status as the only male offspring on a regular basis. He’d just as soon let some other guy get married and carry on the family name. Except there wasn’t another guy. Just him, a fact that was all the more painfully obvious now that he had a bride standing in front of him.

I won’t marry you, Allegra. Not now. Not ever.

Granted, it might have sounded a bit harsh, but he’d only said what needed to be said, plain and simple. Emily would no doubt accuse him of causing a scene, which was absurd. If anyone was causing a scene, it was Allegra.

She’d crashed his birthday party. In a wedding gown. Had she honestly expected him to just run off into the sunset and marry her? Had she gone insane since she’d left town?

She peered up at him, lush lips pressed together and a cute little wrinkle in her forehead. She didn’t look crazy. She looked confused. Confused and undeniably gorgeous. Looking into her luminous blue eyes made Zander’s chest hurt for some strange reason. He focused once again on the sparkling chandelier hanging over her head. That dress...those eyes—it was all too much.

“Marry me?” Her voice rang with incredulity. And if Zander wasn’t mistaken, a fair amount of amusement.

He lifted an eyebrow. You’re the one in a wedding dress, sweetheart.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, deadpan.

Zander didn’t say a word, but simply held her gaze. He’d said his piece. There was no way he’d be held to a silly promise he’d made as a kid. Now she just needed to go back to wherever she’d come from before she embarrassed herself further.

Allegra’s gaze narrowed, as if she was trying to peer inside his head. Then her pretty pink lips curved into a grin. She was smiling? Now?

Maybe she really was unstable. The poor thing.

Zander reached for her hand. A mistake. A huge one. A long time ago, he’d read something in a magazine article that said a simple touch could possess memory, a notion he’d dismissed as sentimental nonsense. Memories lived in the realm of the mind. They were made up of thoughts, images and unflinching emotions. How could a person’s flesh be capable of such complexities?

But the moment his fingertips connected with Allegra’s, something strange happened. His limbs felt looser all of a sudden, and his spirit lifted. He remembered the soaring sensation of holding Allegra in his arms and twirling across the dance floor. He remembered ice-skating in Central Park, a lacy veil of snow in Allegra’s hair and his heart pounding hard in a darkened museum. He felt like a kid again. It was like being knocked flat by a New York blizzard.

He dropped her hand and recrossed his arms. Revisiting the past had no place on his current agenda. She needed help. Obviously. He should call someone, but who? She no longer had any family in New York.

Did she have any family left at all? Anywhere?

“Look, Allegra—” he began.

She cut him off. “You seriously think I’m here because I want to marry you?”

She let out a giggle, then appeared to make a feeble attempt to keep her mouth shut. It was no use. Another giggle escaped, louder this time, until she was quite literally laughing in his face.

Allegra’s laugh hadn’t changed a bit. Once upon a time, it had been one of Zander’s favorite sounds. Not anymore. “You find the idea of marrying me amusing, do you?”

“Actually...” She cleared her throat and managed to collect herself. For the most part. There was still far too much snickering going on for his taste. “I do.”

“‘I do.’” Zander lifted an eyebrow. “You even sound like a bride.”

That managed to stop her snickering. “Oh, get over yourself. I haven’t even seen you in thirteen years.”

Actually, it was closer to fourteen. Not that Zander was counting. He clenched his jaw to keep himself from opening his mouth and saying it out loud.

Allegra’s smile faded. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You actually think I came here after all this time to drag you to the altar. Tell me, Mr. Suit, what kind of evidence do you have to support this delusion?”

Mr. Suit.

Her voice dripped with disdain. Zander probably should have expected that. He hadn’t. Then again, everything about this insane night was coming out of left field. Happy birthday to me.

“You mean other than your attire?” He ordered himself not to look at the dress again. But then he fixed his gaze on the delicate row of tiny shimmering crystals that ran along the curves of her shoulders.

“Circumstantial evidence,” she said, sounding like the lawyer’s daughter she’d been. Then she shrugged, and those glittering crystals dazzled beneath the soft light of the chandelier. “You’re going to have to do better than that. Who says what I’m wearing has anything to do with you?”

“We did. You and me. Fourteen years ago.”

He waited for her expression to betray her resistance, for a hint of what had transpired between them so long ago to show on her porcelain face. They’d loved one another once. Not romantic love, but something quite different. Something deeper.

Or so he’d thought.

She blinked but kept on looking at him like he was the one who was acting nuts. “I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about.”

He had to give her credit. She was doing a good job of feigning innocence. A great job, actually.

Zander took a step closer. He didn’t want to humiliate her in front of Manhattan’s glittering elite. He just wanted to put a stop to things once and for all. If he was being honest, he also wanted her to leave. The sooner the better.

He’d grown accustomed to life without her. Things were simpler now. Rational. Predictable. Sure, it had been hard at first. There had been times when he’d closed his eyes and still seen her wild thicket of dark hair and those legs that seemed to go on forever as she struck a ballroom-dance pose. And maybe the warm vanilla scent of her perfume had lingered on his favorite sweatshirt for a time after she’d gone. But eventually it had faded away.

As had his questions.

Why had she left without saying goodbye? Why hadn’t she ever come back, even for a visit?

Had she missed him the way he’d missed her?

He didn’t want to ask those questions anymore, but if she stayed too long, he would. He knew he would. And he wasn’t altogether sure he’d like the answers.

After the accident, she’d gone to live with her aunt in Cambridge. That much he knew. But Boston was just a train ride away. He’d never for a moment suspected she’d gone away for good.

Zander lowered his voice. “You can stop pretending, Allegra. We both know the truth. You’re here because of our deal.”

She frowned. “What deal?”

If Zander hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she’d actually forgotten. But that wasn’t possible. Was it?

Of course not.

Still, her acting skills had improved since her disastrous audition for the eighth-grade play. She’d cried in Zander’s arms for hours after school that day.

He swallowed. “The deal we made to marry one another if we were still unattached by our thirtieth birthdays.”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t remember that at all.”

Zander stared. If Guy Lombardo’s orchestra had appeared out of nowhere and begun to play “Happy Birthday to You,” he’d have been less surprised. She wasn’t here because of their deal. She didn’t even remember it.

Unbelievable.

“Are you sure you didn’t have that arrangement with somebody else? Gretchen Williams, maybe?” Allegra said.

“Gretchen Williams?” She couldn’t be serious. He’d gone out with Gretchen exactly three times, and that had been three times too many. Besides, the last he’d heard, Gretchen had moved to Connecticut and had five kids. She hadn’t needed a backup plan. “Absolutely not. It was you.”

It was always you.

Zander’s temples throbbed. He needed to get out of here.

But this was his place of business. He practically lived here. Disappearing wasn’t an option. Besides, wasn’t that Allegra’s specialty?

“I see.” Allegra’s voice went soft, and she looked at him for a long silent moment. And somehow the silence between them seemed more truthful than anything they’d yet to say to one another.

Zander had the sudden urge to reach for her, to pull her into his arms and greet her the way he should have the moment she’d walked through the door. When she’d gone away all those years ago, her absence had just about killed him. He’d missed her, damn it. He still did, even after all this time.

Then Zander’s cousin Ryan appeared at his side. The fact that Ryan was wearing his serious hotel-management face rather than his party-going-family-member face ensured that whatever sentimental moment Zander and Allegra might be on the verge of sharing was officially ruined.

Ryan cleared his throat. “Zander, I hate to interrupt. But we’ve got a problem. A big one.”

“Right.” Zander nodded. He couldn’t decide if he should curse the interruption or be grateful for it. He gave Allegra a tight smile. “It was good to see you again. My apologies for the misunderstanding.”

Then he turned his back on Allegra Clark without waiting for an explanation or even a goodbye. After all, parting words had never been their strong suit.

* * *

The sight of Zander’s retreating pinstripes jarred something loose inside Allegra. Something that almost made her knees buckle. Something that made her feel dangerously close to coming apart at the seams.

She took a deep breath and counted to ten as she watched him walk away. He murmured something to the man beside him, strode past the untouched cake and disappeared through the ballroom’s gilded double doors.

He’d walked right out of his own birthday party without so much as an apology. Or even an explanation.

Typical suit.

Allegra couldn’t remember any of her own birthday parties that hadn’t been interrupted in a similar fashion. Until she’d turned sixteen, obviously. On her sweet sixteen, she would have given anything to have her father there, kissing her cheek as he dashed off to some kind of work emergency.

Her throat grew tight. She squared her shoulders, slipped out of the ballroom and marched toward the registration desk. She’d managed to walk out on her own wedding today without shedding a tear. She would not let a brief encounter with Zander Wilde reduce her to a weepy mess.

Anyway, she was perfectly fine. She’d just been rattled to see him after so many years, which was totally normal. There was nothing to be emotional about at all as far as Zander was concerned.

Except that he thought you’d come back to marry him, of all things.

“Can I help you?” The young man behind the registration desk beamed at her. “Let me guess—you’re checking into the honeymoon suite?”

“Um, no.” She shuddered. “Definitely not.”

“Oh.” He glanced at her dress. Allegra couldn’t wait to take off the horrid thing. She just wanted to wrap herself up in one of the hotel’s thick terry-cloth robes, climb into bed and sleep for a while. A century, maybe. “Well, uh, how can I assist you, then?”

“I just need a room.” Before he could ask, she added, “A single, not a double.”

He frowned. “For just one person?”

Allegra sighed. Mightily. “Yes.”

He nodded but still managed to look utterly perplexed. Too bad. “May I ask the name on the reservation?”

“I don’t have one.”

“No reservation?” His frown deepened. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any single rooms available without a reservation.”

This day kept getting better and better. “Fine. I’ll take a double.”

But the desk clerk wasn’t any more accommodating. “I’m afraid we don’t have any double rooms available either.”

Allegra’s heart started beating hard again. This couldn’t be happening.

“Fine. I’ll take the honeymoon suite.” Desperate times called for desperate measures, and these were indeed desperate times.

The hotel clerk shrugged. He was really beginning to get on Allegra’s nerves. “That room is booked, as well. We’re completely full. Without a reservation, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Full? Full? As in there’s not a room of any kind available?” It couldn’t be true. Where on earth would she go? What was she supposed to do? Go marching back into her wedding to ask her erstwhile fiancé for a ride to the airport?

Even if the hotel clerk took pity on her and came up with a room, she had no way to pay for it. She’d walked out of the ceremony with nothing but her bridal bouquet. She wasn’t even sure where her purse—and her wallet full of credit cards—was at the moment.

Why had she agreed to get married in Manhattan?

She should have insisted on a nice, simple ceremony in Cambridge, where she and Spencer actually lived. How had she let herself get talked into coming back here?

Because Spencer was a politician, that’s why. He’d wanted a big, splashy wedding, one that would look good in all the newspapers. A grand show. Allegra just hadn’t realized she was nothing but a prop.

How could she have been so monumentally stupid?

“We’re completely booked.” The clerk gave her a sympathetic smile, and something inside Allegra died just a little. “Can I do anything else for you? Call a car, perhaps?”

Behind her, someone chimed in. “That won’t be necessary.”

Allegra spun around and found herself face-to-face with Zander’s mother. Emily Wilde wasn’t exactly the first person she wanted to chat with after the oddly uncomfortable encounter she’d just had with Zander. But it was definitely preferable to talking to Zander himself. “Mrs. Wilde, hello.”

“Since when do you call me Mrs. Wilde? I’m Emily, remember?” The older woman gave her a warm smile. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I was just on my way out since it seems the birthday party has ended, and I overheard.”

“I was trying to get a room, but it seems the hotel is booked.”

“Winter in New York is always a busy time of year. But, of course, you know that.” Emily tilted her head. “Isn’t your birthday right around the corner? I seem to remember it being during the snowy season.”

Indeed it was. Just two weeks away. Allegra’s thirtieth, which meant if she’d ever made that ancient deal with Zander, they still had fourteen days to make good on it. Not that they’d made any such arrangement. And not that she’d ever in a million years marry the man.

When had he turned into such a grump? And what was he doing running a hotel? The Zander she knew wanted to run the family business someday. The Wilde School of Dance. She’d have been less surprised to see him starring in a Broadway play than strutting around wearing a business suit, surrounded by minions.

Zander Wilde’s profession should be the least of your worries at the moment. You’re homeless, and the only article of clothing you own is a wedding gown.

“Allegra, you don’t look well.” Emily pressed a hand to Allegra’s forehead. “You need to lie down, dear.”

Allegra nodded. Emily was right. She’d never needed to rest so much in her life. She felt like she’d been running for the better part of fourteen years. In a way, she supposed she had. But it wasn’t as if she could just curl up on the sofa in the hotel lobby.

Could she?

No, of course she couldn’t. She’d probably get in trouble. Or even arrested. She let out a hysterical laugh. Wouldn’t that be the perfect ending to this horrible day? To have Zander call the cops on her.

Zander Wilde, who thought she’d been pining away for him since the day she’d left town.

“You’ll stay with me,” Emily said as matter-of-factly as if she’d just offered Allegra a stick of gum rather than a roof over her head.

“What?” Allegra shook her head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t...”

But Emily had already removed her coat and was wrapping it around Allegra’s shoulders as she led her toward the revolving door. “Of course you can. How many afternoons did you come home with us after dance class when you were a girl?”

More than Allegra could count. “But things are different now.” She slowed to a stop two feet from the exit. “Emily, I can’t. I’m afraid that might upset Zander. We had a disagreement a few minutes ago.”

“I heard.” Emily nodded. “Half of Manhattan heard, actually.”

Fabulous. Just fabulous.

“It doesn’t matter what Zander thinks. It’s my house, not his.” Emily gave Allegra’s waist a gentle squeeze. “And if you don’t mind my saying, it doesn’t really look like you have a lot of options.”

She didn’t. Zero, in fact.

“Allegra, dear. I can’t leave you here all alone. I owe it to your mom and dad to see that you’re taken care of.” Emily’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Come on home.”

At the mention of her parents, the last shreds of Allegra’s resistance crumbled. She didn’t have the strength to fight the past. Not tonight. Not now.

Come on home.

She wanted nothing more than to go home, if only she knew how to get there.

Chapter Three

Zander stared at Ryan sitting in one of the wingback chairs opposite his desk and tried to wrap his mind around the bomb his cousin had just dropped. “A reporter called here to ask whether or not the hotel has been cursed?”

This was a first. Zander was no stranger to New York’s tabloid press. He was fully aware of how brutal it could be. But a curse? That seemed beyond ridiculous, even for a rag like the Post or the Daily News.

“She wasn’t asking exactly.” Ryan frowned. “She’s going to run with it.”

Zander released a tense exhale. He didn’t need this kind of complication. Today of all days. He was still a little rattled after his encounter with Allegra. A lot rattled, frankly. Mainly by her assertion that she didn’t even remember their marriage pact.

Then why the wedding gown?

“Fine.” He needed a drink. A real drink. No more birthday champagne. A martini, maybe. Something potent enough to eradicate the memory of the past half hour of his life, if such a drink existed. “A single negative tabloid article won’t kill us, even one that says we’re cursed. At least they get points for creativity.”

He waited for the pained look on Ryan’s face to relax a little.

It didn’t. If anything, the crease between his cousin’s brows deepened.

“It’s not a tabloid,” Ryan said. Then he uttered the only three words powerful enough to tear Zander’s thoughts away from Allegra Clark dressed in bridal white tulle. “It’s the Times.”

This had to be a bad joke. The New York Times had won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other paper in the world. “Good one. You almost had me. But the Gray Lady is a New York institution. It’s a serious publication. They’d never run a story about a hotel being cursed.”

“Think again.” Ryan lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “The Society section would.”

Zander swallowed, longing once again for the smooth burn of vodka, vermouth and a little olive brine sliding down his throat. Things were apparently worse than he’d anticipated.

The Times, for God’s sake. Only the society page, but still...

It wasn’t just the society page, though, as Zander soon realized.

Ryan took a deep breath and lowered the boom. “Specifically, the Vows column.”

Zander clenched his gut. “The Vows column? From the Sunday Wedding section?”

“The one and only.” Ryan sighed.

Having the hotel lambasted on the front page would have been better than the Vows column announcing that the Bennington was cursed. People all over the damn world read the wedding announcements in the Sunday edition of the Times. Like every other luxury hotel in Manhattan, a sizable portion of the Bennington’s business came from the wedding industry. Moonstruck brides and grooms.

He shook his head. This couldn’t happen. Not after he’d worked so hard to restore the Bennington to its former glory. “I don’t understand where this is coming from. Why would a columnist from Vows think we’re cursed?”

Ryan frowned. “You seriously have to ask?”

“I do, actually.”

I do.

The instant the words left his mouth, he remembered Allegra saying the same thing while she stood in front of him, looking like she’d just walked out of a fairy tale.

He’d taunted her. You even sound like a bride.

Now reality was finally coming together with horrific clarity.

Damn. He groaned. “We’ve had another runaway bride, haven’t we?”

“Bingo.” Ryan seemed to be fighting a smirk. “The bride who crashed your birthday party just now was the latest. You know, the one you assumed was here to strong-arm you into marrying her.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Now he did, anyway.

Zander sighed. No wonder Allegra had laughed in his face. She hadn’t turned up to make good on their deal. She’d been on the run from her own wedding to a completely different man.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But the timing seemed awfully fortuitous. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to believe she’d come back for him.

You sure about that?

Beneath the surface of his desk, Zander’s hands curled into fists. Of course he was sure.

Ryan’s gaze narrowed. “What’s the story there, if you don’t mind my asking? The two of you were engaged once?”

“No,” Zander said with a little too much force. Then, more evenly, he added, “It wasn’t like that.”

Ryan stared blankly at him, waiting for more.

Zander was in no mood to oblige. “Back to the matter at hand. We have two weddings on the schedule this weekend. Which one just went belly-up?”

Zander didn’t personally handle the hotel’s wedding-planning details, but as with everything else that went on beneath the roof of the fabled building, he supervised with a watchful eye. It was his job to know what was going on, and he definitely would have noticed if they’d had a wedding on the schedule with a bride named Allegra Clark.

Ryan took a beat too long to answer. “The big one. The Warren wedding.”

The Warren wedding, as in Spencer Warren, city councilman and mayoral candidate for the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. No wonder the Times had already taken notice.

The hotel roster had listed the bride’s name as Ali Clark. So Allegra was going by Ali now?

Zander wasn’t sure what he found more surprising—the fact that Allegra had changed her name or that she’d ever considered being a politician’s wife.

It was time to face the facts. He no longer knew her. Allegra was a stranger now. She wasn’t even Allegra anymore, and she didn’t want to marry him any more than he wanted to marry her.