Two Nights with His Bride (17 page)

“Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer sex raises some pretty good questions.”

—Woody Allen

S
leep tugged at
Nancy as she snuggled deeper into Wyatt’s embrace. After making love with her, he’d carried her over the cabin’s threshold, helped her crawl under the bed’s wedding-ring quilt and now spooned
her. The twin bed didn’t give them much room, and he took up far more than his fair share, but she wasn’t complaining. His strong arm held her close, keeping her from tipping over the edge, and his deep, even breaths warmed the top of her head. All the doubts that had assailed her over the past month, all the fears she’d ignored and signs she’d pretended didn’t exist spun away from her as Wyatt
held her close.

She’d nearly married a man who didn’t love her. Or maybe he loved her as much as he could love anyone, but something fundamental was broken inside him. How many times had her friends tried to warn her? How many embarrassing questions had her parents asked, trying to lead her to the same conclusions without pushing her? And she’d swatted away their concerns, convinced she saw something
in Jared no one else had. Lust, at first. Strength. Someone who could take care of her in ways no one else in her life had.

And he could have…but he would’ve demanded she sacrifice everything she was in return.

Her life had flipped around in an instant today, but she didn’t regret a single decision she’d made since she’d said “I don’t.” She’d never felt this comfortable in a man’s arms before.
She’d always been too nervous about how she looked, how she smelled, whether she was too sweaty or had disappointed someone who’d expected her to be something more than she was.

Wyatt wouldn’t have any of those expectations. He knew how human she was and that she was a different person off-camera than she was in front of it. He understood the experiences that had shaped her because he’d been
there for many of them. He knew she sometimes made terrible decisions, and he was still here.

Her brand of crazy hadn’t scared him away.

The longer he slept, though, the more time she had to reflect on the problems she’d created for herself. She needed a million dollars. She had about a quarter of that tied up in safe investments, since money was not something she was comfortable pissing away
in something as risky as the stock market. But the safety of those investments relied on her keeping the money in for years. She would take a huge hit by removing it now, but she had no other choice.

As for the rest…not only did she have to pay Jared back but she had to keep up on the ranch’s mortgage payments.

“I can’t sleep if you get all tense like that.”

“Sorry.” Apologizing had become
instinctual, and she cringed at how much of herself had disappeared in her time with Jared. “I shouldn’t have apologized.”

“Maybe you should apologize for apologizing, then apologize again for that.”

She smiled and nuzzled her face against his biceps. “Or maybe I’ll just wriggle my butt like this and see if I can make you forget this whole conversation.”

He groaned and pressed his growing erection
against her. “No fair. I’m defenseless around you.”

Ditto
. How had this happened? How had he worked his way back into her life?

She rolled onto her other side and faced him. “Hello.”

“Hello.” He grinned and tapped her nose. “I’m glad to see you here.”

“I’m glad to be here.”
A million dollars.

He ran his fingertip from the middle of her forehead down the bridge of her nose. “
Are
you here?”

“What do you mean?”

He gave her a half grimace. “I know your mind isn’t with me right now. What can I do to make things easier?”

She slipped her fingers between his and held his hand. “Nothing.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. There has to be something I can do.”

“Kiss me again?”

He closed the scant few inches of space between them and kissed her. He kissed her long and slow and sparked
a heatwave that had her kicking the quilt off the bed. But when she tried to deepen the kiss, he pulled away. “What does that shithead have on you?”

She opened her eyes, this time being honest when she said, “Nothing.”

“Good. How much of your life is intertwined with his already?”

She sighed. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“Do I seem the quitting type to you?”

She smiled and gave
him another quick kiss. “How much of my life? Too much. Escrow closed on my house just before I came here for the wedding. All my things are at his house in Malibu, though he’s probably ordered it all to be thrown off the balcony into the Pacific.” She slapped her hand over her mouth as the full horror of her situation dawned on her. “Oh, shit. We share the same agent.”

“So?”

“So Jared will
obviously kill me off
Sultry Suburbs
. He’s the producer and probably already has the writers working out a way to make me die of gonorrhea. I knew that when I left him at the altar. But how am I supposed to get other roles? Mike has been Jared’s agent for a decade. Jared’s his biggest client. When we got engaged, it just made sense… I mean, it made things easier…” She scrubbed her hand across
her mouth, forcing herself to face how gullible she’d been. “I let him talk me into firing my agent and signing with his. I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot, and I don’t want to hear you say that. Listen to me. I’ve never met anyone with bigger dreams or more capable of making those dreams reality. So you have to get a new agent or eat humble pie with your old one. Big deal.”

But the threats
Jared had made about her career
were
a big deal. A very big one.

“Nancy.”

“What?”

“
Talk
to me.”

She shivered, and Wyatt drew her into his arms. Strength. Security. He offered those things, too. She could lay her heart at his feet and let him take care of her wounded spirit—but wouldn’t that lead her right back to the horrifying situation she’d narrowly avoided? Blinded by lust and need until
she allowed herself to be subsumed into a relationship that was all about him and not about the two of them together?

How could she trust him when she clearly couldn’t trust her own instincts?

He gave her fingers a squeeze. “You’re the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

“Thanks. You make me want to scream, too.”

“Sweetheart, I
did
make you scream.
Twice.”

She rolled her eyes. “Typical.”

“No, I usually aim for a triple orgasm.”

She shoved at his shoulder but couldn’t bite back her smile.

“If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s your choice. There are things I can help with and things I can’t. Stubbornness is one of the things I can’t.”

“What if—”
What if I trust you and you use it to manipulate me?

He shook his head. “What if I can
help solve your problems, and I’m sitting right here begging for a chance to do it, and you ignore me because you’re too scared of what might happen?”

“Okay. Here’s the brutal truth. I signed a prenup that says I have to pay the wedding expenses if we broke up. I need Faye to look up the figures on her spreadsheet, but I’m pretty sure it’s around $997,500—give or take. Got that lying around?”

*

Wyatt’s head was
going to explode. “A million dollars? You have to pay that ass a million dollars?”

She nodded, pressing her lips together so hard they turned white. She was clearly trying hard not to break down in front of him, and it broke his heart.

“Well, I guess that depends on how much you’re talking about when you say ‘give or take.’”

“A thousand or two.”

“Shit. I was hoping you were
rounding up from about a hundred thousand. I don’t have that kind of money.” He clasped her hips, rolling onto his back until she lay on top of him. “I have some—”

She shut him up with a finger on his lips. “It doesn’t matter, Wyatt. I can’t take your money.”

He pulled her finger away. “Why the hell not?”

Her gaze slid away from him, and he touched her jaw. “Whatever it is you have to say to
me, say it.”

“I need to do this myself.”

“Why?”

“Twice in my life, I’ve fallen for the wrong man. You know what those two had in common?”

“Other than being a complete waste of oxygen?”

“They both met me when I was going through a crisis.”

Wyatt’s heartbeat sped up. He was very, very afraid he knew where this was going. “You met Brady in high school—”

“Just a few days after we found out
Mom’s cancer had come back.”

“And Jared?”

She swallowed hard. “Just a few hours after I had a biopsy. I’d found a lump.”

His hands flexed, his fingers digging into her hips as fear ripped through him. “Jesus. Nancy—”

“It came back negative. I’m fine. But I was terrified. And as I waited for the results, I decided I was going to appreciate every single blessing that came my way. Jared found
me in the green room, crying. See, we don’t have our own dressing rooms. All the actors on the show have their own chair and table in the communal green room. I’d been trying to keep everything in, but then it all burst out and I was sobbing. He was my producer, so I’d met him before, but suddenly he was there, holding me, reassuring me. He seemed so strong, like he could handle any burden. He gave
me my own dressing room, so I could have privacy. He introduced me to a mega-famous oncologist, just in case I ended up needing her. And I…I thought he was a blessing.”

Her voice broke, and so did he. “Oh, sweetheart. You think I could be like them.”

“No.” She paused, clearly making a big effort to meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I didn’t see the potential abusers in them,
either.”

“So what’s your solution?”

“I save myself. I don’t put myself in a position where I have to rely on you or owe you anything. We get to know each other better, learn about who we are together, see if we can trust each other. All the things normal couples do when they’re not dealing with so much baggage. But you don’t try to solve my problems, and I don’t ask you to.”

He bit down on
the insides of his cheeks so he didn’t explode. Her logic made sense. He could see that. But comparing him to those two—

“I’ve had knights in shining armor before, Wyatt. It doesn’t take long for armor to tarnish. That’s not what I want right now. I just want to be with you—not to be saved or rescued by you, but to be
with
you.”

His head jerked in a nod. “Fine. But let me say this. In my world,
people help each other without strings attached—especially when they care about each other. It’s going to be damn hard for me to watch you struggle if there are things I know I can do to help.”

She stroked his cheek and pressed her forehead to his. “I get that. Please understand how important this is to me.”

He slid his arms around her back and hugged her closer. He didn’t know what to say.
Everything he’d grown up believing in was flipped on its head.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand. “That’s probably for you.”

Nancy reached over and grabbed the phone, tapping its screen. “Hello? Faye, oh thank God.”

While she spent several terse minutes running through all the ways Jared could ruin her, Wyatt got dressed.
A million dollars.

And a face-slapping lack of trust.

“Thanks, Faye.
See you tomorrow.” She sat on the bed and put the phone down as she exhaled hard.

He packed away his own broken feelings and focused on hers. “What did she say?”

“Jared’s mom is flipping out. The press is everywhere. My parents—who
never
drink—opened a bottle of champagne as soon as they got back to the house.”

“And?” he prompted.

“And Jared’s on his way back to L.A. Apparently he ordered
his housekeeper to gather up all my things and have a bonfire in the back yard. Faye called her and told her what has sentimental value, so she said she’d take those to her brother’s place and Faye can pick them up for me. Louisa’s going to burn some sheets and newspaper instead.”

“Why doesn’t she just refuse to burn your stuff?”

She shrugged. “Because he’ll fire her.”

Wyatt shook his head,
totally baffled. “Someone has to stand up to him.”

“You’re right. But it shouldn’t have to be his housekeeper.” She held her hand out, and he crossed the room to sit next to her on the bed. “Faye thought it would be best if I stay away for at least one night, until Jared’s family finally leaves and the security team is sure all the guests and paparazzi are off the ranch. Is it okay if we stay
here?”

“A night, a month.” He tipped her back on the bed, helplessness ramping up the tension in all his muscles. “However long it takes.”

‡