LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t help worrying that he had pushed Lily too hard. Oh, he’d known she had reservations and he didn’t blame her. Marriage was a big undertaking and neither of them had had much time to prepare for it. But he was positive that marrying was the right thing for them to do. He’d meant what he’d told Lily. He wanted to be a real father in every way and that meant being a full-time father, not shuffling their child back and forth between its parents. No, he wanted his baby to have what he and his sisters had had—a loving home with both parents. And although the stigma that society had once imposed upon a child born outside of marriage no longer applied, he didn’t want his child or Lily ever to encounter cruelty from the small-minded individuals who would see the baby’s birth as a sin. He wanted to protect the baby and Lily and the best way to do that was through marriage.

      But he couldn’t shake the feeling she was going to bolt. He knew she was having second thoughts—probably third and fourth thoughts—about going through with the wedding. It hadn’t taken a giant leap to recognize the signs. She had avoided him at every turn during the past week. Just getting her to look over the documents he’d had drawn up providing her and their baby each with a trust fund had taken some major arm-twisting. It had also bothered him that she had insisted on keeping her apartment until the lease ran out despite his offer to buy out the lease. He hadn’t pushed it because he was already worried about the stress she was under and didn’t want to do anything that would endanger her health or the baby’s. Maybe once the wedding was over and they were living under the same roof, she would grow more comfortable with him and the idea of them being married, he told himself.

      “I heard Courtney moved back from New York,” Scott remarked.

      Dragging his attention to his friend, Jack said, “Yeah. She came home a couple of weeks ago.”

      “She going to stay?”

      “I don’t know.” Jack looked over at Scott. Tall like him, Scott was the opposite of him in appearance. Where his own hair was dark and his eyes blue, Scott was blond and his eyes were brown. Like him, Scott had a real appreciation of women, had found himself in more than one woman’s marital sights and had become a master at escaping any serious commitment. He’d been a fixture at the Cartwright house when they’d been growing up and had shared in Jack’s own annoyance with his two younger sisters. Jack hadn’t given much thought to his baby sister’s return home and hadn’t realized Scott had either. So he asked, “What makes you ask?”

      “No reason,” Scott said and looked away.

      They fell silent and Jack’s thoughts returned once more to Lily. He looked at his watch again. As the minutes ticked by, he grew more and more anxious. “You got the ring?” he asked Scott.

      Scott patted his pocket. “Right here.” He paused. “I’ve never seen you so nervous before. You sure about this, Jack?”

      “I’m sure,” he told his friend, because he knew he was doing what was best for everyone. Now all they needed was the bride.

      When the violinist began playing, Jack turned and looked at the end of the aisle where his sister Courtney stood under the arbor of flowers. Dressed in a peach-colored dress and holding a small bouquet of peach roses and lilies, she started down the aisle with a smile on her face. When Courtney was about midway down the aisle, his sister Elizabeth stepped under the arbor. Since Lily hadn’t been able to think of anyone to ask to be her maid of honor, his youngest sister had volunteered herself for the job. Lily, apparently not wanting Elizabeth to feel left out, had suggested both of his sisters serve as attendants. It was a decision that had pleased both his sisters and his mother—and him because he wanted Lily to feel that she was truly a part of his family now. Once his sisters had reached the altar and taken their places, the first notes of the wedding march rang out.

      Both anxious and excited, Jack turned his gaze once more to the entrance at the rear of the gardens. This is it, he told himself as he waited for Lily to appear beneath the flower arbor and walk down the aisle to become his wife. Several seconds went by, but there was no Lily. The first notes of the bridal march were played again. And still there was no Lily.

      Jack tensed, his first thought that he’d been right to worry. He’d pushed her too hard, and, just as he’d feared, she’d decided not to go through with the wedding. His second thought was that something had happened to her, that maybe she’d slipped on the stone floor inside the house and was hurt. It was that last thought, imagining Lily hurt, that had him starting to leave the altar to find her.

      “Hang on,” Scott whispered, gripping his arm before he could go. He motioned for him to look at the rear of the guest seats where Felicity was signaling to him to give her a minute. The blonde disappeared, evidently going through the side door of the house to where Lily was supposed to be waiting.

      Jack could hear the murmurs among the guests, the shifting in their seats, and he saw the anxious look on his mother’s face. Damn it. They just should have eloped, he reasoned. If they had, Lily wouldn’t have had time to think about changing her mind.

       And if she has changed her mind? What are you going to do?

      He was going to change it back, he told himself. He couldn’t afford not to. Looking at his watch, he decided to give Felicity five minutes and then he was going to do just that.

      “Relax,” Scott told him. “She probably broke a nail or got a run in her stocking. You know how women are about those things.”

      He did know how women were. A broken nail or a run in a stocking would have sent his mother and his sister Courtney and probably half the women he’d dated into a frenzy. But not Lily. Lily was not most women. He’d sensed that the night of the ball. It was one of the reasons, he knew, that he’d given a woman whose name he didn’t know the key to his hotel room. It was also the reason that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since that night.

      Granted, the only reason he had suggested they get married was because she was pregnant with his child. He’d never been a man to shirk responsibility. He had no intention of doing so now. Lily and the baby were his responsibility now. But if he was going to be completely honest with himself he didn’t find the idea unappealing. There had been something special between them that night at the ball—something that went beyond the good sex. Whatever that something was, it would be enough to start with because he didn’t intend to lose her again.

      She couldn’t go through with it, Lily told herself as she stood in front of the vanity in the powder room of the Cartwright mansion. She stared at the woman in the mirror. That woman looked like a real bride. The wedding gown was beautiful. So were the shoes. Her hair had been swept up into an elegant French twist with wisps arranged around her face. Courtney had performed miracles with the paints and polishes and brushes, making Lily’s skin look creamy, her eyes bright and her cheekbones those of a model. She touched the strand of pearls with the diamond clasp at her throat and noted the matching earrings. Both were wedding gifts from Jack. “For my bride,” he’d told her when he’d given them to her the previous evening.

      Wedding gifts for a bride. Even the bouquet of white roses and lilies looked as if they belonged to a bride. No question about it. The woman looking back at her in the mirror certainly looked like a real, honest-to-goodness bride.

      Only she wasn’t a real bride. She was a fake.

      And she absolutely, positively couldn’t go through with the wedding.

      When Jack had suggested that they get married, it had all seemed to make sense. After all, he was the baby’s father and she had wanted her baby to have a real home with two parents. It had also made sense when he’d told her that shuffling the child between the two of them wouldn’t work. She’d seen firsthand how tough shuffling between parents could be on a child. She hadn’t wanted that for her baby. And as Jack Cartwright’s wife, she could be assured that her child would have the loving home she had never had.

      Only now that the day was here, she simply could not go through with it. She didn’t love Jack Cartwright and he didn’t love her. And when two people got married it should be because they loved one another, not because their hormones had run amok

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