The Tycoon Meets His Match

“From the looks of it, Lucie stopped it just fine on her own,” Trae ground out, unable to stop herself from making the dig. She was doubly determined to reach her friend first. She couldn’t let Rhys turn sweet, fun-loving Lucie into the woman he thought he wanted—a perfect clone of her mother, a poised, self-possessed trophy wife he could trot out for public occasions.

It appeared he’d yet to grasp that every female has the will, skill and desire to make a scene and, given the right circumstances, even a control freak like Mitsy Beckwith was perfectly capable of coming apart at the seams.

The evidence of which greeted them as they pulled up the sloped, curving driveway of the Beckwith estate. Mitsy came charging at the car before Rhys could stop; her hands were pulling at her sculpted coiffure. Although her words were muffled, Trae was able to read her lips and make out, “She’s not here. Do you hear me? She’s not here. What do we do now?”

Judging by his continued silence, Trae had to assume Rhys had no ready answer.

Braking with caution, he took his time shutting off the ignition, and as he reached for the door handle, Trae could see a tiny tic beginning to spasm over his right eyebrow. For an instant, as he slowly emerged from the car, she almost felt sorry for him.

Until she got out of the Mercedes and found him as unflappable as ever, his hesitation vanishing as if it had never been. “We’ll wait,” he said firmly to the Beckwiths. “No doubt Lucie is driving around, gathering her thoughts. When she’s ready to be logical again, she’ll return with an explanation. Let’s be calm when she arrives, okay?” Rhys looked from Hal to Mitsy, bypassing Trae entirely. “We don’t want to do anything more to upset her.”

“Upset her?” Misty exploded. “What about me? What am I supposed to do? The orchestra, the prime rib dinners, the melting ice sculptures…” She looked down the road with a horrified expression. “The guests! What if they come here? My God, the press!”

“Take it easy,” Rhys said calmly. “It won’t do any good to panic. Besides, I doubt the guests are going to come here for a wedding reception, considering there was no wedding.”

He could have saved his breath.

“This is a nightmare,” Mitsy barreled on, hysteria fueling her momentum. “People will talk. They’ll snicker behind my back. I won’t have it, do you hear me? Rhys,” she said, grasping his arm with a wild look in her eyes, “you’ve got to do something.”

“Do what?” He didn’t raise his voice, but the words erupted out of him like a cannon blast. “Your daughter just left me stranded at the altar. What in the hell do you think I can do about anything?”

Mitsy blinked, visibly stunned. She was not alone in her shock. Clamping his jaw shut, Rhys acted as if his mouth had just betrayed him. It was the first time Trae had seen him even close to admitting he didn’t have everything under control.

“I can call the police,” Hal offered lamely.

Rhys shook his head. “Let’s hold off calling the authorities. We don’t want to get them or the press involved. Not yet, at least.”

Typical, Trae thought. Poor Luce was out there wandering around helplessly, and he was worried about bad publicity? Disgusted with Rhys, with the lot of them, she thrust the bouquet in his hands. “Isn’t there a phone in the limo?” she asked brusquely as she dug through her purse for her cell phone. “What’s the number?”

Hal Beckwith searched his pockets, unearthing a business card with the company’s information. It took two tries and several minutes on hold before Trae got the number for the phone in the limo. Dialing impatiently, she listened to it ring and ring.

After a few minutes of that, Rhys shook his head. Shoving the bouquet back in her hands, he grabbed her phone.

“Hey, gimme that.” Trae reached for it, but Rhys held the phone against his ear, which, given their height difference, meant she had to jump like an overstimulated puppy to retrieve it.

Suddenly aware of how tall he was, how physically overwhelming, she instead waved the bouquet in his face. “You think you can do better?” she asked. “That Lucie will sense it’s you calling and instantly pick up the phone?”

He eyed her as if she were a buzzing gnat—nothing to take seriously but incredibly annoying just the same. “I’m not phoning the limo,” he announced curtly. “I’m dialing the dispatcher. All I need is their location.”

Mitsy got a smug look on her face, as if she’d been the one to reach that particular conclusion. Trae endured her holier-than-thou attitude in silence, noting that the longer Rhys stayed on hold, the more Mitsy’s smirk waned.

Then suddenly, Mitsy gasped. Following her panicked gaze down the road, Trae saw a car round the corner. With a burst of hope, she recognized the arriving vehicle as Quinn and Alana’s rental. With their help, she still might get to Lucie first.

Yet even as she started toward them, Mitsy, who had the instincts of a bloodhound sniffing out trouble, cut across the lawn to reach her friends before her. Smiling graciously, Mitsy ushered Quinn and Alana into the house.

Hold on Luce, Trae mentally urged as she hurried behind them. I’m on my way.

Just remain calm, Rhys told himself firmly as he climbed the stairs to the family wing. Go through the motions, act as if nothing is wrong. And never mind that half the world just watched you get publicly jilted.

He should have put his foot down and insisted Mitsy limit the invitations. He’d wanted a quiet wedding, not a spectacle of five hundred-plus guests. Worse, Mitsy’s need to dominate the social pages had drawn far too many media ghouls. Rhys suffered no illusions. The fact that he owned several publications wouldn’t grant him immunity. This story would break in all the morning editions.

He glared at the cell phone in his hand. “Just give me something,” he barked into it, despite still being on hold. Then he realized the battery had died. Frustrated, he bit his lip to keep himself under control. How like Trae not to keep her phone charged.

He knew it was useless to rant at dead air, but he hated the inaction, the not knowing. He had to get to Lucie, talk some sense into her. Hadn’t they talked about this, both agreeing that their marriage was inevitable? Her parents expected it, everyone accepted it as a fait accompli. Today’s ceremony should have been a mere formality, the punctuation point of a carefully constructed sentence—only Lucie had suddenly changed the words. Up until an hour ago, she’d agreed that this marriage would benefit them both immensely. What could have changed her mind?

But that was stupid; he knew what had happened. Her friends. More specifically, Trae Andrelini.

He’d seen Trae, of course, talking to Lucie at the back of the church. How could he miss her in that outfit? The sexy, lime suit, the patent leather stilettos, all that red hair. Of course she’d said something, he decided. Ever since the two friends had met at college, Trae had been the devil on Lucie’s shoulder, forever coaxing her into trouble, yet never around when it came time to bail her out. That was his job—the mopping up, the covering over, all the king’s men putting Lucie together again. With a pang, Rhys pictured his fiancée, alone and frightened in some dingy bus depot, her rebellion running out of steam. He had to get to her. She’d expect it. Her family expected it. After all, when had Rhys Allen Paxton ever let her down?

Ah, Lucie, he thought in desperation. Where the hell are you?

“Rhys, you okay? I got here as fast as I could.”

He turned to find his younger brother behind him, Jack’s gold-blond hair and easy good looks so different from his own. “I’m fine,” Rhys said more brusquely than he’d intended. To counteract this, he added a smile, but for once his brother didn’t return it.

“Who am I kidding? This is useless,” Rhys muttered, wanting to fling Trae’s phone against the wall. “I’m wasting time. I don’t suppose Lucie gave you any idea where she might be headed?”

“Me?” Jack shook his head. “I haven’t a clue. Though, if you remember, I did try to warn you that you were making a mistake in pushing her into marriage.”

Rhys bristled. “I didn’t push her. And I don’t make mistakes. I can’t afford to.”

“Whoa. Down, fella.” Grinning, Jack held up his hands as if to ward off a charge. “You know how much you just sounded like the old man?”

An unfair comparison, Rhys thought irritably. If anything, he’d been the bridge between his father and brother. Jack had always called the man TA, as in Tight Ass, while their father maintained that Jack wouldn’t know his head from a hole in the ground.

Which could be why Rhys, long accustomed to dismissing his brother’s view of things, ignored Jack’s vague warnings about Lucie.

Too, Rhys had been distracted by his latest acquisition, a company his father had tried for years to acquire. A major coup, but even were his father still alive to witness it, Rhys wouldn’t get any pat on the back for his efforts. Not after the fiasco at the church. Unacceptable, was how the man would describe today’s events. In the world according to Rhys II, once a goal was set, there was no excuse for not achieving it. In this situation, the goal had been marriage.

“So how do you plan to get her back?” Jack asked, as if Rhys needed the reminder that he didn’t have a bride. “Not call the cops, I hope.”

“No. This is something I need to deal with myself.”

“Okay, then I’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”

In truth, the thought of leaving his none-too-reliable brother in charge of the business filled Rhys with dread, which was why he’d asked Sam Beardsley, his father’s right-hand man, to come out of retirement and oversee things while he was away on his honeymoon. Now it would be time away to win back his fiancée.

But the last thing Rhys wanted was for his brother to see his lack of faith in him, so, forcing a smile, he held out his hand. “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”

Jack beamed as they shook hands, until a sudden trill of female laughter from down the hall had him glancing over his shoulder. “I—I’d better go,” he said, his attention obviously diverted. “Someone needs to calm down the Beckwiths—and anyone else who might have arrived.”

Rhys knew Jack wasn’t checking on the Beckwiths. His brother’s ability to get distracted by the opposite sex was both legendary and inevitable, and a good reason why Rhys couldn’t leave Paxton Corporation too long in his hands.

Shaking his head, he made his way to Lucie’s bedroom. He wanted to change out of the tuxedo and his suitcases were there, since they’d planned to leave from the house for the airport. Then, too, he thought as he frowned down at the useless cell, Lucie had her own private phone line in her bedroom.

He went through the door, leaving it open, feeling claustrophobic amid all the pink. Thanks to Mitsy’s decorating the room was a confection of chintz pillows, poofy curtains and fussy white lace, complete with an oversized, overdressed teddy bear perched on the canopied bed. All that was missing was the placard, Rich Young Girl Sleeps Here.

No wonder Lucie sometimes had a skewed grasp on reality. Even the phone was absurd, a plastic rendition of Cinderella’s glass slipper. Who in their right mind talked into a shoe?