A Game of Vows

“You mean you didn’t tell your lover about your husband? Not a great foundation for a marriage.”

She couldn’t call Zack. She couldn’t let Eduardo anywhere near the wedding. It would topple everything she’d spent the past nine years building. She hated that he had the power to do that. Hated facing the truth that he’d had power over her from the moment she’d met him.

She gritted her teeth. “Neither is blackmail.”

“We traded, mi tesoro. And you know it. Blackmail makes it sound sordid.”

“It was. It continues to be.”

“And your past is so clean you can’t stand getting your hands dirty? We both know that’s not true.”

A very rude word hovered on the edge of her lips. But freaking out at Eduardo wasn’t going to solve her problem. The very pressing problem that she needed to get to the hotel and take vows. “I’m going to ask you again, before I open the door and roll out into midday traffic and completely destroy this gown: What do you want? How do I give it to you? Will it make you go away?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m taking you back to my hotel. And I’m not going away.”

Her lip curled. “Have you got a thing for women in wedding dresses? Because you got me into one quickly last time we met, and now you seem interested in me again … and here I am in a wedding dress.”

“It’s not the dress.”

“Give me one good reason not to call the police and tell them I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Hannah Mae Hackett.”

Her real name sounded so unfamiliar now. Even more so coming from him instead of being spoken with a Southern twang. Even still, a lead weight settled in her stomach when he said it.

“Don’t even say it,” she bit out.

“You don’t like your name? Well, I imagine not. You did change it.”

“Legally. I am legally not that name anymore. My name is Hannah Weston now.”

“And you illegally gained scholarships, and entrance, to the university in Barcelona by falsifying your school records.”

She clenched her teeth, her pulse pounding hard. She was so very screwed. And he knew it. “This sounds like a conversation we had five years ago. If you recall, I already married you to keep you from spreading it around.”

“Unfinished business.”

“The only thing unfinished, apparently, is our divorce.”

“Oh, no, there is so much more than that.” He pulled the limo against a curb in front of one of the famous boutique hotels in San Francisco. Marble, gold trimming and sharply dressed valets signaled the luxury of the place to everyone in the area. It was the sort of thing that had drawn her from the time she was young. The sort of thing she’d really started hungering for when she realized she had the power to change her circumstances.

Every time she checked into a hotel, as soon as the door was closed and she was isolated from the world, she would twirl in a circle and fall onto the bed, reveling in the softness. The cleanliness. The space and solitude. Even now that she had her own penthouse with thousand thread count sheets, she still did it.

The hotel wasn’t evoking those kinds of feelings in her today. Not with Eduardo present.

The valet took the keys and Eduardo came to Hannah’s door, opening it. “Wait … did you steal this?” she asked, looking at the limo.

As Eduardo bent down, Hannah fought the urge to shrink back. “I bought it from the chauffeur. Told him to go buy one that was newer. Nicer.”

“And he didn’t seem to care that he was supposed to pick me up?”

“Not when I gave him enough money for two new limousines. No.”

“He was going to leave a bride stranded on her wedding day?”

Eduardo shrugged. “The world is filled with dishonest and self-serving people. You, my dear, should know all about that.”

She snorted and rucked her dress up over her knees, climbing out of the car without touching Eduardo. She straightened and let her dress fall neatly into place. Then she tugged on her veil, fanning it over her shoulders. “Don’t say it like you aren’t one of the self-serving, my darling husband.”

She looked at him fully. He was still everything he’d been five years ago. Tall, broad, arresting, a vision of perfect male beauty in his well-cut suit. His bronzed skin was highlighted perfectly by his white dress shirt; his dark hair reached the collar of his jacket.

He’d always made her feel like someone had put both hands on her shoulders and shaken her. He’d always had the power to disrupt the order of her life, to make her feel like she was dangerously close to losing the control she’d worked so hard to cultivate over the years.

It was the thing she’d always hated most about him. That he was so darned magnetic. That he always had the power to make her tremble when nothing else could.

It wasn’t just that he was good-looking. There were a lot of good-looking men in the world, and she was too much in control of herself to let that affect her. It was the fact that he exuded a kind of power that she could never hope to achieve. And that he had power over her.

She breezed past him, ignoring the scent of his cologne and skin, ignoring the way it made her stomach tighten. She strode into the hotel lobby, well aware that she was making a spectacle and not caring at all. She breathed in deep. She needed focus. She needed to find out what he wanted so she could leave, as quickly as possible.

“Mrs. Vega, Mr. Vega.” A woman that Hannah assumed was a manager, rounded the check-in desk with a wide, money-motivated grin on her face. “So lovely to have you here. Mr. Vega told me he would be bringing his bride when he came to stay this time. So romantic.”

She had to bite back a tart curse.

Eduardo closed the distance between them and curled his arm around her waist. Her breath rushed from her body. For a moment, just one crazy moment, she wanted to lean against him. To draw closer to his masculine strength. But only for a moment.

“Very,” he said.

“Is there liquor in the room?” she asked, wiggling away from him.

The manager, whose name tag identified her as Maria, frowned slightly. “There is champagne waiting for you.”

“We’ll need three,” she said.

Maria’s frown deepened. “I …”

“She’s kidding,” Eduardo said.

Hannah shook her head. “I’ve been hammered since I took my vows. I intend to spend the rest of the day that way.”

“We’ll just go upstairs.”

“Send champagne,” Hannah said as Eduardo attempted to drag her from the desk in what she imagined he thought was a loving, husbandly manner.

He ushered her into a gilded elevator, a smile pasted on his darkly handsome face until the door closed behind them.

“That was not cute, Hannah,” he said.

She put her hand on her hip and gave him her sassiest smile. She didn’t feel sassy, or in control, but she could fake it with the best of them. “Are you kidding me? I think I’m ready for my close-up. That was fine acting.”