The Wedding She Always Wanted

Her color still high and her eyes snapping with surprising fire, Emily frowned. “What?”

“Seems like that was something you needed to get out. I was wondering if you felt any better.”

“I … no.” The light in her eyes died, and righteous indignation faded into a quiet mortification. “No. I don’t. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I never yell at people, and that’s the second time tonight.”

As far as decibel levels went, Emily had been nowhere near yelling, but her words had certainly been sharp enough to hit their mark. Not that he was about to admit that. “Who else did you yell at?”

“I didn’t yell exactly….”

“Let me guess. You spoke in a very stern whisper.”

Her lips twitched, hinting at a real smile, which he was becoming more and more eager to see. “No. But I told two women if they were going to talk about me behind my back, they should at least get the story straight.”

“Good for you.”

“Is it?” Emily questioned. “Good for me? So far, it’s only made me feel even worse.”

Her gaze pleaded with him, as if asking him to somehow make her feel better. Her sadness and uncertainty touched something inside Javy, a need that made him want to fix whatever was wrong, a desire to see her smile. But memories of Stephanie clawed at his gut, reminding him of his failure, his broken promises and his reasons for staying away from any woman looking for more than the good time he could offer.

Javy didn’t know if Emily figured that out on her own, but she turned away and started walking again. “I knew everyone would be talking about me calling off the wedding. I expected that. What I didn’t expect was that everyone would know why I called off the wedding. That everyone would know Todd had cheated on me.”

She turned and looked at him suddenly, too quickly for him to try to school his expression. “You knew already, too, didn’t you?”

With moonlight turning her hair to silver and liming her skin with an ethereal glow, she looked like a mythical fantasy brought to life. Javy wasn’t a particularly imaginative man, but had Emily suddenly sprouted gossamer wings, he wouldn’t have been that surprised. She was amazing, and her ex was an ass.

“I did. When Connor first came back to town, he told me he thought Todd was bad news,” he admitted. When Emily’s face immediately fell, he cupped her chin until she met his gaze. Her skin felt like silk against his fingertips, and he had to force himself to pay attention to what he was saying instead of her wide, luminous eyes or the pale pink of her lips. “And, yeah, he told me why you broke it off. But Todd’s the one who should feel ashamed, Emily. Not you.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself.”

“Eventually, you’ll start to believe it. Hell, that’s probably why everyone here is talking about what happened. Because they can’t believe Todd would be stupid enough to cheat on you.”

A corner of her mouth lifted in a smile, which he longed to taste. “Tell me something. Did Connor send you out here to cheer me up?”

Javy gave a short laugh. After the way his friend had warned him off, the last thing Connor would have done was send Javy out to be alone with Emily. “No. That is definitely not why I came out here.”

He saw the doubt in her eyes before she turned away from his touch, and Javy really wished he’d been there to see Connor put Todd Dunworthy in his place. But he knew Emily’s former fiancé wasn’t entirely to blame. After all, something had pushed her to agree to marry a man Javy didn’t believe she loved … despite her insistence to the contrary.

As they walked along the imitation river, with only the sound of the water and the distant reception breaking the silence, Javy said, “You know, I didn’t think I’d like you. No offense.”

After a blink of surprise, Emily recovered and said, “None taken. I’m still not sure I like you.”

“Yeah, you do.”

She quickly averted her face, a telltale sign she was blushing, even though it was too dark to see.

Denying the temptation to show her exactly how much she was starting to like him, Javy instead said, “I thought you’d be a typical spoiled, rich girl.”

“I am.”

“Rich, yeah, but not spoiled.”

If anything, Emily had a sweet innocence that made Todd Dunworthy’s betrayal even more despicable. And gave Javy even more reason to stay away. He didn’t do sweet. He didn’t do innocent. It was exactly why Connor had warned him away from Emily. And yet here he was … alone with her in a moonlit garden.

“Emily—”

She grabbed his hand, effectively cutting off whatever he might have said. “Did you hear that?” she asked suddenly.

Figuring she wasn’t talking about the pulse pounding in his ears at the feel of her soft skin against his own, he asked, “Hear what?”

“It sounded like … It is! That’s Ginny and Duncan!”

“Who?”

“The flower girl and ring bearer, also known as my niece and nephew. Their babysitter took them to their room an hour ago, and my sister went up to tuck them in. I’m sure Aileen thinks they’re still there.”

Emily led the way around a corner, her heels clicking against the cool decking, and sure enough, a pint-size girl stood at the base of a tree, staring up at the branches. Her golden hair was a wild mop of corkscrew curls, and she was wearing a purple T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, but earlier she had looked like a miniature version of Emily. Her hair had been swept up into ringlets crowned with miniature roses, and her dress had been a girlish version of Emily’s pink gown. Her smile had grown wider with every petal she tossed along the lace runner. Javy guessed she was around six years old.

She wasn’t smiling now, though. With her hands on her hips, she announced, “You’re gonna be in big trouble, Duncan!”

Only then did Javy realize Duncan, the ring bearer, was somewhere in the tree above them.

“What do the two of you think you’re doing out here?” Emily demanded.

As the little girl spun around, her instant look of guilt quickly turned to indignation. “I told him not to, Aunt Emily. I told him he’d get in trouble, but he said if he climbed to the top of the tree, he could see our house. I told him not to, but he did it, anyway, and now he is stuck and is gonna have to stay in the tree forever!”

“Am not!”

Following the sound of the voice overhead, Javy spotted Duncan. He let out a low whistle when he saw how high the little boy had climbed. The gasp at his side told him the moment Emily spotted her nephew.

“Look at that branch!” Her grip tightened on his hand. “We need to call the fire department.”

“It’s all right. I’ll get him,” Javy assured her.

“But—”

“Look, whoever you call, it’ll be a while before they arrive. I’m here now. I’ll get him down. Trust me,” said Javy.

Emily looked back up at the tree. The branch Duncan had climbed out on looked too fragile to hold a kitten. The longer it took to get the little boy down. “All right. But be careful.”

“See?” Javy said with a cocky grin. “I knew you liked me.”

“I’ll like you even more if you get my nephew down in one piece,” she retorted, doing her best to stay cool and unaffected and knowing she failed by the gleam in his dark eyes.

And when Javy let go of her hand and shrugged his tuxedo jacket off one broad shoulder, cool and unaffected melted into a puddle of desire. Every bit of moisture evaporated from her mouth, and Emily snapped her jaw shut with an audible clink.

Taking off the fitted jacket made perfect sense; acting as if he were stripping down in the privacy of her bedroom did not.

But while Javy’s actions might have been completely circumspect, the promise in his eyes was downright scandalous. As if he knew she’d pictured him in her bedroom, and fully intended to one day be there.