Seducing The Bride by Shayla Black

Author:Shayla Black [Black, Shayla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

3

Hayden

Well, that was smooth, fidiot.

Beside me, Perrie retreats into herself on the drive back to Dan’s place. I grapple for something to say.

“I’m serious,” I finally tell her. “In case you thought I wasn’t.”

She turns to me with red-rimmed eyes. I know her expressions well. She’s trying not to cry. “No, you aren’t.”

“Why would you say that?”

She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t marry Jackie What’s-her-name after two years of banging her like a drum. You’re not going to marry the girl you’ve only kissed once.”

This I have the perfect answer for. “We can fix that right now. There’s a Hilton down the street.”

“I’m still engaged.”

“And I still think you’re marrying the wrong man. Let me prove it.”

She scoffs. “Even if we checked in and fucked our brains out all night, there’s still the issue of my dad. You told me once that I wasn’t worth losing a friend over.”

Those words I tossed at her four years ago in my desperation to push her away make me wince now. “I’m sorry I said that. I was wrong. No, I was lying so you’d back down. But neither Dan nor our business is the issue between us. The twelve-year gap in our ages doesn’t mean a damn thing anymore either. The only thing stopping us now is you.”

“I can’t take you seriously. The notion of marrying me never occurred to you until today.”

“That’s not true.”

“Okay. Not before this week.”

I can’t refute her.

“That’s what I thought. You’ve always tried to ‘save’ me in some way or another—from being lonely as a kid, from starving if I forgot my lunch money, from sucking at video games. If you sacrificed yourself simply to rescue me from marrying Derek, we’d both be miserable. Just drop it.”

She has it all wrong. But when she crosses her arms over her chest and looks out the passenger window at the passing scenery—tuning me out—I realize nothing I say now will convince her she’s wrong.

The rest of the trip is silent.

When we arrive back at Dan’s place, Derek is gone. Perrie disappears into her room.

My best friend frowns as he watches her go. “She’s upset. What happened?”

“We should talk.”

Dan frowns, then shrugs. “Sure. It’s beer o’clock. We can sit out on the back patio.”

I’m not eager to see all the wedding prep progress, but we can talk out of Perrie’s earshot there. “Sounds good.”

A few minutes later, Dan and I are settled around the patio table, taking in the sunset. I’m too distracted to appreciate the vivid oranges, pinks, and yellows coloring the sky. I take a deep breath and prepare to blow up my entire personal and professional life with one sentence.

“I’m in love with Perrie.”

Dan pauses mid-sip, then lowers his beer can again. “I know.”

Not only am I shocked, his response gives me zero idea how he feels about that.

Feeing the need for liquid courage, I pop open my brew and chug half in a few swallows. “And…I’m going to do everything I can to put a stop to this farce on Saturday.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.