How to Be a Blissful Bride Read online

  But unlike in the past when Rory would meet his melodramatic statement with a give-me-a-break eye roll, this time her blue eyes filled with emotion as she said the word he hadn’t. “Died, Chance.” Her voice broke on his name. “You almost died.”

  A wave of guilt crashed over him when he thought of what his sister, his parents, his family had been through. Not my fault, he reminded himself, but the words didn’t erase the lingering shadows from his sister’s eyes whenever she looked at him.

  “I’m fine, Rory. I’ll be back to my old self in no time.”

  Reaching out, his sister squeezed his arm and gave him a sad smile. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Rory...” His voice trailed off as she walked away, and Chance knew better than to go after her. She needed time by herself, and he wasn’t sure he could catch her if he tried.

  “You really are a jerk sometimes.” Disdain, not sorrow, filled his cousin’s icy gaze, and it was almost a relief to have Evie glaring at him. Anger he could handle, and he wondered if she was, in her own prickly way, trying to make things easier on him.

  “You do realize that I had no idea what some overeager journalist was reporting. I was stuck in the hospital—”

  “You were unconscious in a makeshift first-aid station half a world away.”

  And that is your fault, Chance. Evie didn’t say the words, but he read the accusation.

  “It’s my job, Evie.” A job he loved despite the dangers.

  “And you know your sister and your parents. As far as they are concerned, their job is to love you. You shouldn’t make it so hard.”

  And then she, too, walked away, leaving him standing in the middle of the lobby with chatting guests and employees passing him on all sides. A harried businessman barked orders into his phone, jarring Chance’s leg with his briefcase as he hurried by. White-hot pain seared through him, and he clenched his jaw to keep from crying out. Sweat broke out on his upper lip, and he sucked in a deep breath.

  Despite what his family thought, he was not typically foolish or reckless. His job required calculated risks, but he always weighed his options before making a decision—even if he had only a split second to do so.

  The smart thing to do would be to walk away. There was no payoff to be had here. No final shot to wrap up the story. No reason to slowly, painfully make his way over to the reception desk—except for one foolish, reckless urge.

  He wanted to remind Alexa Mayhew that they had, indeed, met before.

  * * *

  “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  Griffin had asked the same question half a dozen times since they left—escaped—the lobby for their hotel suite. He’d led her through the tiny living area with its small shades-of-blue love seat and coffee table straight to the whitewashed dining room, where he fixed her a cup of herbal tea.

  She hadn’t taken a sip until she was sure she could lift the mug without her hands shaking and then had to swallow a burst of hysterical laughter along with the brew. Chamomile. Did Griffin really think the soothing benefits would help in this situation?

  Chance. Here. At Hillcrest.

  The last fifteen minutes were such a blur, the moments so surreal, she could almost believe she’d had some kind of out-of-body experience. The second she saw him, her brain had shut down even as her limbs kept going, her mouth kept moving.

  Nice to meet you?

  What had she been thinking? She’d been stunned, yes, but to look him in the eye and pretend they’d never met? Alexa didn’t know Chance McClaren well—other than in the biblical sense—but even she had to realize a man so macho would take that kind of flat-out dismissal like a challenge. She didn’t remember? Well, then, he would just have to remind her, wouldn’t he?

  Take a chance.

  The play on words had been the phrase he’d used to get her out onto the dance floor, into his arms and, by the end of the evening, into his bed.

  Take a chance.

  Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who’d ended up pregnant!

  “Alexa?”

  Jarred from her thoughts, she cupped her hands around the warm white ceramic mug and met Griffin’s worried gaze. “I’m fine now. Really. I think I was just—overwhelmed for a minute back there.”

  He seemed to think she was referring to the tour and the wedding coordinator’s ideas for their perfect wedding. He had no reason to think anything else since Alexa had never told him the name of the man she’d had that weekend fling with.

  “I meant what I said, you know. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal—”

  “Griff—”

  “But the two of us—the three of us—we make sense, Allie.”

  His offer and the sincerity in his golden gaze wrapped around her like one of his exuberant hugs. They’d met when she was eight years old—the day of her parents’ funeral. Her grandmother’s estate had been filled with people—inside and out. Mourners draped in black inside and paparazzi with long-lens cameras outside. She had spent most of her childhood feeling lost and alone, but she’d never felt as invisible as she had in that crowd. Neither her parents’ jet-setting friends nor her grandmother’s old guard seemed to have any idea what to say to a young orphan. Though she had overheard plenty of what they had to say about her...

  Poor thing. What on earth do you think Virginia will do with her?

  I’m sure she’ll be sent to boarding school. I’m surprised Stefan and Bree hadn’t enrolled her already.

  To say she had slipped away unnoticed would have been a huge understatement. No one had paid attention to her when she was there; why would anyone notice when she was gone?

  Alexa hadn’t given much thought to where she was going. Slipping out the back entrance, she ran. For miles it had seemed, traveling that much distance before ever leaving her grandmother’s property and stumbling onto the neighbor’s vast estate next door.

  Though the grounds were as sculpted as her grandmother’s with high hedges, flower gardens and fountains, this yard had a swing set, and that was where Griffin found her.

  And as if he’d come across a homeless kitten, he’d taken her back to his house, fixed her a glass of milk and a bowl of cereal. And when his mother found the two of them sometime later, Griffin had announced, “This is Alexa. Her mom and dad died, so she’s gonna live with us.”

  She felt the same way now as she had then. Like Griffin was the one person she could count on. And she loved him. She really did. She just wished—

  Alexa shook her head. Maybe that was her problem. Always wanting more than she had. The oh-so-typical poor little rich girl.

  “You’re my best friend, Griffin.” Setting aside the mug, Alexa rounded the table to take his hands. “You have been since we were kids, and if I ever lost that, if I ever lost your friendship—”

  “Not gonna happen. I promise you that. Scout’s honor.”

  “You were so never a Boy Scout.” After giving his hands a final squeeze, Alexa pushed him toward the door of their suite. “Go! You know you don’t want to be stuck in this room with me.”

  Recently, Griffin’s father had expressed an interest in Hillcrest House. Evidently, he had heard that a competing national chain had made an offer on the Victorian hotel, and he’d asked Griffin to go see whether the property was worthy enough to make a counteroffer.

  Alexa was more than a little surprised Griffin had agreed. He had his own dreams that had nothing to do with becoming a hotel magnate. Dreams that could come true—if he found a way to prove himself responsible to his father.

  “Just so you know, I’d never think of myself as being stuck with you.” He paused with a hand on the doorknob. “Only lucky that you were by my side.”

  “Go! Before you make a ridiculously hormonal woman start to cry!”

  He left with a wink and a wave, and the reality of the pas
t few minutes hit like a hurricane, practically knocking Alexa off her feet. She sank into the blue love seat, the strength all but sapped from her muscles, and pulled a matching pillow against her chest.

  Chance McClaren...

  Seeing him had been like—seeing a ghost.

  A living, breathing ghost.

  Because despite that initial news report, Chance McClaren had not died in the bomb attack.

  Two days later, every news channel in the country was scrambling to revise their headlines. Chance was injured but alive in a hospital in some foreign city Alexa had never heard of.

  But for those two days between, shock had left Alexa blessedly numb after the roller-coaster ride of emotions she’d experienced since the night they met.

  She’d spent her childhood waiting for her parents to call, watching out windows for them to show up out of the blue. Waiting, wondering, hoping, only to have that hope dashed time and time again when one nanny or another would tell her that her parents weren’t coming.

  Until the day when her grandmother arrived and put an end to all of it. To the waiting, to the wondering, to the hoping. Her parents weren’t coming. Not ever again.

  She’d relived every twist and turn, every jolt and jerk, every stomach-in-her-throat loop-the-loop after Chance left, and when she read that first news report, a small, desperate part of her had been—relieved.

  This child—a child she already loved, a child who would love and need her—would be all hers, and she wouldn’t have to share. She wouldn’t have to tell Chance he was going to be a father. Wouldn’t have to worry that he would wreak havoc crashing in and out of their lives. She wouldn’t have to face the pain of knowing she’d cursed her baby with a childhood destined to be so similar to her own.

  She wouldn’t.

  Because Chance was dead.

  Only then he wasn’t. But it was almost easier to pretend he was.

  Alexa barely had a chance to take a breath, forget to take the time she needed to recover from seeing him again, when a knock sounded at the door. She gave a small laugh as she pushed off the love seat cushions. Typical Griffin. “Forget your key?” she asked as she pulled open the door.

  Only it wasn’t Griffin standing on the other side. A living, breathing Chance McClaren arched a dark brow and said, “I don’t recall you giving me a key...yet.”

  Chapter Three

  Heat licked a path from her chest all the way to her cheeks, and she was tempted—seriously tempted—to slam the door in his face. But she’d been Virginia Mayhew’s granddaughter too long to react in such a way. Though, really, what etiquette book had a chapter on something like this?

  How to greet a weekend fling father of your unborn child. Or better yet, What to say to a man who figuratively, if not literally, had come back from the dead.

  “Come on, Lexi, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  One hand gripped the edge of the doorframe in a casual pose, but she wasn’t fooled. His blue eyes were shadowed, his unshaven jaw clenched, the muscles in his arm standing out in stark relief. He looked like he’d fall over if he let go. And the heart she’d tried so hard to harden ached for him.

  “Please don’t call me that,” she murmured even as she stepped back and allowed him into the suite and, she feared, back into her life.

  She kept her back turned as she led the way toward the suite’s living area. The space had felt cozy when Griffin had been there with her. Now, with Chance, she felt the walls closing in.

  “What should I call you? After all, that is how you introduced yourself that night, isn’t it?”

  Alexa nearly groaned at the reminder. She’d been calling herself a fool ever since. What had she been thinking? One look into Chance’s startling blue eyes back in the lobby, and she’d remembered. Even now a rush of energy, awareness, attraction arced between them, and Alexa knew she hadn’t been thinking much at all.

  For one weekend, with this one man, she’d let herself feel. She’d known there would be a price to pay for abandoning the tight control that had shaped her life for the past twenty-plus years. She just hadn’t realized until she found out she was pregnant that her child would be the one to pay it. But only if she told Chance the truth...

  “What do you want, Chance?” She picked up the pillow that had fallen from the love seat and carefully tucked it back against the armrest, smoothing a ruffled corner as if nothing mattered more.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” His eyes glowed like superheated flame as she straightened to meet his gaze. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

  So she was right, Alexa thought. She had wounded some sense of macho pride when she pretended not to know him. Throw in an almost-engagement, and the man she’d last spoken to months ago was suddenly at her door.

  She took a step backward, needing some space from the heat coming off his body in waves, only to bump up against the white wicker coffee table. He countered her move, trapping her there unless she wanted to start scrambling over furniture to try to get away. “Chance—”

  “For someone who claims not to take risks, you sure move fast when you want to.”

  Alexa wasn’t sure her skin could get much hotter without setting her hair on fire. He knew just how fast she had moved, falling into bed with him the very night they met. Looking back, the entire weekend seemed like some kind of dream, a magical moment out of time. One that, even with the pregnancy, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to regret—until now. Until Chance made her feel ashamed. “I—”

  “Four months, and now you’re suddenly engaged?”

  “Engaged? You mean Griffin?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have another fiancé I don’t know about?”

  “No, of course not.” She didn’t even have the one he did know about. Not really.

  “Unless...” His gaze narrowed dangerously. “Were you engaged when we met?”

  “What? No! I certainly wouldn’t have slept with you,” she hissed beneath her breath as if the entire hotel might have been listening in, “if I’d been engaged to another man at the time.”

  He searched her expression, his stance easing ever so slightly at what he saw there. She caught a hint of the ocean mixed with his own masculine scent, and her focus drifted toward his lips even as she wondered if she would taste the salt on his skin...

  He’s here. I can’t believe he’s really here.

  Sucking in a quick breath, Alexa snapped herself out of the dangerous direction her thoughts had taken. Chance might have just come from a walk on the beach, but she was the one who needed to throw herself into the frigid waves!

  What had he been saying? Oh, right. He’d just accused her of cheating on her fiancé. “Griffin James and I have known each other since we were children, but he only recently asked me to marry him.”

  “Just like that?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve known each other for years and then what? You woke up one day and decided to get married?”

  “We’re well suited.” Alexa cringed, hearing her grandmother’s words coming out of her mouth. Her grandmother would be thrilled if she accepted Griffin’s proposal. Virginia had been pushing the two of them together since high school.

  “Right. Whereas you and I were only well suited in bed.”

  Alexa stared at him. “What are you doing here, Chance?”

  He opened his mouth but no sound escaped. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, looking at a loss, out of sorts and so completely different from the man she’d met four months ago. “Hell if I know,” he finally sighed.

  Alexa fought it, she really did, but her heart cried out at the unexpected vulnerability in his expression. He looked...awful. At the charity auction, he’d fit in with the sophisticated crowd—breathtaking in a tuxedo that outlined his six-foot-something frame with a perfection that would bring any red-b
looded woman to her knees. His dark hair had been brushed back from his wide forehead, revealing his classic bone structure, gorgeous blue eyes and a pair of dimples to die for.

  Today his hair fell across that forehead in disarray. His face looked gaunt. The spark was missing from those sapphire blues, the dimples nowhere to be seen beneath the rough stubble.

  Four months wasn’t much time, but so much had happened. She had a new life growing inside her, and Chance—Chance had almost died. “I heard the news reports.”

  Cringing, he asked, “Which one?”

  “The one that said you’d been killed in a suicide bomb attack.”

  “Bad reporting.”

  “It doesn’t look that far off.” She hadn’t noticed earlier, but he stood off-center, resting the majority of his weight on his left side. How close had he come to dying?

  “I’m fine. I’ll be back in the field in no time.”

  Right, Alexa thought bitterly, because who would let nearly getting blown up make them rethink their life choices?

  A few years before her parents were killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Italian Alps, they had survived a plane crash. The small jet had experienced engine failure, and the pilot had made a miracle landing on a middle of nowhere country road. But instead of making her parents rethink their high-flying, jet-setting lifestyle, surviving the near-death incident had only made them feel that much more invincible.

  Alexa could only imagine Chance would react the same—taking more risks, accepting more challenges until his luck ran out way too soon.

  At the moment, though, it was hard to think about him being thousands of miles away, putting his life in danger, when he was right there, close enough to touch. And it was all Alexa could do not to erase the mere inches between them, to throw her arms around him, to see, smell, touch, taste that he was really and truly alive and well—

  Hormones, she thought desperately. She’d read how pregnancy could lead to a skyrocketing of emotions, but the rationale failed to erase the dizzying rush of desire flooding her veins. Nothing more than a momentary lapse.