Stacy Connelly – The Wedding She Always Wanted (страница 4)

Moonlight glinted on the surface of the nearby pool, and the multicolored lights played over the stream pouring from a rock waterfall. The peaceful setting was a sharp contrast to the turmoil churning inside her, reminding Emily this was her problem.

Everyone else was having a good time. Everyone else should be having a good time … including Javy. She hadn’t missed the hungry looks several women at the reception had slanted in his direction. He could be with any one of them right now.

Ignoring the twinge of regret, she turned to him and said, “You need to go back inside. You’re the best man. You have to give the toast and—”

“Already did.”

“You did?”

“Yep. Short and sweet, just the way the guests like it. No one came here tonight to hear me talk.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.” Despite his protest, Emily definitely enjoyed hearing Javy talk. The deep murmur of his voice held a hint of his Hispanic heritage and a trace of good humor, like he was ready to laugh at any given moment.

“Hmm, me, too. I have to say, I was a hit. Especially the love song I recited in Spanish.”

Uncertain if she could take him seriously, she protested, “You did not.”

“I did. Spanish is one of the romance languages, you know.”

Pig Latin would be one of the romance languages as long as Javy was the one speaking it. She was willing to bet every woman in the ballroom had gone a little weak at the knees listening to him, and maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t been inside.

The memory of their dance still lingered, not only in her mind, but in every part of her body that had brushed his as they swayed together. She could still feel the softness of his hair on her fingertips, the broad shoulders beneath her hands and the press of his thighs against her own….

Desire still tingled along nerve endings every place they had touched, and the last thing she needed was Javy’s Spanish love song as a soundtrack.

Holding out his arm, he said, “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“For a walk. Unless you’d rather be alone.”

Emily knew she should take the easy out he’d given her. Not because she actually wanted to be alone, but because being with a man of Javier Delgado’s reputation was not smart.

Or maybe it was, she thought suddenly. After feeling like she’d lived her whole life with blinders on, maybe taking a walk with her eyes wide-open was the smartest thing she could do.

Chapter Two

Javy waited for Emily’s answer, anticipation picking up a beat inside him that he hadn’t felt for years. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to be alone, but he hoped she’d say yes. A simple moonlight stroll suddenly meant more than his last several relationships combined.

Stupid, he thought. He was the last guy to suffer from wedding fever, but if he didn’t know better.

“Won’t Connor notice that you’re gone?”

Connor was more likely to notice that both he and Emily were gone, but Javy wasn’t about to point that out. “I’m sure he’ll figure I’m around somewhere. Besides, isn’t it time for them to take off for their honeymoon?”

“I suppose so.” Emily crossed her slender arms, although she couldn’t possibly be cold, even with the slight breeze stirring the summer night air.

Javy swore silently. Emily would have been leaving on her honeymoon tonight. While finding out her fiancé was a liar and a cheat—not to mention a moron, because, come on, what kind of idiot cheated on a woman as beautiful as Emily Wilson?—might have been a relief, it still didn’t change the fact that all of Emily’s plans had come crashing down around her. Not just plans for a wedding or honeymoon, but her whole future. No wonder she was feeling more than a little lost even if she hadn’t loved the guy.

“I’m sorry, Emily. I know how hard this must be for you.”

She started walking alongside the meandering pool, silently accepting his offer. “We were going to go on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. Todd had everything planned. Snorkeling in Cabo, windsurfing in Mazatlán, parasailing in Puerto Vallarta …” Her voice trailed off in a memoriam of broken dreams.

“You like windsurfing?” Javy asked, hearing the doubt in his own voice. He had no problem imaging Emily sunning herself on a sandy beach, easily visualizing her long limbs bared by a less-than-nothing bathing suit, but he couldn’t picture her riding the waves on a board.

“I’ve never been. I’m relatively sure I would have hated it,” she said lightly. “Just like I would have hated the cruise. I went on a three-day trip right after I graduated high school. Turns out I get seasick. I spent the entire time feeling nauseous in my cabin.” She gave a soft laugh. “If you think about it, Todd really did me a favor. It would have been a miserable honeymoon.”

Javy had a feeling the misery would have lasted far beyond the honeymoon. He caught her arm and forced her to face him, with the moon shining down like a single interrogator’s light-bulb into her turquoise eyes. “Why, Emily?”

A slender shoulder lifted in an eloquent shrug. “He had everything all planned and—”

“I’m not talking about the honeymoon. I’m talking about everything. The engagement, the wedding. Or was that all planned, too? Was it easier to go along with what everyone else wanted than to stop and think about what would make you happy?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t have married Todd—I wouldn’t marry anyone—just to make my parents happy.”

“Then why did you agree to marry him?”

“Because I loved him. And don’t you tell me that I didn’t! You don’t know me. You don’t know how I feel. And from what little I know of you, you don’t know what it’s like to be in love. You go from woman to woman with less time than it takes you to swap CDs.”

You don’t know love. Her words echoed in his thoughts, and Javy’s jaw tightened as he thought how wrong she was. He knew how love carved out a man’s insides, leaving him as hollow as a grinning jack-o'-lantern. He knew too well—and he’d learned his lesson.

But forcing his muscles to relax, he offered her an easygoing smile. “Feel better?”

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.”