I glance out the glass toward the rose garden. All of it looks so small from here, but I spot Dorian chatting with the minister and Elizabeth avoiding all eye contact.
I refuse to believe it.
And yet somehow … I do.
“How do I know you’re not making this up?” I ask. “And how do you know what my fiancé looks like? Maybe it was someone else in the bar last night.”
He rolls his eyes. “First of all, I saw what he looked like when the two of you were FaceTiming right next to me. And secondly, I have better things to do than crash some stranger’s wedding and stand up in front of hundreds of people, making a fool of myself.”
As always, the man has a point.
Then again, I don’t know him from Adam.
He could be crazy.
“I want to see the picture,” I tell him.
His hand lifts to his jaw and he forces a breath through his nostrils. “You don't want to see it.”
I laugh. “Are you joking right now? I need to see it. Have to see it. Want to see it. It’s the only way I’m going to believe any of this.”
Dipping into his back pocket, he slides out a thin black phone and thumbs in his code before tapping on an app and flipping the screen toward me.
Sure enough, it’s Dorian and Elizabeth. His hands in her hair. His mouth—the very same one that kissed me goodnight—on her mouth.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I gather my dress and run for the nearest restroom, which I find down the hall and around the corner. My dress, which once fit my body like a glove, now squeezes the life out of me.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
And I sure as hell can’t go back out there and marry that bastard.
With my back against the wall, I slide down to the ground until I’m nothing more than a numb woman sitting in a whole mess of tulle and chiffon.
I’m hurt. Shocked. Devastated. Humiliated.
But I refuse to cry.
He isn’t worth a single tear.
Someone pushes the door open a few inches and a second later, a man’s voice calls my name.
My heart leaps into my throat for a second when I realize it’s just Gabriel.
“You doing okay?” he asks.
“Peachy.”
“What do you want to do?” he asks.
I laugh because it's a strange question. A complicated question. A question for which I have no good answer.
“Truthfully,” I say, “I just want to get out of here.”
“All right then. Let’s go.”
I press my palms against the wall and push myself to standing. A moment later I meet him outside the ladies’ room door. His entire expression holds an apology, though he has nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I should be thanking him.
He dangles a set of keys. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere.”
Chapter 4
Gabriel
We drive for hours, through hilly, evergreen-covered terrain, deep valleys, and lonesome highways. And we drive mostly in silence.
Five hours ago, I objected at her wedding. I’d spent most of the day walking the hotel, hoping to run into her, and at one point I’d called the front desk, asking to have them connect me to her room, but since I didn’t have her last name, they respectfully refused for security reasons. It wasn’t until I was passing the rose garden shortly after noon when I saw the ornate sign on a silver easel, declaring the Peretti-Hawthorne nuptials were to be held there at two PM. A quick Google search later confirmed that Peretti was, indeed, Olivia’s last name.
The sun has begun to set, and a sign on the side of the road indicates a hotel is off the next exit.
“You care if we stop for the night?” I break the silence. I don’t want to drive too much farther because at some point, we’re going to have to turn back.
All she wanted after I dropped that bombshell on her earlier was to get out of there, so I took her away. But she’s going to have to go back and face him at some point.
She called her mother’s cell phone from mine shortly after we sped off in my car, and she told her everything, chewing on her manicured thumbnail as she drew in deep breath after deep breath. By the time she hung up, she had some semblance of a relieved smile on her pretty lips, saying her parents gave her their full support and they were going to handle everything.
Olivia glances my way and nods. “Yeah. That’s fine. You’ve been driving for hours. You must be exhausted.”
I’m not half as exhausted as I imagine she is, but I nod. “I wouldn’t mind stopping for the night.”
Neither one of us have a change of clothes, and she’s still in her pristine white wedding gown.
“There’s a big box store up the road from here,” I say. “Saw a sign back there. We could grab a change of clothes?”
“Yeah. That’s fine.” She sighs. “But I don’t have my wallet.”
“Olivia.” I give her a cock-eyed look. “You’re covered. Don’t worry about anything, all right?”
I pull off on the next exit and follow the signs to the nearest Target.
“You want to stay in the car?” I ask. “If you tell me your sizes, I can—”
She interrupts my offer by opening the passenger door.
Guess there’s my answer.
A moment later, I’m following her into the store, where she makes a beeline for the women’s clothes section. I head for the men’s aisles, stopping to grab a few toiletries when I’m done, and we meet twenty minutes later by the checkout lanes.
The woman ringing us up gives us a standard greeting, scanning item after item while periodically staring at Olivia’s attention-grabbing attire, but not once does she ask a single question.
By the time we get back in the car, I start the engine and glance up the road, searching for that hotel I’d seen on a road sign a few miles back … the Rain Drop Inn, I think it was called.
“You doing okay?” I ask as I start the engine.
She offers a surrendering chuckle and a single-shouldered shrug.
“Dumb question. Sorry,” I say. “I just meant … if you need anything … if you want to talk about it or ...”
I’m not good at this kind of thing. Give me a law textbook, something in black and white, and that’s my wheelhouse. But emotions are complicated. And feelings are personal. And while I have an inexplicable growing fondness for this woman, we’re still just a couple of strangers who know absolutely nothing about one another.
She places her hand on mine. “Thank you. For everything. This hurts. This hurts like hell. But you saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life.”
Pressing my lips flat, I give her a nod. I know it wasn’t my place, but I’d have given anything for someone to warn me back when I was marrying my ex. It would’ve saved me a world of hurt and humiliation, not to mention thousands of dollars, a handful of friendships, and an ugly divorce.
“I know we’re strangers,” I say, “but in the short amount of time I spent with you last night, it was clear to me that you’re a kind person with a big heart. And you deserve better than someone like him.”
We head to the hotel, which is a convenient half mile up the road, and I park outside the front doors. The parking lot is unusually full for a middle-of-nowhere place like this, but I don’t give it another thought. All we need are a couple of rooms and a good night’s rest. Tomorrow she’s got to go back and begin to pick up the pieces of her new reality.