The Wedding She Always Wanted. Stacy Connelly

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.”

      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.”