The Manning Grooms (Those Manning Men #0)

Darned if he knew what Charlotte was thinking. He had difficulty enough understanding women under normal circumstances. Still, he’d thought Charlotte was different. He’d thought—he’d assumed, erroneously it seemed—that Charlotte was as eager for their wedding as he was. He was shocked that he’d been so blind to her doubts. She must be terrified to have run away like this. Terrified and alone.

He should’ve known something like this would happen. He’d backed her into a corner, pushed her into this wedding. He’d allowed his own needs, his own desires, to overrule hers.

As dawn streaked the horizon with lavender and pink, he found himself growing ever more concerned.

Where could she be?

His driving became increasingly reckless, his speed gaining as he raced desperately from one possible location to the next. Checking the time, he was nearly swallowed by panic.

There wasn’t much time left. They were both supposed to be at the church in a couple of hours. The thought of hurrying back to his family and having to announce that Charlotte had run away filled him with a sick kind of dread. He wouldn’t return, he decided, until he’d found her. Until he’d done whatever he could to calm her fears, to reassure her, convince her how much he loved her.

Jason wasn’t sure what led him to the beach where he’d proposed to her.

When he saw her car parked haphazardly along the side of the road, he nearly collapsed in relief. A calmness took hold of him and his pulse slowed to an even, steady pace.

He parked behind her and rushed out of his car. The sound of the door closing must have been carried away with the wind, because she didn’t turn around or give any indication that she realized he was there.

He paused for a few seconds, looking at her, his heart swelling with gratitude at finding her safe.

Charlotte sat on a log, facing the water. The same log he’d knelt in front of to ask her to marry him. He felt a stab of pain as he remembered that night and how ecstatic he’d been when she accepted his proposal. He didn’t expect to feel that good again until they shared in the birth of a child.

Charlotte’s shoulders were slumped forward and she seemed mesmerized by the gentle lapping of the water. The wind whipped her hair, which flew wildly about, but she didn’t appear to notice. She wasn’t wearing a sweater. She must be half freezing, Jason thought, peeling off his jacket.

He watched her for another moment, wondering exactly what he’d say. He’d had hours to prepare for this, hours to come up with the words to tell her how much he loved her and how sorry he was for the way everything had gone. Now he found himself speechless.

She didn’t see him until he was almost upon her. When she happened to look up, he saw that her face, ravaged by tears, was as pale as moonlight. She blinked, then frowned as though she couldn’t quite believe he was really there.

“Jason?”

“Funny meeting you here,” he said, placing his jacket around her shoulders.

“I…How did you find me?”

“It took some effort. If you had any doubts, Charlotte, I wish you’d talked them over with me.”

She frowned again. “There wasn’t any time…I tried, honestly I did, but you were always so busy and the time went so fast, and now…” The rest of her words faded into nothingness, her gaze avoiding his.

“There’s time now,” he said, sitting down on the log beside her.

Her eyes widened. “I…can’t go through with it.”

“Why not?” he asked calmly.

She answered him with a wrenching sob. “Please…I can’t. I don’t love you…”

Jason tensed. “I don’t believe that, Charlotte. There’s something else.”

“There is…I realize now that it’s your family I love. I never had one of my own and it came to me that I was marrying you for all the wrong reasons. I…can’t go through with the wedding…I just can’t.”

Jason felt as if someone had punched him. Hard. “My…family?”

“Yes,” she cried. “They’re all so wonderful and I…got carried away, thinking that if I married you…Carrie and I would be part of a large, loving family. Then I saw how unfair I was being to you…marrying you when I didn’t love you.”

A cold anger took hold of Jason. An anger rooted in pain and disillusionment.

“It’s too bad you didn’t think of that sooner, because all this soul-searching is a little too late.” He grasped her arm and pulled her to her feet. She sagged against him, but he tugged at her and she straightened.

“Jason, please…”

“Shut up, Charlotte. Just shut up before I say something I’ll regret.” It was no comfort realizing she was the only woman who’d ever brought him willingly to his knees. He’d gone to her in love, a love so strong it had swept away his loneliness. Charlotte was throwing it all back at him now, rejecting his love, betraying him with her last-minute revelations.

Walking out on him at the eleventh hour like this couldn’t be considered anything less. Nothing she could’ve done would have humiliated him more than to leave him standing at the altar.

“I can’t be your wife…Don’t you understand?”

Her voice was so weak he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. Not that it mattered; nothing she could have said would’ve had any effect on him after her confession. It didn’t matter if he could hear her or not. She was mumbling, pleading with him, but he closed off his heart the same way he had his ears.

When they reached his car, he opened the passenger door and deposited her inside. He ran around to the driver’s side, not knowing if he could trust her to stay put. He was mildly surprised that she didn’t try to escape.

He started the engine and turned on the heater. A blast of warm air filled the car. She didn’t seem to notice.

Neither spoke until they were close to the freeway entrance.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But I do know you’re going through with this wedding, if it’s the last thing either of us ever does.”

“But how can you force me to marry you, knowing what you do?”

“It must have something to do with saving my entire family from humiliation,” he continued with the same chilly irony. “That family you claim to love so much. Maybe it’s because I don’t want my mother—who’s worked day and night on this wedding for the past three weeks, who’s looked forward to this day for years—to become an object of pity among her friends. Maybe it’s because I’d have trouble looking my two sisters and their husbands in the eye, knowing they rearranged their entire summer, gave up their vacations, to fly out here for our wedding. Just maybe it’s because I have an aversion to being ridiculed myself. I can’t really tell you what else would reduce a man to drag a woman who’s rejected him to the altar. But make no mistake, Charlotte, you will marry me.”

“It isn’t that I don’t care for you,” she whispered through her tears.

“Right. You care so deeply that you decided to go into hiding on our wedding day.”

“I know you’re angry…”

“You’re damn right I’m angry.”

“We can’t go through with the wedding, Jason! We just can’t.”

“Oh, but we are, Charlotte.”

“What will we do afterward? I mean, once we’re married and—”

“Somehow we’ll find a way to miss our flight to Hawaii, then, first thing Monday morning, I’ll file for an annulment.”

“But it doesn’t make sense to go through with the wedding—”

“Yes, my darling Charlotte, it does. It makes a whole lot of sense.”

Charlotte was determined to survive the day, although she wasn’t sure how she’d manage. She’d been a fool to run off the way she had. A fool and a coward. She was an even bigger fool to think she’d appease Jason’s anger by lying.

When she’d left, she hadn’t thought about what she was doing to Jason or his family. She hadn’t been thinking at all, overpowered instead by her own fears.

On the way back, she tried to tell Jason she was sorry, to apologize for the hurt and humiliation she’d caused, but each time he cut her off, saying he didn’t want to hear it.

The ride back to her apartment was like living through the worst nightmare of her life. Jason was so cold, so furiously angry.

He dropped her off at her apartment, took her arm, leveled his steely blue eyes on her and said, “I’ll be by to pick you up in forty minutes.”

“I can’t possibly be ready by then.”

“You can and you will. And, Charlotte, don’t even think about running away again. Do you understand me?”

Charlotte nodded and almost told him it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. Then she remembered the whole wedding was a farce, anyway.

“Fine. I’ll be ready,” she assured him calmly.

She showered, brushed her hair and dressed, but she wasn’t conscious of doing any of those things. Carrie was with her, and Mandy, too, both silent and pale. Worried. What she’d done to them was terrible, Charlotte realized. They were both too young to carry this secret, too young to bear the burden of her foolishness.

Neither girl asked her any questions, and for that, Charlotte was grateful. She didn’t know what she would’ve told them if they had.

Leah and Jamie had arrived within minutes of Jason’s bringing her home. They were both happy and excited. If her complete lack of emotion bewildered them, they didn’t let it show. They chatted excitedly, recalling events at their own weddings, bubbling over with enthusiasm. Charlotte tried to smile, tried to pretend this was the happiest moment of her life. Leah and Jamie seemed to believe it, even if the girls had their doubts.

Jason arrived to escort her to the church, and her future sisters-in-law shooed him away. She wore the beautiful off-white dress Elizabeth Manning had insisted on buying her, and Leah had woven flowers in her hair.

Before she knew it, Charlotte was at the church. The number of guests surprised her. Tears clogged her throat when she reminded herself that she was playing a role. Tomorrow morning she’d go back to what her life had been before she met Jason Manning. Back to the emptiness. The loneliness.

At the appropriate moment, with organ music swirling around her, she walked dutifully down the aisle, aware every second of Jason standing at the front of the church. His eyes held hers as effectively as a vise, as though he suspected she might try to run even now. And if she tried, she didn’t doubt for a second that he’d go after her.

With her morning little more than a vague memory, Charlotte found it ironic that the actual wedding ceremony was so clear to her.

Jason stood at her side, revealing no emotion, and calmly repeated his vows. Charlotte wondered why the minister didn’t stop him. It was all too evident from the clipped, angry tone of his voice that he didn’t mean what he was saying. He had no intention of loving her, of cherishing her, of allowing her ever to be important in his life. Not after what she’d done. Not after she’d led him to believe her motives were so deceitful. Not after she’d made him think she planned to ridicule him and his family. Whatever love he’d once felt for her was dead. He’d practically told her so himself.