by Kate Hardy
‘Are you quite sure you want to do this?’ Max said.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she said, unable to keep the impatience from her voice. At any moment Alan might come raging outside. She shuddered at the thought.
‘There’ll be no going back. It’s Alan who’ll be humiliated.’
‘Huh! Finding out the truth about him from his ex-wives rates high in humiliation. Being foolish enough to have believed his lies even higher.’
She clutched Max by the sleeve of his dark best-man suit. Looked with trepidation across to the Gothic-style arched wooden doors that led to the interior of the church. People were beginning to spill out down the steps. Ahead of the pack was the wedding photographer, brandishing his camera aimed at her. Forget Max. She gathered up her skirts. Got ready to run. Risked a final glance up at him. ‘Are you going to help me or not?’
‘I don’t like liars.’
‘Is that a “yes”?’
In reply he took her by the arm. Through the sheer fabric of her sleeve she could feel the warmth and strength of his grip. ‘My car is around the corner. We’ll have to run.’
She started to run but only got a few steps before she stumbled. The combination of bumpy pavement, long skirts and high, skinny heels wasn’t conducive to a speedy escape.
‘Ditch the shoes,’ he said tersely. She kicked them off. One after the other they flew into the air and landed side down on the pavement. ‘And the flowers.’ The white flowers landed near the white shoes with a flurry of petals, forming a tableau of lost dreams on the grey of the tarmac. She didn’t look back.
They had rounded the corner from the church when she heard the first shout. More outraged bellow than civilised protest. She cringed at the anger in Alan’s voice. Max’s grip on her arm tightened as he hurried her along. ‘We’re not going fast enough,’ he said.
She wished she could tear away her long skirts. ‘I’m moving as fast as I—’
Her protest ended in a gasp as he effortlessly swept her up to cradle her in his arms. ‘Hold on tight,’ he said as he broke into a run—at twice her speed.
Max Conway was a tall, powerfully built man famed for the relentless power of his serve. Instinctively Nikki looped her arms around his neck and pressed herself close against a solid wall of muscle.
‘You...you don’t have to carry me,’ she managed to choke out.
‘I do,’ he said. She noticed he wasn’t the slightest bit out of breath even while running at full stride weighed down by the burden of a bride. ‘That is, if you really want to escape from your groom.’
The edge to his voice made her stiffen in his arms. Did he think this was some kind of attention-seeking ruse? That she would let Alan catch her and lead her triumphantly back to the wedding? She went to retort but realised he didn’t know her any better than she knew him. She would never behave like that. But he wasn’t to know.
It seemed like only seconds before he stopped by a modest sedan parked by the kerb. Wouldn’t a sports celebrity like Max Conway drive something flashier? Unless he wanted to stay under the radar for some reason. In this case, it would serve her well if Alan tried to follow her. Once in the traffic, this car would be anonymous.
Max put her down by the passenger door. The pavement was warm to her stockinged feet. She was in a wedding dress and no shoes. It made her feel vulnerable and aware of her predicament. For the first time she questioned the wisdom of begging a stranger to take her away. But there was something about Max’s assured, take-charge attitude that made her feel she could trust him.
He unlocked the car with a fob on his key ring and held open her door. ‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘And be quick.’
That was easier said than done with a voluminous full skirt to tuck in around her. With fumbling fingers, she’d just managed to fasten her seat belt when the car took off with a jolt and a screech of tyres. ‘We’ve got company,’ Max said by way of explanation.
Nikki glanced behind her to see what he meant. Heading towards the car was a red-faced Alan, followed closely by her sister, resplendent in her bridesmaid’s dress, her sweet face screwed up in anguish. The wedding photographer followed—snapping gleefully away at the runaway bride. Nikki’s heart started to race and she choked on her breath. For the first time, she realised the enormity of what she had done. How it would affect so many people other than herself. She hadn’t even told her beloved sister.
But she’d make it up to them later. Far better to offend a few people than to chain herself in marriage to the wrong man. ‘Step on it,’ she urged Max.
It wasn’t long before they’d reached her older style waterfront apartment in Double Bay. She’d bought it with her first big profits from her business.
Max pulled into the driveway. ‘Have you got keys?’
‘No need. The entry is security coded.’
She expected him to bundle her out into the courtyard and speed off. Instead, he got out of the car to come around and open the passenger door for her. She realised Alan had never done that. Not once. Why had she let herself be so swept off her feet by him?
‘Ouch!’ The gravelled courtyard was not kind to stockinged feet. She started to pick her way across it, wincing as she went.
‘Allow me,’ Max said. Before she could protest she was swept up into his arms again as he carried her across the courtyard to the front door.
‘This is very chivalrous of you,’ she said, flushing.
‘Nothing is chivalrous about the best man running off with the bride,’ he said with a wry twist to his mouth that didn’t quite pass as a smile.
‘But the bride is very grateful,’ she said. ‘More grateful than she can say.’
He continued to hold her as she coded in her password. Then kicked the door open and carried her inside. It was as if he were carrying her over the threshold like a real bride on her wedding night. The thought was way too disconcerting. She struggled to be put down. He immediately set her back on her feet. She fussed with her dress to cover her confusion.
‘What now for you?’ he asked.
‘I intend to barricade myself in my apartment.’
‘And then?’
‘I have a plan.’ She didn’t really. The plan had been to spend the night with her new husband—she shuddered at even the thought of it—in a luxury city hotel then next day set off to a honeymoon in an even more expensive hotel in Dubai. Alan’s choice. ‘But I’m not going to tell you about it. Then you can truthfully tell people you don’t know where I am.’
‘You mean Alan?’
She nodded. ‘I really and truly don’t want him to find me. And I don’t want to make things more awkward for you than I already have.’
‘I get that,’ he said.
‘Just one more thing.’ She tugged the diamond engagement ring—that she had worn with such optimism for the future—off her finger. ‘Can you give this to him, please? I have no further use for it.’
‘Like a best man’s duty in reverse.’
He took the ring from her, his warm fingers brushing against hers as he did so. She snatched her hand back, not welcoming the tingle of awareness that shot through her. She’d been about to wed another man, for heaven’s sake. How could she feel such a flutter of attraction to his best man? Especially a guy who had cheated on his tennis-player girlfriend—a woman as famous as he was—and been involved in a highly publicised paternity dispute.
An awkward silence fell between them. She shifted from one stockinged foot to another, not wanting to meet his gaze. ‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said finally. ‘It was very good of you.’
‘Good doesn’t come into it. I’m not proud of myself for helping you run away. I went against my principles. I’m not convinced it was the right thing for you to do either. I seriously hope you don’t regret it.’
The full impact of what she’d done might not hit her until Max left her alone in her apartment, surrounded by the disarray of her wedding preparations and honeymoon packing. But he didn’t need to sound self-ri
ghteous about it. It wasn’t for Max Conway to sit in judgement against her. Grateful though she was for his help.
Anger flooded through her. ‘There’s one more thing you don’t know about your friend Alan. After his twins, he had a vasectomy so he couldn’t have more children. The man who used to toss names for our future kids around with me. Spent hours discussing what colour eyes they might have. Was he ever going to tell me he was shooting blanks? Or let me go through fertility treatment when I didn’t fall pregnant?’
‘I have no words,’ Max said, tight-lipped. No criticism of his friend, of course. Not when the famous tennis player himself had cheated and lied.
‘I’ll never regret walking out on that despicable excuse for a man. But letting my family and friends down? Not doing due diligence on the man before I agreed to marry him? I suspect I’ll always regret my lapse in judgement. I wouldn’t have done a minor business deal without all the facts, yet I was prepared to commit my life to a person I didn’t really know. I wanted that life so much...the husband and kids.’
‘I can only wish you good luck in whatever you end up doing,’ he said. Looking serious suited him and it struck her again how good-looking he was. No wonder the public was so fascinated by him.
‘What I don’t regret is putting my trust in you to help me,’ she said. Max might be pond scum in his personal life and be friend to a cheating, lying fraud. But he had come through for her. That was all that counted.
On impulse she leaned up and kissed him on his smooth, tanned cheek. She was stunned by the sensation that shot through her at the contact, brief as it was. He didn’t kiss her back. Why would he? She’d just run out on his friend. ‘I won’t say I’ll return the favour for you some day because it’s not the kind of favour you want to call on, is it?’
He half smiled at that and turned to leave. She watched him as he strode back to his car, broad-shouldered and athletic. Unless she glimpsed him on television, slamming a tennis ball at his opponent in some top-level tournament, she would never see Max Conway again.
Copyright © 2018 by Kandy Shepherd
ISBN-13: 9781488089640
Reunited at the Altar
First North American publication 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Pamela Brooks
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