As he had yet to scoot away from her, not only his shoulder but his thigh also pressed against hers, his laugh shook them both. “Does anyone know you’re out here?”
She flushed, wholeheartedly ashamed of the answer she had to give. The entire Montgomery clan was being so nice, worrying and offering support and being otherwise decent people. She was the horrible one bringing shame to them all. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t seem to make myself go back inside.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. A woman got married. Your ex-girlfriend got married.”
“Is that what bothers you? That I once dated her? That I once loved her?”
“No,” she said, and meant it. The prospect of facing Ashleigh in the flesh might have been what drove her to lock herself in the bathroom, but it wasn’t what kept her there. She’d kept herself there, trapped by the overwhelming prospect of expectation.
“Does that mean you’ll let me take you inside and introduce you?”
Panic seized her, and she bolted up despite the confines of chiffon and superhuman stitching. “I’m not going in there, Monty. I did it. I tried. I wore high heels and made nice with your family’s friends and played the part. And it was awful.”
He didn’t get up, just kept wiggling her stupid shoe, acting as though nothing had happened, as if she wasn’t about to break down all over again. “Of course it was awful. I told you I hate these things.”
“Who cares if you hate them?” She felt a furious urge to kick the shoe out of his hand. Why wasn’t he taking this seriously? She’d put herself on the line for him—offered all that she was and everything she knew. She’d put herself in his family’s hands even after he’d already decided she wasn’t worth sticking around for. And all he could say was I told you so? “So you dislike having to be social every now and then. Big deal. You’ve got an entire family in there willing to dress me up and put me on display in hopes of getting you to come home. You’ve got people who care so much about your well-being they’ll fly thousands of miles to attend your ex-girlfriend’s wedding in a show of solidarity.”
That got him to discard the shoe and get to his feet—but instead of defending himself, he was struck dumb, his gaze fixated on the way she was practically wearing her boobs as a necklace. Apparently, he’d missed the fact that fancy shoes meant fancy clothes, and that she was packed and squeezed into a full-length gown worthy of a high-profile wedding.
“I know I look ridiculous, so you don’t have to say it.” Georgia wrapped her arms around her midsection, feeling worse than when she’d been forced to meet a Kennedy in there. As in, an actual Kennedy. She should have listened to Coco and added a shawl. “I told Jenna it would never work. I can’t pull off a strapless gown. I look like a sausage about to erupt from its casing. I feel like one too. Do you know what I have on underneath this?”
“No. Yes. No.” He blinked. “Tell me.”
“I’m not supposed to call it a girdle, because Jenna says that makes me sound like an eighty-year-old woman who can’t let go of her debutante days. It’s a bodysuit. Or, if I’m feeling stubborn, I’m allowed to say shapewear.”
Monty’s lips twitched. “Jenna included a stubborn clause?”
“Don’t make me laugh. It’s not fair! I can’t compete with women like Ashleigh.” She shifted on her bare feet, the pavement still warm. “And before you feel all noble and try to convince me otherwise, let me set the record straight. I don’t care that I can’t compete with her, because it’s not like it’s anything new. I’m used to that kind of pain.”
“Pain?”
“Yes, Monty. It hurts.” That had to be the first time she’d ever admitted it out loud. “It hurts to look at women like your ex-girlfriend, like your sister, like your stepmom, and know that nothing I do will ever compare. I don’t like it, but I can take it.”
“And what can’t you take?”
His intently blue stare dared her to look away, full of a challenge he knew damn well she couldn’t ignore. So she told him. “The pain of unwarranted hope. The pain of reaching for something I knew better than to want in the first place.”
“Georgia...”
“No.” She held up her hands and backed away. It was too late for that hug. She’d know it only as the gesture of a man who felt sorry for her, who’d come to get her out of a locked bathroom because she was an embarrassment to his family. “You don’t have to do the responsible thing for my sake. It’s not as if you asked me to get to know your sister or try to fit in at the Manor in the first place. I’m the one who pushed my way in where I wasn’t wanted.”
His lips fell. She was pretty sure her own did too.
“What if I were to ask you to try again?” He paused, his breathing stilled. She knew, without a moment’s hesitation, that he was processing the conversation, finding a way to value it, taking his time to be kind. She wished he wouldn’t. She didn’t want careful, kind Monty right now. Careful, kind Monty had the potential to set her off crying again. “What if I asked you to take my arm right now and go inside to meet Ashleigh? We could dance and drink champagne and sit at my family’s table. I’ll even promise to be nice to my dad.”
This reconciliation was exactly what she’d wanted in the first place, but the idea of facing everyone now—her eyes puffy from tears, her shoes damaged beyond repair, slinking in the back door with a guilty Monty by her side—was impossible.
“I don’t belong in there,” she said, afraid that to say anything more would ruin her.
He nodded, kind and careful to an inch. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
That was when she noticed the Montgomery limousine parked a few feet away. She took a moment to wave to Ryan, the family chauffeur, happy to see a friendly face with an ordinary income level for once.
“If I ask you to go somewhere for me—no questions asked—will you let Ryan take you there?”
She froze. So much for that friendly face. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m trying to strike a deal. That’s what you Lennoxes do, right? Challenge, compete, trade?”
“Not always,” she said, but her sullen response only seemed to amuse Monty.
“Well, see if you can muster up some of that competitive spirit for me.” Before she knew what was happening, he had her hand in his and was bringing it perilously close to his mouth. She released an anticipatory moan. In addition to hugs and his warm presence in her bed at night, she missed hand kisses the most. “If you get in the car with Ryan and go where he tells you, I’ll head inside and make up with my family.”
She couldn’t have replied even if she wanted to, because he chose that moment to drop his lips to her palm. Nothing would ever feel as good as Monty cherishing the roughest parts of her like that.
“Believe me when I say I don’t like the idea any more than you do,” he said, and gently dropped her hand. “But you were only trying to help by putting me back in touch with them—I know that now. I can’t very well advocate you accepting assistance from others if I won’t do the same.”
She glanced over at the limo with even more trepidation now. Where, exactly, was Ryan planning on taking her?
“Do we have a deal? I’ll tackle my biggest fear if you tackle yours?” Monty stuck his hand out in a businesslike gesture, dropping all his efforts at charm. Had he kissed her hand again or tried to pull her into his arms, she probably would have refused—those were unfair tactics, and she didn’t trust her response to them. But a handshake between equals? This she could handle. This she could do.
She slipped her hand into his waiting palm, savoring what might be the last time she ever touched this man. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like where Ryan takes me?”
“Because you’re not.” Monty’s smile was crooked and sad. “I’m sorry for doing this to you, Georgia. I onl
y hope you can forgive me someday.”
“Forgive you for what?”
“You’ll see.” Without waiting for her to say more, he grabbed her shoe and gave it a solid whomp against the pavement, presenting her with a perfectly matched set of flats. She stared at the shoe, unsure how to accept this gift with anything but a howl, but then he did something even worse.
Holding one finger aloft, he dashed to the limo and reached inside. The blue Frisbee he extracted, once a brilliant royal blue, was now faded to the color of well-washed jeans.
She would have recognized it anywhere.
“Oh, Monty.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” That small half smile again, neither happy nor sad. Just there. “I always meant to get it for you in the first place. Consider it a preemptive peace offering.”
And then he walked away, leaving her with a broken shoe in one hand, a childhood trophy in the other, and a heart so full of despair she could have cried.
Again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Monty decided to tackle Ashleigh first.
His ex-girlfriend was the last person he wanted to see after sending a flat-footed, emotionally devastated Georgia off to hate him forever, but his life was nothing if not a series of distasteful events. He ignored the pointed stares of more than one guest over his dressed-down appearance and made a beeline straight for the bride. She wasn’t difficult to find. A woman all in white holding court in the center of a ballroom was a thousand times more approachable than a woman in pastel green hopelessly destroying her own shoes.
She was also a lot less desirable. Looking at Ashleigh now, her poise so ingrained she greeted him with nothing but graceful alacrity, he wondered how he ever thought they could be happy together. He didn’t want a polished society wife who would make him proud at parties, someone he could admire from afar. He wanted a woman who challenged him, every day, to be worthy of her.
So far, he’d done nothing but let that woman down.
“Monty!” Ashleigh leaned forward to receive a kiss on her cheek and the expected benediction. “I don’t believe it. You’re the last man I expected to see today.”
“You invited me.”
“Yes, but when have those two things ever been related?” Her smile was warm and her happiness genuine—two things he could only be grateful for. “Though I can’t say I’m too surprised. Word around the ballroom is you’ve got some kind of girlfriend locked up in the bathroom.”
Honestly—did these people have nothing better to do today than gossip about the guest list? They were at a wedding, for chrissakes. The start of two people’s lives together. If that wasn’t a sacred moment, what was?
This. Right now. Him standing up to his family and his past so that he and thousands of kids across the country could have a chance at a future. That was as sacred as it came.
“You’ll have to forgive Georgia,” he said tightly. “She gets overly emotional at weddings.”
He might as well have said she grew talons. “You have an overly emotional girlfriend?”
“She cries at the drop of a hat. I can’t take her anywhere.” He forced a smile to show his willingness to move on from the subject, but he could tell Ashleigh wanted to know more. “I’m sorry she can’t be here to offer her congratulations herself, but I sent her home. She really wasn’t feeling all that well.”
“That’s too bad. I wanted to meet her.”
“You already have. She’s the escapee mechanic.”
Ashleigh wasn’t the sort to admit when she was baffled, so he had to wait a few seconds for her to figure out his meaning. He could tell when she did, surprise flashing on her face before she quickly tamped it down. “Oh. The one who fixed my shoe that day at the Manor.”
He nodded. “The very same.”
Then he really did change the subject. He wanted to leap on the nearest table and shout all the things that made Georgia superior to everyone in attendance—her unflagging work ethic, the determined way she cut a swathe through life, how selflessly she saw the world and how hopelessly she saw herself—but he wasn’t sure he could make it all the way through without breaking down. He might have lost her. In this power play to get the most of his family, he’d forgotten which one of them would end up paying the highest price.
The most generous ones always did.
“I’m also leaving in a few minutes,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you how radiant you look and to meet your Martin.”
At the mention of her new husband’s name, Ashleigh lit up with real joy. Monty half expected to be met with some kind of chiseled hero after that, but Martin was a nondescript man of middling years whose only conversation centered on the fluctuating value of the Nepalese rupee. He shook the man’s hand and wished them well, but didn’t spend too much time in the happy couple’s company after that.
There was no accounting for taste.
The second task Monty prepared to tackle was the more disagreeable of the two. His family was expecting him, of course, having been watching the whole time to make sure he didn’t suffer another collapse.
“I won’t apologize for Georgia,” he said by way of greeting. All of them were there—Jenna, his dad and stepmom, Jake and his wife, Rebecca—huddled around one another as if for warmth. It was probably the longest they’d ever appeared in public together. “And I won’t ask her to either, but you can all start crafting your own apologies tonight—and they better be good. How could you, Jenna?”
“Hey, don’t kill the minion. I was doing what I was told. I thought she looked fantastic.”
“Of course she looked fantastic. She always looks fantastic.” He knew he was speaking too loud, that this was too public a venue, but they were already the source of unending gossip. Why stop now? “But you don’t start someone off at a Bridgerton wedding—you might as well have thrown her into the deep end of a shark-filled pool. I’m intimidated by half the people in this room, and I’ve known them my whole life.”
Jenna just smirked. “Not my fault, brother dear. We didn’t actually think you’d make her show up without you. You want to talk about throwing someone in the shark pool?”
He couldn’t deny it, so he didn’t even try. These weren’t the people he had to explain himself to anyway.
“And you.” He turned to Jake, since dealing with Jenna was impossible. “You were supposed to keep an eye on her. Why did I find her sitting on the curb in the parking lot?”
Jake was damn near smirking himself. “When someone goes through the trouble to climb out a window to escape me, I recognize the futility of pressing my suit.”
“So help me...”
“We wouldn’t have let anything bad happen, Monty.” Rebecca took over for her husband, pressing his forearm in a soothing gesture. “I promise. I never once lost sight of her. She seemed like she wanted to be left alone more than anything else.”
He nodded, accepting his sister-in-law at her word. As one who knew the pain of breaking down in the public eye, he trusted her to protect Georgia’s interests.
“And you.”
“I wondered when we’d get to me,” his dad said, his voice laden with a thousand unreleased sighs. “I suppose it would be too much to ask to take this to another room where we can talk privately?”
Since the rest of his family showed every sign of wishing themselves elsewhere, Monty nodded and followed his dad into one of the many rooms set off from the primary reception area. There were always nooks and crannies in these kinds of places, holding ports for coats or chafing dishes, and they ended up in one full from floor to ceiling in decorative plants.
Monty was forced to stand behind a ficus. How fitting.
“John, I know you’ll have a hard time believing me, but—”
As he was in the habit now of interrupting his father whenever h
e felt like it, he didn’t hesitate to do so now. “I’m ready to return to work.”
His dad, a man he knew to be surprised by almost nothing, could only stare.
“I don’t like begging you to take me back, and I’m incredibly unhappy about a lot of things. The way you took advantage of Georgia to try and get to me is something it will take me a long time to forgive, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to overlook the way you callously tossed my foster care project aside, but the Montgomery Foundation is too important to disappear in a petty family squabble.”
“Monty, I—”
“No. It’s my turn. I’ve been waiting twenty-five long years for my turn.” He picked a leaf that was blocking his line of vision and crushed it between his fingers. The scent of it—of plant life and the open air and the woman he loved—strengthened him in ways he hadn’t thought possible. “I’m going to do less hotel work this time around. None, actually. I want to be phased out. I don’t care if that means you have to groom someone else to take over someday or if I have to give up my shares in the company to make it happen. I don’t like working for the hotels. I never have.”
“I know.”
His jaw ticked. His dad was incapable of admitting anything less than omnipotence. “Of course you do.”
“I’m not dense, John, nor am I particularly cruel. The idea was always that you’d split your time between the hotels and the foundation—not treat them as two full-time jobs.”
“But they are two full-time jobs, and I’m one man. You didn’t really think I could do that forever, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t.” His dad released one of his sighs then, that buildup of worry and air, those many details Monty knew from personal experience were difficult to shuck even for the sake of a party like this one. “But you did. I’ve been trying to get you to take less upon yourself for months now—dropping hints about your workload, urging you to start having a social life again. Every time I suggested it, you only retreated further into your office.”
Because I Can (Montgomery Manor) Page 31