CINDERELLA BRIDE

by Monica McLean

  Billy Ray went after him in blind frenzy, while Carter returned his own wrath with calculated precision.

  They struggled, blow after blow, angry fists connecting with bone, their hands wrapping around each other's necks, each trying to choke the life out of the other. Finally, Carter maneuvered on top of Billy Ray. Pressing his advantage, he bashed the drug lord's head against the floor.

  His vision blurred with raw fury, he barely noticed Billy Ray's face turn from scarlet to violet. Even when the slime was wheezing for air, his body jerking in violent spasms, Carter didn't let up. He dug his fingers into Billy Ray's throat, sorely tempted to rip out his larynx.

  He could choke the damn life out of Billy Ray, but it still wouldn't be enough. Nothing would ever eradicate from his mind the image of Marly tied to the bed; nothing would make him forget the atrocities she'd suffered at Billy Ray's hand. As long as he lived, he would never forget—

  Carter glanced up at that moment, to Marly, on the bed, and his eyes widened in horror at the crimson spot staining her blouse.

  The gunshot!

  "Marly!" he cried.

  She'd managed to free her other hand, and she was struggling to sit up.

  "Don't move!" he barked, springing off Billy Ray and dashing for the hallway, where he grabbed a red emergency phone. "A woman's been shot. Call the nearest hospital. We need paramedics, a helicopter." He gave their location and hung up the phone with a last, urgent request. "Please hurry."

  He rushed back to Marly's side and began tearing the sheets from the adjacent bed. "Help's on the way. You just hold on, okay?"

  "Oh, God, he's—"

  Carter spun around, his ears registering the sound of the revolver clicking into place, at the same moment his eyes took in the sight of Billy Ray coming at them with the knife. A second gunshot sounded, and Billy Ray jerked back, clutching his heart before he dropped to the floor.

  "This is worse than Hitchcock," Marly whispered, lowering the gun. "Please … make sure he's dead."

  Carter checked his pulse. "Nothing."

  She closed her eyes. "Forgive me for feeling relieved. He drugged me, so it's not like I can feel too much, anyway."

  Carter swore and dropped Billy Ray's wrist. "What did he give you?" He knelt at her bedside, applying pressure to her wound.

  "Not quite sure. In a needle. Think I'll die this time?"

  "You're not going to die."

  "Don't be so sure. I'm not a cat, you know."

  "You're not going to die," be repeated. "I won't let you."

  "Not part of the plan, huh?" She tried to sit up.

  "Stay still."

  "Okay, but you know, it's not what I imagined."

  "What?" He pressed the wads of cloth against her, trying to stop the bleeding.

  "Getting shot."

  Carter gave a derisive laugh.

  "Fire hurts more."

  He winced. "No one should have to go through what you have."

  "I suppose I should tell you—"

  "How you got such good aim?"

  "No, the truth. About me…"

  "Shh … not now. You need to save your energy."

  "But you need to know. How else will you put things into those little compartments in your brain?"

  "First of all, they're big compartments, and second, this conversation can wait."

  "That's what you think." She wagged her finger with all the precision of the truly doped up.

  "Come on, Marly." He covered her lips with one finger, hoping to silence her. "You need to stay still."

  She bit his finger. "I'll stay still if you listen to me. Please, Carter," she implored. "You have to know I'm not that person in your file."

  "I already know that," he said quietly.

  "You don't," she repeated. "Remember that bomb I told you about, the one that exploded in the village and set that terrible fire?"

  "Do we have to talk about this right now?"

  "I'm not going anywhere. Are you?"

  Carter's eyes stung. He was rapidly coming to the end of nerves already stretched to the limit. "How can you joke with me at a time like this?"

  "No joke. I'm serious. They killed the wrong person. Do you understand what I'm saying? That bomb was meant for me. Your Marly, the woman you thought you married, died in that explosion. I'm Hilary Steele."

  "Hilary," he breathed her name. "Of course. The one who witnessed the murder."

  She nodded. "I was fifteen at the time. We lived in Boston. Old money, upper crust and all that."

  "No more. No more talking." He pressed his lips to hers in an effort to silence the very words that had driven him to come after her, the ones he'd felt she owed him, the answers he'd been determined to force from her tonight.

  He'd been angry—so angry. He'd felt used and betrayed and angrier than he'd ever remembered being. But he wouldn't have hurt her. God knows, he never would have laid a finger on her.

  "Carter, I want you to know…"

  "Not now. Marly, please." His throat felt raw, and guilt threatened to overwhelm him. "Not here. Not like this," he repeated her earlier request.

  But she went on, as if she hadn't heard him. "My father was an investment banker, far as I knew. He used to have his business associates over to the house a lot. One night I couldn't sleep, so I went downstairs. They were … in the study. Three men and my father. I could hear … voices, but I couldn't really hear what they were saying.

  "I went into the kitchen … poured myself some milk. All of sudden, the voices stopped. I didn't really think about it. I took my milk into the dining room … to a chair in the corner. I sat alone in the dark, staring into space. Then the door to the study opened. My father came out and looked around. He didn't see me … I didn't call out. Then two of the men started dragging out a body. It was the third man. They'd killed him."

  "And you witnessed it."

  "I saw everything. I still remember my father saying to watch the rugs … he didn't want any blood on them. I told my mother what I had seen, and she forced me to testify. I was just a kid … I couldn't have known. But my mother … I can't believe she never suspected. For years, she didn't care where the money was coming from, as long as it continued to flow." She gave a bitter laugh that turned into a coughing spasm.

  "Sweetheart, enough." Damn. Where were those paramedics? "You need to rest."

  "After they … killed my father, and my mother, they came after me … only, they killed my best friend, instead."

  "So you took her identity." Yes, it all made sense now. But it didn't matter. None of that mattered. Only her. Only his wife, the woman he'd married. At that moment, he didn't care who she'd been before. He just wanted her. Safe, healthy, alive.

  "It's okay," he whispered, kissing her temple, trying to reassure himself as much as her. "Everything's going to be okay. Please. Just rest now."

  "It was the only way, Carter."

  "I know … I know," he crooned to her.

  "They would have kept trying … they wouldn't have given up." Her voice was growing more and more labored. "If they knew I didn't die…"

  "It's not going to happen. I won't let it."

  "Carter, I know you try … you put on a good act. But I can't fake it anymore… I can't pretend to be the wife you want… I can't help the way I feel… I'm tired of fighting it … so tired of trying…" Her eyes closed just as the paramedics arrived.

  * * *

  "We removed the bullet, but she isn't out of the woods yet," the doctor told Carter. "She lost an awful lot of blood. It's still touch-and-go."

  "Can I see her?" he asked.

  The doctor nodded.

  Carter spent that night and the next in the intensive care unit.

  "Fight, Marly," he whispered, his words rough and challenging. "Come out of this." He squeezed her hand. It was so cold, like ice, and he held it in his, rubbing it, willing the woman lying on the hospital bed to live.

  He never left her side, until they kicked him out, made him wait o
utside, where he stayed through the night, pacing the hallways. Finally, at some point in the wee hours of morning, he collapsed into a chair and did the only thing he was truly good at doing: bartering.

  Carter bowed his head and said a silent prayer.

  Please, God. Let her live. It can't be her time. Not yet. People need her—the children need her. Tyler needs her. I need her.

  It wasn't enough. He knew that. He had to offer something in return, something that would make his request less selfish. There was only one thing, and his gut clenched in anticipation of the inevitable. But he didn't have a choice, just as Marly hadn't had a choice in marrying him. Because he hadn't given her one. He would right that mistake, if it wasn't too late.

  He would give her what she wanted—he would let her go.

  If she came out of this, Carter swore he would set her free.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  « ^

  "Are you free?" Marly entered the study and closed the door behind her without waiting for Carter's response.

  A small desk lamp illuminated the surface of his desk, leaving the rest of the room cast in darkness. Carter stood in the shadows by the Palladian windows, hands in the pockets of his faded blue jeans.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked without looking at her.

  "Pretty good, actually. It's nice to be able to move around again." The doctors had released her that afternoon, and she'd been delighted to find Tyler and Annie Lou waiting for her in Carter's car. "Everyone's gone to sleep, so I thought maybe you and I could talk now. We haven't had much chance since I got … back."

  The word home felt presumptuous. From the moment she'd awakened in the hospital, she had sensed a change in Carter. Though he never left her bed side, his manner was markedly reserved, like a man caring for a distant relative instead of his wife.

  "You must be tired. Why don't we wait until morning?"

  A mere week ago, she would have done as he'd suggested. She would have maintained the distance between them, convinced herself that it was for the best and crawled into an empty bed to contemplate her solitary existence. Now that their secrets were in the open—her identity and his true feelings about her—any efforts at evasion would only prove futile.

  She walked toward the windows, staring out into the night, where darkness had fallen like a black curtain. "I've waited long enough, for the outcome of this day. I can't wait any longer. I have to know. Where do we go from here, Carter?"

  He turned toward her slowly, and when she glanced up, the expression in his eyes confirmed her fears.

  "There's no easy way to say this."

  She took a breath and steeled herself for the worst. "Just go ahead and say it."

  "All right. I want a divorce."

  Numbly, she grasped for the wall to steady herself. No foresight could have prepared her for the aching desolation that ripped through her.

  Though she had foreseen their inevitable conclusion, she'd grown to dread the day it became reality. She had hoped for a twist of fate, appealed to the heavens and prayed for the impossible. But with Carter's words, the final sands of borrowed time slipped through the hourglass.

  She felt strange inside, hollow and empty, like someone had taken her soul, leaving her with the mere trappings of a body. A woman without substance.

  She cleared her throat and tried to speak, when all she wanted to do was sob. "You've already thought this through, then?"

  "I have," his voice was low and monotonous, like a man who had never expressed any human emotion.

  "I—I don't suppose this is negotiable?"

  "No negotiating necessary. You can keep the donation."

  "Just like that?"

  "That's the only reason you married me, isn't it? Money for your center."

  A dull ache throbbed in the area she used to call her heart. "Not the only reason…"

  "Tyler doesn't need protection anymore."

  "No." The art of stringing intelligible words together suddenly seemed an arduous task. She peered at the rings on her finger and willed them not to blur before her eyes. "Carter, I'm sorry, so sorry. I never meant to lie to you. I wanted to tell you. I just couldn't… I knew you wouldn't…" She swallowed. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore."

  Carter shrugged. "Not really. The way I figure it, why not cut our losses and move on?"

  Her head snapped up at his matter-of-fact tone, and she stared in amazement at his dispassionate profile. "Just write things off, like bad debt expense on the bank's books?"

  "Exactly." His gaze reverted to the windows, and he raised his hand to massage his right temple.

  Marly glanced again at her rings, then back up at Carter. She remembered the first time she'd seen him at her center, the way he'd scared her showing up in the bank's limo and then entranced her with his hazel eyes. It seemed a lifetime ago that they had gone to the charity function as two strangers and ended the night practically engaged.

  Would they part in the same businesslike manner they had agreed to marry, as if nothing of significance had passed in the interim? As if they had shared nothing, meant nothing to each other?

  How she wanted to believe she'd meant more to Carter than a bad investment in cattle futures, that some things, if not all, had been genuine and not faked. But she had seen his file. She knew the truth. They both did. And Carter had made his decision.

  She wouldn't try to change his mind. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't beg. She would handle their parting with the grace of a woman—not the grief of a child.

  And then she would quietly fall apart in the privacy of Annie Lou's converted garage.

  "Okay," she conceded, turning from the window. She slid her rings from her finger onto the smooth surface of the desk, leaving her hand bare, the zigzagged pattern of her scars accentuated by the loss.

  She deserved this. She had no one to blame but herself. It was all her fault.

  "I thought you'd agree if I suggested it," Carter said, the monotone replaced by a clipped edge. "I've got a lot of work to do, so if you don't mind…"

  "Yes, I know the drill." Gingerly, she folded her arms over her cardigan sweater, careful of the bandage beneath, and started for the door.

  The short distance felt like an interminable journey, aging her with every step. She recalled each moment of her life with Carter—every look, every touch, every promise they'd made.

  Though she felt his gaze on her back, she didn't turn around, knowing if she did, she would lose the last scraps of her tattered pride. She would cry. She would beg. She would plead. And in the end, she would gain nothing.

  If she knew little else, she knew the man who, for a very short time, had been her husband, who in that time, had made her feel safe, revered, even desired. And she knew it was over between them. Real or not, she would mourn that loss, no differently than would a widow grieving for her beloved husband.

  She raised her palm to her forehead, feeling suddenly lightheaded. "If it's okay with you, I'm going to let Tyler sleep through the night. I'll sleep in a guest room." Her throat felt swollen shut, and with great effort, she squeezed out her parting words. "We'll be gone in the morning."

  "Marly, wait."

  She stopped with one hand on the doorknob.

  "Maybe … maybe we can have lunch sometime?"

  Her hand fell to her side, and her shoulders slumped, but instead of crumpling like a paper flower, she shook her head in disgust.

  Had he truly banished every memory they had ever made? Was she the only one who felt any remorse over what could have been? Had he felt nothing for her?

  Slowly, anger mounted, overriding all other emotions. She turned around and glared at him, flinging her widow's weeds to the ground.

  "No, we cannot have lunch sometime." She gritted out each word, punctuated each with deliberate steps farther into the room. "This was never about having lunch, Carter. It was about a commitment for a lifetime, about working things out and not giving up. Or have you forgotten your own rules, too
?"

  He didn't say anything, merely stared out the window. His jaw, taut with tension, was the only indication he'd even heard her, and his complete and utter lack of emotion infuriated her further.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I seem to have forgotten my impeccable breeding. I don't suppose it's very nice to be petty to a man who saved your life, donated a quarter million to your center and destroyed the negatives that could expose your secret identity.

  "I should just walk out this door and get on with my life, since you're certainly prepared to do the same. But at the very least, I think I ought to try to return the favor in some small way, maybe give you some advice for the next time you go playing White Knight."

  "There isn't going to be a next time." His voice sounded harsh, each word strained.

  "Right, I'm sure that's what you said the last time."

  That one put a dent in his armor. His face fell, and for the first time in too long, she glimpsed the emotions he kept hidden behind the impassive-businessman's veneer.

  Good. Let him hurt. Let him feel a fraction of her pain. Let him know that he was equally to blame for the demise of their marriage, that it wasn't just her.

  "First of all," she started, "don't be so damn nice all the time. Don't welcome your next wife into your home and make her feel it's her own. Don't ask her about her day and sound like you mean it. Don't cook—ever—especially not desserts. Don't be kind to children, so that even the most wary trust you in a matter of minutes. Don't try to make her feel better after a nightmare. Don't be late to board meetings, for any reason."

  His eyes closed. "Marly—"

  "I'm not finished." If she had to chisel away at that veneer chip by chip to make him remember her, she would. "Don't stare at her across the room as if you can see your unborn children in her eyes. Don't make her believe in her dreams again. Don't give her a quarter million, no strings attached. Don't save her life. Don't preserve her identity. And if you remember nothing else, remember this, Carter King. Do not make her love you when she doesn't have a prayer."

  His face contorted in an expression of excruciating pain.