I swallowed back the rising rage in my throat. The guy needed to be taught to keep his mouth shut, but I wasn’t about to be the one teaching that lesson during my rehearsal brunch. “In case you missed it, that’s my last name on her new driver’s license, and my ring on her finger.”
He snorted. “Well, enjoy that whole alpha mine mine mine thing for as long as it lasts. Just do me a favor and take it easy on her, would you?” His eyes took on a gleam that had my muscles tensing.
“Cannon,” Logan warned, seeing the signs.
“I’ll never hurt her, if that’s what you’re implying,” I snapped at Michael.
“Oh! No. You wouldn’t be stupid enough to end up behind bars like your old man,” he guffawed, shaking his head.
“Cannon, don’t,” Logan muttered.
I saw red.
“I mean take it easy in the bedroom.” He leaned in with a shit-eating grin like he was telling me a secret. “No doubt you’ve fucked her, but try not to stretch her out too much, would you? I’ve been waiting a long time to get in there, and—”
My fist connected with his face, and he flew backward.
“Oh shit,” Logan sighed.
I stalked the motherfucker as he tried to scramble away, fear lighting his eyes.
“Hey!” his douchey friend called, running over from the edge of the green.
I grabbed Michael by the green vest he prized so much and lifted him off his feet. “I swear to fucking God, if you ever talk about my wife like that again, I’ll do worse than punch you. I’ll fucking end you.”
“What is going on here?” Mr. VanDoren shouted, marching toward us.
“He attacked me!” Michael cried in outrage.
I dropped the sorry sack of shit on his ass. “Like hell I did. You don’t even want to know what he just said about my wife.”
Michael blinked in mock innocence. “What? That I warned you that you’re not good enough for her?”
“That is not how that went down,” Logan argued.
“I don’t give a shit. Look around you!” Mr. VanDoren hissed.
I peeled my eyes from Michael’s simpering little face to see that at least a dozen golf club members were staring at us, and two of them had their phones out.
Fuck, I was going to have to call my publicist.
“What happened?” Persephone asked as her gaze darted between Michael and me.
“He nearly killed me!” Michael stumbled to his feet. “I’ll have a black eye!”
“Oh, God, Cannon, did you—"
“Come with me right now,” Mr. VanDoren ordered. “Both of you.”
Persephone went, so I did, too. We walked past the brunch crowd and into the club itself, passing through the full dining room, then the lobby, until we reached the ballroom where dinner would be held tonight.
Mr. VanDoren shut the door behind us and shook his head. “Honey, I tried. I really tried to give this man a chance, but it just won’t suit.”
“Daddy,” Persephone whispered, coming to my side.
“No. This ends now.”
I couldn’t trust my mouth, so I kept it shut.
“We’re already married. This isn’t something you can decide to stop just because you don’t like the man I love.” She folded her arms under her breasts.
His attention focused on me, then Persephone, and back again until he pulled an envelope out of his vest. “Here’s the thing. You’re not.” He held the envelope out to me.
“We’re not what?” I snapped, taking the damn thing from him.
“You’re not married.”
Persephone’s jaw dropped, and she looked to me for answers I didn’t have. I opened the envelope and found a certified copy of our marriage license.
“That’s just a copy,” Persephone insisted, looking at the same time I did. “We have the original in the safe.”
I read through the document, down to the very bottom—the signature lines.
Then I muttered a curse.
“What is it?” Her voice pitched high and worried.
“He’s realizing that he didn’t sign it with his legal name,” her father explained softly.
“What?” She took the document from my hand and scanned it like I had. “You signed it right here!” She pointed to the line.
“Right.” I cringed. “My legal name isn’t Cannon. It’s Sheldon. Cannon is my middle name, so I’m sure you can understand why I use that one instead.” Holy shit, that morning in Vegas I’d been so focused on the way Persephone had taken my name that I hadn’t bothered to look at my own. Fuck, why hadn’t I thought to check the damned thing when the original had come in the mail?
Because you’d already agreed to stay married, so it hadn’t mattered.
Persephone’s eyes flew wide. “Your name is Sheldon?”
“My name is Cannon for every purpose except contracts.”
“This is a contract!” she cried, shaking the paper.
“That I don’t remember signing!”
Her face fell. “You’re right. God, of course, you’re right.” She stood by my side and faced her father. “Okay, so what? We get married tomorrow, anyway, and at least we’ll remember it this time.”
Her father blanched. “No. God, no. Can’t you see what a disaster it would be? He just beat the crap out of one of your oldest friends. You absolutely cannot marry him.”
It was barely a punch, but whatever, my mind was reeling. All this time, we hadn’t been married. We could have walked away from this at any time, but here we stood, and she was fighting for us. Fighting for us when I’d just done what she’d explicitly asked me not to.
“Daddy, I’m a full-grown woman, and—”
“You did this to make your mother happy. I admire you for it. I admire both of you for it. But what you don’t see is that she’s going to live now, and when you two crash and burn? That will kill her.”
“You don’t know that,” Persephone whispered.
“He can’t even make it through one morning at the club without humiliating this family! Without humiliating you! I am begging you, honey, don’t go through with this. Think about it.” He gave me a withering look and then left us alone in the ballroom.
I suddenly felt out of place, like an actual bull in a china shop.
“How could you!” Persephone shouted, turning on me.
“Whoa, what? Are you seriously pissed that I didn’t sign my name right when we were both drugged out of our minds?”
“No! I’m seriously pissed that you punched out Michael on the damned putting green! Why couldn’t you just hold your temper? Why?” Color rose in her cheeks.
“Because he said some really sick shit about you that doesn’t even deserve repeating!” I backed away from her, putting more than a few feet of space between us.
“He said something? You punched him because he said something?” She shook her head. “Unbelievable! You broke rule number seven at our rehearsal brunch!”
I blinked. “Rule number seven. You’re pissed that I broke rule number seven.” No fights.
“Yes! You promised! God, why are you so incapable of expressing your emotions without using your hands?” She crumpled the copy of our marriage license in her fist as she shook.
“Un-fucking-believable,” I said. “This is the rule you want to start shit over?”
She blinked in confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do, Princess.” I stalked forward until I had her pinned against the wall, one of my hands on either side of her head. “You begged me to break rule number five. Begged me.”
“That’s not the same,” she said quietly, but there was no fear in her eyes, even though I had her trapped.
“Then you went and broke rule number four all on your own. I told you not to, and you did anyway. Did you see me throw a shit fit when you dropped that bomb on me?”
“Bomb?” Her eyes narrowed. “My love isn’t a bomb, and if you knew how to use your words instead of your hands—�
��
“Princess, you like it when I use my hands. You fucking love it when I use my body to show you how I feel about you.” Fuck, I was on the verge of showing her right now.
“Do you want to marry me?” she asked, shocking me to my core.
I pushed off the wall, giving her an exit. “It has nothing to do with want. What I want isn’t what’s right, and it isn’t what’s good for you, that’s for damned sure.”
“Why? You give me one good reason why we shouldn’t get married.”
“One? You only need one?” I laughed. “Fuck, Persephone. I don’t belong in your world. I hate the vests, and the parties, and the fake ass way people cut each other down with a smile. The only thing I remotely like about your world is you.”
“That’s enough,” she insisted. “Liking me is enough!”
“It’s not. You are good and pure and kind, and I have enough baggage to open my own luggage store. I’m dangerous. My temper isn’t something I’m proud of. You’re right, I’m shit at discussing emotion, and I know that’s something you need.”
“So we can work on it!” she cried.
“I’m not built like you! I can’t just throw my heart around and watch and see what happens!”
“Throw my heart around? I love you, Cannon. I’ve only ever loved you.” She moved toward me, and I stepped back.
“I know you think that.”
She stilled. “Don’t you dare belittle my emotions just because you can’t express your own. I love you. That’s real.”
I shook my head. “Love…it isn’t easy like this—” I gestured between us. “That’s infatuation, and it was bound to happen. I’m the first man you’ve ever had sex with, and those chemicals are a bitch, but they’re not real. Real love? It takes sacrifice. It means you’re willing to lay your body down and take whatever pain you have to in order to keep it from the person you love.”
Horror washed over her face. “Cannon…”
“Love means you make the best decision you can for that person with no thought for how it’s going to destroy you. Love is brutal, and it’s ugly at times. Love is what remains when all the fuzzy feelings disappear, and you’re still ready to wage war to protect that person.” I looked around the ballroom, at the expensive linens, the china, the crystal…the opulence. “Jesus, have you ever had to sacrifice for anything?”
She blinked, then perused the room the same way I had. “You’re not being fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. It only looks that way when you’re born into the type of privilege that makes you assume it is.”
The door opened, and both our heads snapped to see who it was.
“We’re busy!” Persephone called out.
“Well, that might be so,” her mother said with a knowing smile as she glanced between us. “But we’re going to miss our massage appointments if we don’t get going.”
Persephone’s face fell as she looked at the crumpled piece of paper she held. “Mom…”
My own mother’s face flashed in front of my eyes. The hectic way she’d packed the car, and the scared, but hopeful smile she’d given us as she made sure we were buckled in before she ran back inside to get her purse. She’d never gotten the chance to be happy.
“Go,” I said softly to Persephone, cutting off her attempt at a confession.
“What?” Confusion wrinkled her brow.
I crossed the distance between us and took the license from her. Then I kissed her forehead, lingering a heartbeat longer than I should have to take in her scent. Fuck, this woman was my everything, but she wasn’t my wife.
Of course, she wasn’t. I wasn’t the kind of man who was allowed to have good things in life, to include Persephone.
“Go with your mom. We’ll talk tonight.”
Her eyes searched mine, confused, apprehensive, and hopeful all at the same time.
“You heard what the man said! Let’s go!” Mrs. VanDoren called out with a happy clap.
“Tonight,” Persephone promised. She squeezed my hand lightly and walked out, leaving me alone in a ballroom where I didn’t belong, holding a marriage license that never really existed, cursing an aching heart that felt as though it had been cracked in a billion little pieces.
What the fuck were we going to do?
18
Persephone
“Real love? It takes sacrifice. It means you’re willing to lay your body down and take whatever pain you have to in order to keep it from the person you love.”
My mind hadn’t stopped replaying Cannon’s words from our earlier fight, and my heart had yet to stop breaking each time I heard his voice echo in my head.
“Love is what remains when all the fuzzy feelings disappear, and you’re still ready to wage war to protect that person…Jesus, have you ever had to sacrifice for anything?”
“Are you all right, sugar?” Mom asked from her position in the massage chair. I glanced over at her, wondering how she could possibly tell I’d been chewing over the argument Cannon and I had had, but she’d always been good at reading me.
I smiled at the spa specialists who were currently giving us both pedicures. Something my mother and I had scheduled months ago. The day before the wedding prep. And now I wasn’t even sure there would be a wedding. Rehearsal was tonight. Would that be the place we worked things out? Where the skies cleared and the clouds parted, and Cannon would finally realize my love was real and raw and one-hundred percent his?
“I’m fine,” I finally answered.
“It’s normal to get nervous before your wedding,” Mom said.
“I’m not nervous,” I said. “Besides, we’re already married.” Or, at least, I thought we’d been. My father’s news had hit us both over the head, and now I truly didn’t know what to believe. I’d pled my case, and then my mother had walked in, and Cannon had graciously told me to go so she wouldn’t find out the truth. And I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t not go through with our pre-wedding plans, not when they meant so much to her.
So I put on my bravest, happiest face, and talked about happy things.
Like the fact that she’d be getting the kidney she needed and deserved. The one that would lengthen her life. Allow her to possibly see her grandchildren, if that day ever came for me or Anne.
I smiled, my memory taking me back to when Cannon and I had compared Cerberus to a baby, and the discussion thereafter. My future didn’t make sense without Cannon in it. It just didn’t. But if he didn’t love me…well, that was another matter altogether. One I feared I’d find out about sooner rather than later.
One spa treatment led to another, the rest of my bridal party having treatments done in succession until we were all sparking and ready for rehearsal dinner. I hadn’t seen or heard from Cannon since our argument, and a small piece of me was terrified he’d used that incredible speed of his and bolted. Despite the news of my mother’s fortune on the donor list, I didn’t want to put her through the stress of a missing groom.
But I should’ve known better. Should’ve known Cannon would never do that because I found him waiting by the ballroom door, clad in a luscious all black suit—he’d even put on a tie—just for me.
“You look stunning,” I said, the rawness from our fight evident in my voice.
He held his arm out for me after giving my mother a quick hug. “You’re radiant,” he said as I looped my arm in his. He led me through the ballroom, no mention of our argument, nothing but a firm smile—or as much of one as he’d offer a room full of people—planted on his lips as we were stopped by person after person. All congratulating us. All over the moon happy for us. And if I didn’t think too hard on it, I almost believed them. Yes, their excitement was genuine, but deep down, I could almost make myself believe this was real. That in one day I’d marry the man of my dreams and we’d live happily ever after.
I’m not your happily ever after.
Cannon’s words from months ago echoed through my mind, and I tried not to cringe.
He had war
ned me.
Told me not to fall for him. Told me in his list of rules, many of which we’d broken—together.
Maybe I had imagined it all—the love I thought I’d felt.
But he’d opened up to me, had given me pieces of himself he’d never given anyone else. That had to count for something. Maybe I should take those pieces and be grateful I’d received that much. Maybe I had yet to prove myself enough to him. Maybe—
“Persephone?” My name on his lips drew me out of my thoughts, and I found him reaching for me, somewhere in my battling we’d gotten separated. “It’s time for dinner.”
I nodded and took his hand, allowed him to lead me up to the table positioned on a stage off to the right of the tables situated around the ballroom floor. Took my seat and thanked my server as food and champagne was delivered all around.
I could barely eat from the twisting in my stomach, but I forced bites down, knowing my mother watched me with weighted eyes. My father too. They could tell, even if both of them didn’t know the full truth of my anxiousness.
Cannon ate in silence, but touched me sweetly, an arm around my shoulder, a chaste kiss on my forehead. All for show. All so my mother’s heart wouldn’t be broken.
After the plates had been cleared, Logan tapped his knife against his champagne flute, rising from his seat as all eyes fell on him. “I believe it’s my turn to make a toast,” he said, the room quieting. My stomach clenched at the happiness in his eyes. “I was shocked and honored when Cannon asked me to be one of his best men.” He grinned at the Reaper table behind him, packed with the men I’d come to think of as family. “As you know, he had many to choose from.” A collective laugh from the crowd. “Those who come to know Cannon will understand his fierce loyalty to his friends and his teammates, his true family. And I can tell you that Persephone fit right into that family, from that very first day she came crashing into our world. And we’re all so grateful that Cannon was quick enough to catch her.”
A smaller group of laughter, for those close enough to know that I’d literally fallen into Cannon’s arms the first time we’d met. He’d caught me on instinct as if he’d already been prepared to protect me before he’d met me.
Cannon (Carolina Reapers Book 5) Page 22