by Poppy Flynn
She pushed the embarrassing memories aside and damned the recollection.
Now, in just a few short minutes, Charlotte would have to face Jake Blackwood again with her shame and humiliation fresh in her mind. It was going to be awkward enough facing him without the added baggage.
Charlotte turned her attention back to the window. Outside, the last guests filed in through the ornate church doors. Photographers, with all their equipment, and news vans lined the opposite side of the road. Joel and Desi were having a big, traditional, society wedding. Hundreds of people were present, and in the face of the vast media interest, everything had been planned with military precision and completely by the book.
For Charlotte, as chief bridesmaid, that meant no way to avoid being automatically thrown together with Jake Blackwood in his role as best man.
Thankfully, so far, no one had picked up on her tension. Luanna didn't know her well enough. Desi was understandably preoccupied with the ceremony that was about to start and the last-minute primping and fussing from the stylist and her mother, and Laurel was so full of energy and excitement that her bouncing distracted everyone from Charlotte's quiet strain.
A few minutes later, there was a discreet tap on the door and Desi's father was shown in.
"It's time," he whispered to his wife, before deftly ushering her out to take her place at the front of the church. As the door closed behind her, Charlotte heard the demure strains of Pachelbel's 'Canon in D' begin the herald of the bridal procession.
Laurel and Luanna took their positions at the front of the group, where they would scatter fresh white rose petals ahead of Desi and her father and Charlotte took up her place at the rear of the group, where she would help Desi with her train and take her friend's bouquet as she stood to make her promises to her new husband before each of them paired off with one of the groomsmen. Laurel and Luanna with Connor Griffin and Logan Thornton and Charlotte, inevitably, with Jake.
As the doors opened and the music was at a crescendo, Charlotte tried to avoid rubbing her sweaty palms down the pale silk of her dress for fear of leaving marks on the delicate material and took a deep breath. Damn Jake Blackwood, anyway. She wouldn't let him spoil this special day, no matter how uncomfortable or awkward things might get.
With that, Charlotte pulled up her proverbial 'big girl panties', plastered on what she hoped was a serene smile and stepped out into the aisle.
Desi was blissful and radiant as she repeated her vows and Joel, soft eyed and adoring as he looked at his new wife. Such a vast transformation from the two distant, prickly individuals they'd been just six months before.
This could have been his wedding, Jake thought. Well maybe not quite the scale, but certainly the timing. Jake was happy that Joel and Desi had worked out their differences, finally, even if it had taken them damn near twelve years and his own drastic intervention to do so. He wondered if he would ever find a fraction of the happiness the two of them exuded for himself.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, Jake couldn't help mentally kicking himself. Standing right next to him, all prim and demure, was a woman who practically screamed 'perfect wife material'. And yet for all his pronouncements of wanting to settle down and start a family before he got too old to enjoy his kids, he had done nothing but push her away despite the vast attraction he felt for her—one she seemed to reciprocate.
He couldn't even use the excuse of not wanting to rush into marrying the wrong woman. He'd been happy enough to propose marriage to Desi when it looked like Joel would never pull his head out of the sand. Even knowing they didn't love each other at a depth more profound than friendship, he'd been content that it would ease the loneliness both of them felt and satisfy their mutual desire to start a family.
So why was Charlotte any different? Jake could sense that she was a forever kind of person and that, with two like minds, they could build a relationship easily. And the sex had been phenomenal, even if it had been vanilla. Maybe that was the problem. Jake had never thought himself to have as much of a need for control as his cousin, but maybe D/s was more ingrained in him than he imagined.
Jake sighed as the ceremony came to a close. It was a moot point now, by all accounts, if the stiff posture and carefully blank expression on Charlotte's face were anything to go by. She had deliberately avoided any eye contact with him and stood just far enough away to avoid any accidental touches but not too far as to look obvious. It pained him that she felt the necessity to take such actions. Enough women did it when they heard the rumours that painted him as some kind of abusive pervert. They judged and reacted based on twisted truths and misinformation, never because he personally had ever given them any reason to behave that way. Never, until Charlotte. And she wasn't responding to any whispers of fabricated depravity. With her, it was simply a reflex action to mask the damage he'd done to her feelings and maybe that was even worse.
Jake had never been the 'love 'em and leave 'em' type. Not even in the world of D/s, where there was a wholly different mind-set that shaped the exchanges and play between consenting participants, where interactions lasting maybe only as briefly as the negotiated scene were commonplace and understood.
Guilt overwhelmed him as he realised that he hadn't even extended that small courtesy to Charlotte. He had just up and left her in his own hotel suite without finding out if she was okay after he'd undoubtedly pushed her sexual boundaries, however gently, or even checking that she got home safely. Jeez, he'd been a first-class jerk.
He closed his eyes as the newlyweds turned to lead the recessional down the aisle to the traditional strains of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. That was his cue to escort Charlotte, in her role of chief bridesmaid, from the church. Then there would be the top table where they'd be seated together and, after that, the dances they'd be expected to share and, later, the private supper for just close family and friends, away from the three-ring media circus that would inevitably surround the rest of Joel and Desi's day.
Waiting solicitously and offering his arm, he noted Charlotte's discomfort as she begrudgingly took it. He stroked his free hand across the back of her knuckles where they lay against his sleeve, hoping to ease her. Instead, he noted the tremor that coursed through her willowy frame as she pinned her lips into a thin line.
Accosted by photographers the minute they exited the grandiose building, official, private and media, Jake plastered on a smile as he tried to guide a resistant Charlotte through the throng. Damn it all, somehow, he had to try and make things right.
Charlotte prayed to the goddesses for just a few minutes alone, but it seemed her prayers were not to be answered. Everywhere she looked or went, Jake Blackwood was somewhere close by and their roles in the wedding party meant no escape any time soon.
She had endured through reams of photographs and then been tucked into a car beside him for the journey to the reception venue. She was seated beside him at the top table once they reached their destination, and now, the newly married couple was gracefully skimming the dance floor for the first dance, which meant, in a few short moments, she and Jake would be expected to join them.
She pulled in a couple of deep, hopefully calming, breaths because, inside, she was seething. Jake had been polite and courteous, a front of complete propriety which, in itself, ticked her off because it seemed so very false given their history—albeit brief and obviously ill-considered. But mostly because, no matter how hard she fought it, her senses reeled at his proximity. Goosebumps raised on her arms whenever he touched her, leaving her breathless and heated, and no matter how shabbily he had treated her prior to this, desire still skittered through her veins and her constant awareness of the best man made her feel robbed of the enjoyment in her best friend's wedding. Never mind that finding herself continually on edge was completely stressing her out and she was feeling dangerously close to breaking point.
Charlotte pulled in another lungful of air, closing her eyes and tipping her head back as she exhaled, hoping to expel her turm
oil at the same time as her breath. She just needed to get through this one dance and then she'd be home free for a couple of hours. At least until the private dinner, and hopefully, there, things would be a little more informal and she wouldn't find herself thrown together with Jake any longer.
Hope was all she had left, Charlotte realised as she noted the signal from the floor which was the cue for the other members of the wedding party to join in the formal dances.
Jake appeared at her elbow and led her out. She knew the drill, drummed into her head by the rather anal wedding planner. She and Jake were to dance with the wedded couple for precisely one minute, along with the parents of the bride and groom. Joel's father partnered with Desi's mother and Desi's father partnered with some maiden aunt, since Joel's mother had died several years ago. Then the other groomsmen and bridesmaids would join the floor for one further minute prior to the dancing being opened to the remainder of the guests. She was expected to remain dancing with her partner for the duration of the second dance in order to encourage those more reticent guests to join in. A total of exactly eight minutes and forty-two seconds.
The planner ran everything like a strict military operation, which did little to help Charlotte's already frayed nerves as she panicked about missing the prompts and upsetting the carefully mapped schedule. She made a sharp mental note that, in the unlikely event that she ever got married, she certainly would not take this route!
Jake stopped in their allotted position on the dance floor—yes, even that had been pre-determined—and pulled her close, wrapping his right arm around her waist and taking her left hand in his to lead while she settled her free hand on his shoulder for a traditional waltz. The planner had even insisted that anyone in the wedding party who wasn't proficient have lessons and it seemed to Charlotte that the woman had squeezed every bit of joy and spontaneity out of the entire occasion. But at least it allowed for a valued fragment of formal distance.
Still Charlotte's pulse quickened as her treacherous body moved closer to Jake as he led her through the steps with practiced ease and a confidence that alluded to an upbringing where the ability to perform a waltz was considered normal—unlike Charlotte's upbringing; not that there'd been anything even close to 'normal' about that! In the religious commune where she'd spent her teenage years, any type of dancing had been considered a sinful enticement, the lure of the devil into temptation, and therefore prohibited. Not that there'd been any music to actually dance to. That had been prohibited, too.
Charlotte had taken the lessons. There had been few occasions in her life that called for dancing and despite unreservedly throwing off the debilitating entrapment as soon as she'd been able to escape from the cult her mother had gotten them both ensnared in, Charlotte still felt uncomfortable participating in what had been forbidden deeds throughout her formative teenage years.
She remembered, all too well, the punishments for those infractions. The awful rooms where the guilty were sent to repent. Rooms so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Rooms that were soundproofed so that not even the tiniest whisper of sound could be heard from within. Rooms with not one stick of creature comfort, not a bed or a chair or a blanket. Not even a toilet for the sinner who might have committed the crime of humming under their breath or twirling around in the semblance of dance.
Just the chilling depths of sensory deprivation so that the offender could commune with God without distraction and contemplate his or her sins while their tongues parched from thirst and their bellies cramped from hunger and just being allowed out made them grateful for small things like light and clothing and water. And the fear of going back there kept everyone in line.
Worse things happened in those rooms. Things she'd thankfully never had to endure. But threats and whispers abounded, and Charlotte hadn't doubted any of it.
"Are you okay?" Jake's words brought her back from the trek into her nightmares. She shuddered and drew in a cleansing breath, drinking in the sparkling atmosphere, the harmony of the music, the pleasure of the guests.
In retrospect, none of this was so bad, was it? The planner just wanted everything to be perfect and to remove the burden of responsibility from Joel and Desi's shoulders, so they were free to enjoy their special day; and she had spent a beautiful, blissful night with Jake that had been her own free choice, the memory of which she mostly treasured. Their time together had been nothing short of wonderful, and if things had gone wrong afterwards, well—there were worse things in life, and she had been forced to live a few of them.
It was good to remember the repression of her previous existence. It reminded her to treasure everything she had today.
Charlotte looked up into Jake's stunning face, appreciating his male beauty and the sense of safety she felt, enclosed within his strong arms.
She smiled at him and relaxed. The waltz finished and the soft notes of the second song began. The formality of the first dance was over and Jake pressed her against him, his hands warm at her hips as she curled her arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder, letting all the perceived tensions of the day drain from her psyche.
Jake didn't know what transformation had gone on in Charlotte's head, but he knew it had been huge. Suddenly, all the indignation and resentment that had twisted up her body and mind simply flowed away, replaced with a tranquil acceptance that left him stunned in its dichotomy.
He felt a certain peace settle into his own bearing as he wound his arms around her waist, held her close and rested his cheek against her hair.
And as suddenly as the brittleness and tension was released, it was replaced with awareness and desire. Jake almost gasped at its intensity. What was it about this woman?
If Charlotte felt at all uncomfortable with the hard evidence of his hunger, then she didn't show it. In fact, she snuggled closer in his embrace, content to stay there past the end of the second dance and the third and many more after that. And despite the discomfort straining his tuxedo pants, Jake was content to hold her there.
The evening wound down, or maybe it wound up. The live musicians with their romantic ballads, classical instruments and haunting vocals gave way to a hopping DJ with funky music and a smoke machine.
The older generation retired, and the younger ones got noisy. It wasn't late, but it had been a long day and there was still the private supper to come.
With the efficiency of a drill sergeant, the wedding planner corralled those attending the exclusive dinner at 8.30 pm, precisely thirty minutes after the DJ had been let loose. They were to attend pre-drinks in one hour and sit down at 10 pm. The venue was just a few minutes by limo and a short break had been built into the schedule to allow the wedding party to change into something more informal.
As the limo carrying the groomsmen and bridesmaids pulled up in front of the hotel that was hosting this final event of the day, Charlotte knew a moment's discomfiture at having to spend any time at all at the site of her recent mortification, since they had as good as thrown her out of here just twelve short weeks before. Even more so since she had discovered that the Blackwood family kept four suites on permanent retainer so their behaviour towards her had been completely unjustified. It wasn't as if they had been awaiting the vacancy of Jake's suite for another booking, after all.
This evening, one of the suites was being used as a changing area for the ladies and Charlotte was looking forward to divesting herself of the strappy sandals that had been torturing her feet for the latter half of the day and letting her hair out of the intricate swirl of loops and flowers and crystal bling that was held in place with so very many pins that Charlotte could swear her hair was actually groaning from the contortions.
She had treated herself to an extortionately expensive but very beautiful jade satin dress with a mandarin collar and intricate beading for this evening's supper. The colour brought out the green in her hazel eyes and the Chinese influences suited her long straight hair and made her feel exotic.
Leaving t
he suite with the other ladies, with five minutes to spare, Charlotte realised she had forgotten her matching clutch. While the staff had been advised to swap out the bridal wear and package it up for dry cleaning and deposit any personal items with the wedding planner who would ensure delivery back to their owners, Charlotte wouldn't be able to get back into her flat tonight if she didn't keep hold of her keys. Waving the others ahead, she returned to fetch it.
"I'll barely be two minutes behind you," she assured Desi. "Even the event planner won't have time to miss me," Charlotte joked. Nevertheless, she took off her shoes, so she could make better time and avoid keeping everyone waiting.
She was almost back at the lobby and about to stop and put her shoes on when a burly security guard came barrelling towards her, a look of fury on his face. The man grasped hold of Charlotte's elbow none too gently and propelled her toward the door.