Project: Runaway Bride

by Heidi Betts

  “So that’s a yes on the wine?” she teased.

  He shot her a teasing look right back. “Yes.”

  “Should I ask if you prefer red or white?”

  “Whatever you think goes best with Chinese takeout.”

  She opted for a bottle of zinfandel that was already open and added two glasses to everything else she’d already gathered.

  In the living room, she lowered herself to the sofa beside him, setting out the plates and silverware and pouring the wine. Reid doled out portions of lo mein, fried rice, General Tso’s chicken and crab rangoons for each of them, then grabbed a fork and leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch.

  Kicking off her shoes, she folded her legs beneath her and did the same.

  For long minutes, they ate in silence. Juliet honestly wasn’t sure what to say, given everything that had transpired already that day, but she was enjoying the flavors of food she hadn’t eaten in far too long.

  “Looks like you were hungry,” Reid commented, glancing at her half-empty plate. His wasn’t much fuller, though, so she didn’t take it personally.

  Moving what was left of her food around with her fork, she said, “Yeah. I’ve been a little distracted lately. Probably not eating as well as I should.”

  To say the least. Between plans for a wedding and her confusion about her relationship with Paul, she’d been eating like a bird. Sometimes literally grabbing only a banana or a handful of granola on her way out the door.

  “Lily and Zoe and I used to order Chinese when we pulled all-nighters,” she told him. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call Chinese takeout ‘health food,’ but it sure does hit the spot once in a while.”

  “It does,” Juliet replied softly. “And this is nice. Thank you for suggesting it.”

  He shrugged a shoulder, took a sip of his wine. “You’re the one who said we should grab Chinese and bring it back here. I just thought it looked like you could use a break, and figured getting something to eat while I was out of the office made more sense than trying to come up with an excuse for going out to lunch again after I get back.”

  Her lips lifted in a whisper of a smile, more to herself than for him. He was just being kind, and she knew it. As owner of McCormack Investigations, he could come and go as he pleased. It was a multimillion-dollar corporation, and he employed enough other investigators and support staff that the place could probably run itself for a week or two without him, let alone a few hours.

  He’d offered to bring her home to be sure she was safe. He hadn’t wanted her returning to her fiancé after the confession she’d made in his office. Then he’d wanted to be sure she was okay—not just physically, but emotionally, as well. He’d brought up the idea of lunch to keep her from locking herself in the loft and spending the rest of the day moping around.

  He hadn’t said any of that, of course, he’d simply steered her in a direction that wouldn’t allow her to be alone with her jumbled thoughts or disillusionments.

  Not for the first time, she wondered why she couldn’t have met Reid before Paul. Of course, she’d met Paul in college, long before she’d ever moved to New York or had the need to hire a private investigator.

  But suddenly—all right, maybe not so suddenly—she’d found herself thinking about Reid much more often than she thought about Paul. Pulling away from Paul because whenever they were together, Reid’s face or voice would fill her head.

  When Paul would reach for her, she’d stiffen, never knowing if his touch would be gentle or rough. Reid had only ever shaken her hand or touched the small of her back, and the memory of it could make her shiver. Day or night. For no reason at all or because she’d been concentrating too hard on what it might be like to have him touch her even more. A lot more, in a lot of other places, and for much less professional reasons.

  She swallowed hard, lifting her wineglass to her mouth to hide it. And to buy herself a little time while her breathing returned to normal.

  She was an engaged woman. She shouldn’t be sitting here lusting after another man. Even if the man she was engaged to had turned into a bit of a jerk.

  But since he had, and since he was on his way back to Connecticut, Paul never needed to know that she was enjoying a very impromptu, very pleasant meal with a kind, handsome business associate.

  There was no harm in that. And since this was the best she’d felt in quite a long while, she was going to savor it for all it was worth.

  Three

  Present day

  It said something about his personal life that he was in the office, working, on a Saturday, Reid McCormack thought. And that he was happy to do it.

  For one thing, the place was quiet for a change. As a private and corporate investigation firm taking up five floors in the center of one of Manhattan’s tallest skyscrapers, the office was always bustling. With people, with conversations, with the ring of phones and buzzing of fax machines. Sometimes even the weekends were busy, depending on their caseloads and the number of investigators putting in overtime.

  This weekend, though, he’d lucked out. The offices—or the floor where his corner office was located, at any rate—was silent as a tomb. He could hear himself think. Hell, he could hear himself breathe.

  Not that that was a good thing, not today. But at least here he had paperwork to keep him busy. Reports to fill out and review. Cases to follow up on. New employee applications to consider.

  Some of it he’d been putting off for a while. Some he’d had to dig deep to come up with. Either way, it would eat up his day and keep him from going home too early to an empty brownstone where the silence was not only deafening but depressing as hell. With luck, it might also help to keep his mind off the thing he was trying desperately to avoid thinking about.

  With a grunt, he closed one file folder, set it aside and reached for another.

  He hadn’t always hated his town house. There was a time when he’d loved it. He’d bought it slightly rundown and renovated it from top to bottom until it put all of the other houses on the block of his upscale neighborhood to shame.

  Then he’d taken Juliet there. It had become their secret meeting place. A clandestine lovers’ nest where they’d hidden away from the world.

  Now he couldn’t sleep in his bed without missing the feel of her lying next to him. He couldn’t walk into the kitchen without picturing her standing at the center island in one of his discarded dress shirts, pouring fresh glasses of wine or nibbling on grapes from the fruit bowl.

  The memory of her voice echoed off the walls.

  The scent of her perfume hung in the air.

  The home he’d once loved had turned into a bitter reminder of the woman who was at this very moment walking down the aisle into the arms of another man.

  The pencil in his hand snapped. He hadn’t even realized he was holding the thing, and counted himself lucky it wasn’t the pen from his Montblanc set or the crystal letter opener instead.

  Making a concerted effort to unlock his knuckles and loosen his grip, he blew out a breath. He might not be happy about Juliet’s decision, but it was hers to make. Her decision, her mistake.

  And it was well past time that he put their ill-fated affair behind him and get his head back on business. He hadn’t built McCormack Investigations into a multimillion-dollar corporation by letting himself be distracted. Especially by a woman, no matter how beautiful or smart or refined she might be.

  For the fourth or fifth time since he’d gotten to the office, the phone rang. Not his receptionist’s line or one of the others on the floor, but his direct line. Who would be calling him here, at this number, on a Saturday?

  Annoyed now by more than just the ringing phone, he snatched it up and snapped, “What?”

  There was a slight pause and then a deep male voice came on the line. “Mr. McCormack. It’s Glenn from the front desk.”

  An image of the tall, wide-shouldered security gua
rd from the building’s main lobby flashed into his head, and Reid immediately regretted his short tone.

  “Yes, Glenn. I’m sorry, what can I do for you?”

  “There are a couple young women down here insisting they need to see you. I told them you weren’t in today, but they don’t seem to believe me,” he added, a touch of humor tingeing the words.

  “Who are they?” Reid asked.

  “Lily and Zoe Zaccaro. They say they’ve been calling you all morning, but you didn’t answer.”

  With a long-suffering sigh, Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. So that explained the incessant ringing of his private line. But if there was anything he didn’t need today, especially in his current dark mood, it was these two walking blond disasters.

  Okay, so maybe “disaster” was a bit harsh. He’d never even met the youngest Zaccaro sister, Zoe, though the stories he’d heard about her led him to believe she was the wildest of the three.

  But Lily was the one who’d dragged him into the crazy world of the Zaccaro trio to begin with. Theft and corporate espionage and a disappearance that had turned out to be an amateur undercover investigation, and finally his introduction to Juliet.

  If Lily had never walked into his office, he’d be a happier man today, that was for damn sure. She’d brought him The Case That Wouldn’t End and led him straight down the path to personal misery.

  He didn’t say that aloud, of course, and didn’t tell Glenn to send them away. Instead, he said, “Send them up” and spent the few minutes before their arrival tamping down his temper and schooling his features. When the door to his office opened and the two sisters bustled in, he was the epitome of calm professionalism.

  The two women, on the other hand, were a whirlwind of yellow taffeta, blond hair and tear-streaked faces. They let out twin huffs of relief that they’d finally reached him after numerous attempts and flopped into the guest chairs directly in front of his desk.

  “Thank God,” Lily sighed at the same time Zoe muttered, “It’s about time.”

  Reid’s lips twitched at the younger sister’s cheekiness, but he kept his expression blank.

  “Ladies,” he greeted them in a clipped voice.

  It was the weekend, for heaven’s sake. There was nothing so pressing in Lily’s ongoing design theft case that they needed to show up at his office on a Saturday, and he didn’t want them thinking this sort of behavior should be repeated.

  And didn’t they have a wedding to attend in their fluffy, over-the-top bridesmaid gowns? Their sister’s wedding, to be specific.

  “This is rather unorthodox. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Help!” they exclaimed at exactly the same time. They weren’t twins, Reid knew, but damned if they couldn’t pass as mirror images when they acted like this.

  Taking the lead, Lily leaned forward slightly. “You have to help us,” she said again. “I know it’s a weekend. I know you’ve probably had it up to your eyeballs with us by now.”

  Boy, she’d hit the nail on the head with that one.

  “But we don’t know what else to do.”

  “About what?” he asked calmly.

  “She’s missing!” This from Zoe, whose eyes were wide and glistening.

  Reid’s own eyes narrowed. A niggle of foreboding began to tickle at the nape of his neck. “Who?”

  “Juliet,” Lily supplied. Her voice had evened out a bit, as though she was growing calmer now that she knew she had the ear of a private investigator. Especially one who’d had dealings with their family before.

  Reid didn’t know how much Juliet’s sisters knew about her involvement with him. Did they know about the affair? Had Juliet confided in them? Or had they turned to him simply because of who he was and the work he’d done for them in the past?

  Taking a deep breath, Lily continued. “Juliet disappeared from the church. From her wedding. We don’t know what happened. She was in her gown. Her hair and makeup were done. I checked on her and told her everything was ready to go, and then she was just...gone. She never came out, even though we were all waiting for her at the back of the church.”

  She dropped her gaze, plucking at the folds of her fluffy yellow skirt. “I went to check on her again,” Lily said softly, “but she wasn’t there.”

  Tears lined her lower lashes as she raised her gaze to his. “There was no note, no hint of what might have happened to her.”

  Reid’s stomach clenched. “Do you think she ran away?”

  He didn’t let himself hope for that, at least not on a personal level. He’d been down that road before and ended up deeply disappointed. But if she hadn’t run off on her own, the other possibilities were too frightening to contemplate.

  “We don’t know,” Lily responded.

  “What about the fiancé?” He wasn’t going to use the bastard’s name. And God help him if the jerk had done anything to Juliet. Reid would hunt him down and rip him limb from limb.

  Zoe tilted her head. “What about him?”

  “Has he disappeared, too?”

  Both women shook their heads.

  “No. He’s still at the church,” Lily told him. “Or maybe he’s gone to our loft or back to his hotel by now, I don’t know.”

  A slow wave of relief washed through him. “So they didn’t run off together?” he asked, just to be sure. “Maybe they decided to elope instead, and she ran home to grab an overnight bag.”

  Zoe snorted. “Definitely not. Not after all of the time and money that went into planning the wedding. Our parents and his would kill them.”

  “She’s right,” Lily agreed. “If they were going to do something like that, they’d have done it weeks ago.”

  Reid nodded, the wheels in his head whirling with other possibilities. “Do you think she was abducted in any way? Taken against her will?”

  “Oh, my God!” Zoe wailed, while the tears spilled over the edge of Lily’s lashes.

  “We certainly hope not,” she said carefully, holding it together moderately better than her younger sister. “We didn’t see or hear anything, and there were no signs of a struggle. At least not that we could tell.”

  “No overturned furniture? A piece of her gown that might have caught on something and torn off?”

  Zoe whimpered behind the hands that covered her face. They were tough questions, Reid knew, but if they wanted him to help, he had to have the answers.

  “No, nothing like that,” Lily replied weakly.

  He inclined his head. “Provided she left of her own volition, do you have any idea why she took off or where she’d go?”

  “No. Why would any woman run away on her wedding day? Away from the church after she’s dressed and ready and everyone’s waiting for her?”

  Reid had the kernel of an idea why, but couldn’t let it cloud his mind as he focused on the job at hand. Not after the way she’d done an about-face with him not so long ago.

  Normally, he’d recommend that the family of a missing person call the police and file a report. In this case, however, he suspected he would have a better chance of tracking down Juliet Zaccaro on his own. He certainly had access to better resources than the authorities, as well as an edge they would never have—a previous personal relationship with the subject.

  “I take it you want me to find her,” he remarked.

  Recovered from her earlier show of emotion, Zoe rolled her eyes at him. “We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  He ignored the sharpness of her tone, responding with an edge of his own. “For real this time, right? Not like the time she asked me to find you.”

  He raised a brow, his comment clearly directed at Lily, who blushed.

  “Yes,” she answered evenly. “She really is missing, and we really do need you to find her. Please.”

  “I’ll need more information from you and your family. Possibly permission to search your loft and access Juliet’s personal areas and assorted accounts. Banking, phone, computer, et cetera.”

  “Of
course. Anything that will help you find her.”

  Despite his reluctance to get more deeply involved with the Zaccaro clan or go running after a woman who had already chosen another man over him, Reid found that he couldn’t deny their request.

  He didn’t know where Juliet was or why she’d disappeared before she could walk down the aisle, but despite his personal feelings on the topic, he wouldn’t rest easy until he at least knew that she was safe.

  * * *

  Careful of her footing, Juliet wrapped the sides of her unbuttoned cardigan more tightly around her torso and followed the steep, uphill trail from the dock back to her family’s cabin. No one had been out to the Vermont lake house for quite some time, so the path was overgrown, the boat was still in storage and the inside of the house was in need a good dusting.

  As far as Juliet was concerned, that made it the perfect spot to hide out for a while. She was thinking forever, but knew realistically that she could probably only stretch it out for a few days to a week, and she’d been here two days already.

  She was a coward for running away for even that long. She should have walked into that vestibule and told her family there was something she needed to confide to them, just as she should have told them when she’d called things off with Paul the first time. Should have walked to the front of the church or asked Paul to come back and speak to her, then told him she’d changed her mind—again.

  What was it about him, about the expectations of her family, even, that made her such a pushover and chicken?

  Regardless of what anyone might have thought of her actions or mind-set, she shouldn’t have tucked tail and run. But darned if she could regret the decision. Even the thought of remaining in that church, in that gown, a moment longer than she had was enough to start her hyperventilating.

  Never mind the idea of actually walking down the aisle. She was certain she would have passed out right there between the pews if she’d forced herself to go through with it. Or possibly thrown up on some of the guests, since an upset stomach had become her close and frequent companion.