2. Mira
Mira
The next three days pass in a flurry of activity. The entire time, I feel like I’m underwater. I can’t breathe, and my lungs are burning, but I keep smiling. Keep going through the motions.
The blood test from the doctor’s office comes back, and I breathe a soft sigh of relief when I see the clear results. Ronnie gently urged me to get checked out because cheaters don’t care if they fuck up your health for life as long as they get their pleasure.
Despite my anger bubbling constantly under the surface, Stuart never notices.
In fact, we barely spend any time together at all.
It’s only Ronnie that notices, and each time I think I’m going crazy, she just puts a hand on my shoulder.
Her presence is quiet and reassuring, the rock I can lean on right now.
“Are you nervous?” She asks quietly. It’s just the two of us and the hair stylist who has been sworn to secrecy.
“I have the perfect plan,” I reassure her. Thanks to a recent article in the news, I remembered there was a fundraiser only a few hours from Asheville. Women bid on hot cowboys online and the highest bidder “wins” a cowboy for seventy-two hours.
I didn’t hesitate to put down an obscene amount of money on a good-looking cowboy with a deep brown gaze who has the perfect scowl.
He looks like the exact opposite of Stuart.
He isn’t polished or soft. He’s hard angles with a bushy beard and a look in his eyes that’s daring the world to cross him.
This is exactly the kind of man I need to show up and make a scene.
The hair stylist finishes Ronnie’s hair, spraying it down with enough hair spray that it’s likely to hold during an earthquake, hurricane, and flash flood. “Because if you were, there’s still time to bolt.”
“I want to see the look on his face when he realizes I’m the one leaving him.
” He always made it sound like I was lucky to be with him.
We met in college, and I was young and dumb and believed him.
Now I’m older, wiser, and confident as hell that I could have done a lot better.
After all, I built an eight-figure business with my father that I’ve kept going for years.
Not to mention, I’m an awesome fur mama to Molly and Milo.
She smirks in the way only another betrayed woman can just as the wedding planner knocks on the door and steps inside.
She clears her throat, staring at me with open curiosity. “The visitor you said to expect has arrived, and he is yummy. He looks like one of those guys on a calendar. All those muscles and that hard stare.”
“Make sure no one sees him. Wait fifteen minutes and let him in the side door like we talked about,” I answer and set down the flute of champagne that I haven’t even touched. I’ve barely eaten this week. Barely slept. There’s only the focus on my single mission: get through this day.
“I’m going to check on the pups. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Ronnie says, rising from her chair. She gives me a hug. “Love you.”
She leaves the room, and the wedding planner focuses on me. “Is he your brother or—?”
I don’t say a word. Just send her a glare, the same one I do when I’m in the middle of negotiations over important company documents.
“Right,” she murmurs and leaves me alone.
I shrug out of the robe when she’s gone and into the white lacy slip. The silk whispers against my skin, cool and reassuring. It’s the only thing that calms my nausea. I never pictured a wedding day like this.
The side door swings open and a man steps into the room.
No, not a man. A mountain. A mountain of a cowboy.
He looks exactly like the pictures on the website.
His scowl is fixed firmly in place as he removes his sunglasses.
He clips them into the pocket of his flannel shirt.
His Stetson is the next thing he pulls off, tossing it casually into the chair that Ronnie abandoned a few moments ago.
His deep brown gaze never leaves mine as he pulls off his things.
It travels across my body, warming me up in a way I didn’t expect.
“You’re the bride?” he barks.
“Unfortunately,” I answer. I sent a message to the organizer of the auction, a woman named Lauren. She sent me a sweet email in return, letting me know that she was sorry for what happened and that my cowboy would arrive on time.
He scratches his beard. “What’s the deal here? Lauren said something about interrupting the wedding?”
“Yes, just voice an objection when the officiant asks,” I say like this is no big deal. It’s not really. My dad gets to walk me down the aisle. I don’t marry the cheating scumbag who’s just waiting for my dad to die, and everyone is happy. Well, except Stuart and Paris Pouty.
“Or I could sweep you away right now. Nobody has to know,” he points out. That would be the easier option.
I reach for my white dress with shaking hands and step into it, pulling it up to my rounded hips where it sticks. “Are you going to help me or not?”
He misunderstands what I mean and steps forward, giving the dress a gentle tug up.
He gets it past my hips, not commenting on the surgery scars on my legs and back.
He’s surprisingly gentle for such a big man.
This close, I can smell the spicy notes of his cologne.
It’s a mix of leather, vanilla and earth.
The scent is oddly comforting, and I want to lean close and bury my face in his beard.
I slip the dress straps onto my shoulders, smoothing them flat underneath my hands.
He steps behind me and reaches for the zipper. His fingertips ghost along the skin of my back in a move that feels more like something a lover would do than a perfect stranger.
Maybe that’s why I close my eyes and whisper into the stillness, “He’s cheating on me.”
He puts his big, roughened hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him. He stares down at me, anger evident in the harsh lines of his face. “Why not just tell the lying bastard that you know to his face?”
An image of my dad, being wheeled into surgery for the tumor, flashes in my mind. I swallow back my sadness. Everything could have been so much worse. We were so lucky. “I have my reasons.”
His beard moves, muscles clenching in the side of his face. “Can I at least punch him in the face for you?”
That almost gets a smile from me. “He’s not worth it. Can you do the job or not?”
He thinks for a long moment, staring at me as if he’s trying to read all of my secrets. Finally, having come to a decision, he gives a quick nod. “Yeah, you can count on me to ruin your wedding.”
“Are you ready?” The serene smile on my dad’s face as he steps into the bridal room makes my heart clench.
It’s only the two of us. The day my mom died, I was five, and I cried because I told him my best friend was gone. He sat me down and explained that he’d been looking for a best friend of his own and maybe we could be best friends on a trial basis now.
He kept his word too. He listened to me cry about boy drama in middle school, took me to get my first pedicure, and was there for me every day that I was in the hospital as a teenager.
“I am now,” I turn and do my best to give him a bright smile. My cowboy objector is long gone, leaving behind only the lingering scent of leather and earth.
“Look at you, all grown up,” dad says. His eyes have a sheen of moisture in them.
“Dad! You promised you wouldn’t!” I tell him even as I tear up too.
“I’m not!” He protests and sniffs. “I stopped by the kitchen, and someone was cutting onions. Aww, darn, you look beautiful today, kiddo. Have I told you how proud I am of you?”
“Don’t!” I point a finger at him and wag it even as I blink the blurriness from my lids. There’s no time to redo my makeup.
He holds up his hands. “No more paternal pride. Promise. Now, come on. There’s a wedding to get to.”
I take his arm and let him lead me from the room to the doors just outside the ornate ballroom where my bridesmaids are gathered. The wedding planner pulls my dad aside to talk with him about where to stand during the wedding photos.
Ronnie spots me first, and she wraps me in a hug, careful not to crush or wrinkle my dress. “Molly and Milo are fine. The sitter is doing a great job keeping an eye on them.”
“Is he here?” I whisper.
“And so smug. I just want to hit him. Can I hit him? You could count it as my birthday gift.”
I chuckle despite my mood. Ronnie is my ride-or-die. She’d do anything for me and anything with me. It’s a rare trait to find in a best friend, and I’m lucky to have her. Just like I’m lucky to have my dad.
He offers me his arm, eyes tearing up again. “Are you ready?”
I hug Ronnie one more time then take my dad’s arm, and together, we walk down the aisle. Thirty-seven. That’s how many steps it takes to get to the altar. There are blue roses twining around the marble podium. My dad spared no expense, and Stuart let him.
When he takes my hand, his is slick and clammy. It reminds me of touching a cold, dead fish in the supermarket, and I fight a full body shudder of revulsion.
The officiant begins the vows, and with every passing word, the bile in my throat climbs a little higher as I remember the video I downloaded and saved. Evidence should I ever need it.
I take a slow breath in, fighting the urge to bolt for the door just in time for the moment of truth. The request for objections.
The sentence is barely finished before my cowboy is storming down the aisle. He really does look like a man whose girl is about to be stolen. For some reason, that thought makes my stomach swoop. I can’t examine that too closely because I have a part to play too.
“I object,” his voice rings out clear and determined. He’s changed out of his flannel and into a tuxedo. But his is different than Stuart’s. His clings tightly to his body, a size too small.
He’s glaring at my groom, looking like he’s hoping for an excuse to turn this into a barroom brawl. He’ll have to get in line behind Ronnie.