Chapter 5
Maddie
Less than an hour after saying I do to my would-be father-in-law, I text Jack.
Wish you were here. The wedding was a disaster.
No response. I wouldn’t blame him if he ghosted me after this. I don’t even know what I’m doing—what just happened. My hands are still shaking, even though the makeup artist came back in to touch up my face and reminded me to "glow, not crumble."
The ring on my finger gleams against the silk of my dress.
A new one. A man’s choice. Weightier than the one I picked with Derrick via impersonal email.
When did Benedict find out that his son wasn’t going to show? I wonder what the moment looked like, when he decided to meet me at the altar. Did his jaw brace with the determination to martyr himself? Did he scowl in disgust, inconvenienced with a girl?
Not a girl, I remind myself, hitching up the corset top and lifting my chin. I’d feel more at home in jeans right now, more confident, but unless I raid Ben’s closet this is all I’ve got.
It’s real. All of it. The kiss, the legal ceremony, the quiet but all-consuming way Benedict looked at me when he said, “I do.”
I’m not just Madeline Clarke anymore. I’m Madeline Bronson.
The kiss.
My brain gets stuck on the memory, spirals. If there was any doubt before that I was marrying a mature man… that kiss knocked it out of the park. The way he took possession of my mouth, hand on my hip and tongue grazing my lower lip, makes me tremble even now.
Have I even been properly kissed until today? I’m not sure; my mind is fuzzy with the replay of his stubbled upper lip, body tight like a bow.
Every other guy has been… not inexperienced, but not so sure. So, demanding.
Ben Bronson took my mouth like he wanted it. Like he was claiming it.
There's a knock on the door, then it creaks open without waiting for permission as I jump, a hand on my chest. Stella slips inside, stops, and stares in awe.
“Um,” she begins, eyes wide, cheeks pink. “You married the wrong man. And wow—this room!”
“Don’t say it out loud,” I groan, hugging myself as I sit at the edge of the bed in Ben’s luxurious suite. The air smells faintly of his cologne—woodsmoke, clean linen, fresh air. It’s not helping clear my head at all.
“But like…” she sinks into the armchair across from me, her dress hiked up slightly so she can sit cross-legged. “You married the wrong man.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I hiss. “Can you imagine if I’d said no? Do you really think Mom and Dad would’ve laid the blame at Derrick’s feet?”
An arrow of hurt pierces me, reflected in Stella’s eyes. I love our parents, in a twisted way. I think they love me, though they rarely show it. Still, we both know that if this marriage hadn’t gone through, it would be more fault.
“Well, yeah,” Stella agrees, “but you didn’t have to marry his dad.”
“He’s the one who offered!” I press my fingers to my temples. My skull is a kettle about to whistle.
“Mad,” she says softly. “You just married a man who’s nineteen years older than you. Are you okay?”
“Seventeen and a half,” I correct reflexively. Just because I’m usually color coordinating linens and desserts doesn’t mean I didn’t do my research—into the whole Bronson lineage.
Benedict Bronson was born here, in Aspen, to his mother and father.
He did a brief stint at Yale before returning to enmesh himself in the family business.
At twenty-five, he took the company international.
At twenty-seven, he married. His wife passed away a handful of years ago and Derrick is his only child.
Stella’s brow arches. “Okay, you’ve already done the math. You’re panicking.”
I am panicking.
I thought I had accepted the arrangement with Derrick. A business marriage. We’d share polite dinners, have a child within three years to satisfy the contract, and live largely separate lives. It was cold, calculated, and… tolerable.
But this?
This is the man I used to call Mr. Bronson. The man who once offered me a firm handshake and nothing else while discussing shipping numbers with my father when I was twenty-one and still stealing vodka from the liquor cabinet.
He’s intimidating. Gorgeous. Ice-eyed and made of stone and power. And now he’s my husband.
What. The. Hell.
I shove my hands through my hair and stand, pacing toward the massive windows overlooking the mountains. Smudging angry tears away, my freckles are revealed, but it’s not worth seeing if the artist can do another touch-up. I’m half-tempted to pull a runner, like my intended did.
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t even think straight.”
“Well,” Stella says slowly, “step one: try to figure out where Derrick is. Because that’s the real mystery here. I mean, what happens if he pops back up?”
I nod, focusing on that. The fact that no one seems to know where Derrick went—least of all his father. He’s not answering calls. He hasn’t been spotted since last night. Either he ran… or something happened.
“What if…” my sister muses, pulling herself onto the arm of a massive armchair, “he was in love with someone else? We couldn’t really blame him for that, right?”
I roll my eyes, arms clasped around my middle. “Does Derrick Bronson strike you as the kind of guy who falls hard, Stella? Really?”
She laughs, head thrown back, so carefree that I’m momentarily reminded why I took on the responsibility of making a business deal of a marriage—to let her find love. Real love.
Stella stands and joins me at the window. “You really okay, Maddie?”
I want to lie.
But my voice comes out in a whisper: “No. I’m married. To a man who should’ve been my father-in-law. I’ve completely torched my reputation. And now I have to walk into a dining room full of people who are probably already texting Page Six.”
She winces. “Yeah. The Carters looked like they were going to have a coronary. Honestly, I’d be surprised if they even socialize with Mom and Dad after this.”
I should care, but I don’t; I like the Carters. If they never set foot on our ranch again, I wouldn’t blame them.
“I don’t even know if this marriage is legal. It happened so fast.”
“It’s legal,” Stella confirms. “They filed it with the on-site officiant. I overheard the planner say it’s all been registered. And that Mom wants to spin it as a ‘romantic twist of fate.’”
Of course she does.
“There’s definitely nothing romantic about this,” I blurt out, and almost throw in: just animal lust.
I clap a hand over my mouth as Stella watches me, confused. I can’t admit that in the last few hours I’ve felt more attraction to a man my father’s age than I have to any of the guys who I’ve flirted with in bars or on the ranch.
“Okay,” I mutter. “So, I’m married. To Benedict Bronson. And everyone knows it.”
“Exactly.”
I sit back on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. “I just have to suck it up.”
Stella frowns. “What?”
I meet her eyes. “If I back out now, our parents are done. You know what’s going on with the books.”
Her expression darkens. “You’re talking about Haider.”
I nod. “It was worse than they let on. He siphoned off funds for two years. My wedding to Derrick was the only reason Dad got the Bronsons to re-up the contract with Crown Haider, the ranch manager, practically raised both of us.
He used to keep an eye on us in the stables, take us out riding.
He even hand-tooled my first saddle himself.
When we found out he was embezzling money last year, it was like a slap in the face.
“So, you’re going to… what? Stay married?”
“Not forever. Just… long enough for it to settle. Maybe once it all blows over, Benedict will see reason. Maybe he’ll want a divorce, too.”
Stella doesn’t say anything.
“And it’s not like we can avoid each other,” I add bitterly.
“His main residence is just south of here. Right down the road from the Bronson Resort. Which means we’ll be in the same house more often than not.
” I’d been planning on Derrick living abroad and coming home for holidays.
Maybe less. He’s always had a reputation as an impudent, spoiled brat.
A pause.
Then—
“Oh my God,” Stella breathes, her eyes narrowing.
“What?”
“You like him.”
I freeze. “What? No.”
“You do!” she gasps, pointing at me like I’ve just committed treason. “You want him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you didn’t not say it. Funny how you haven’t complained about the change in your wedding night plans.”
I scowl, avoiding her gaze. “He’s… attractive. Sure. But he’s Ben Bronson. I can’t even imagine…” I trail off, because I am imagining.
Oh, am I imagining…
“Exactly! Silver fox, power suit, voice like gravel. Honestly, I get it. Forbidden fruit, right?”
“I’m not going to… sleep with him.”
“You could.”
“Stella!”
She raises her hands in mock surrender, laughing. “Fine, fine. Don’t use your wedding night. But if I were you, I’d be halfway to consummated by now. I was hoping that’s what you two were getting up to, but I saw him in the lobby.”
“Please stop saying the word ‘consummated.’”
Stella grins, then glances at her phone. “We’ve got fifteen minutes before dinner. You ready?”
No.
But I nod anyway.
“Let me just run downstairs and check…” She leans out into the hallway, gives me a cheeky grin, and disappears.
I turn back to the windows, looking out at the mountains.
…I could run.
There’s still time. Yes, I’m legally married, but I could run from all of this the way Derrick did.
Okay, maybe a small part of me understands why he did it. But I’m also angry, because I don’t have that choice. I don’t get the luxury of disappearing on my wedding day.
Besides, I’d never make it—not to the mountains. I don’t know them like I know the ones back home in Montana. I doubt I’d be able to survive in just a wedding dress and the nude heels clutching at my arches.
Before I can look over the edge of the balcony and see if scaling it is a possibility, the door opens and Stella pops back in.
“Ready to face the world, Mrs. Bronson?”
We leave the suite and descend in the private elevator, arriving just outside the grand dining room. The air is thick with champagne and gossip.
The doors open. Heads turn. It looks like people are already a few cocktails deep, and the wedding photographer looks lost. I was supposed to have a shoot, of course, with my new husband… but Ben and I have clearly not prioritized that.
A full string quartet resumes playing on cue, but it doesn’t mask the sound of whispers. I can hear them.
There she is.
What is he thinking?
She’s so young.
Where’s the son?
I raise my chin.
Ben is already inside, standing at the far end of the dining room near a table of executives. His expression is unreadable. In his dark suit, silver beard trimmed short, glass of whisky in hand, he looks composed and unapproachable.
His eyes drift over me, as if I’m not even there—as if I haven’t just walked into the room completely unaccompanied, on my wedding day.
I pretend not to care.
He doesn’t come to greet me or wave me over, just turns his attention back to the men he’s with. Is one of them the lawyer, come to work out the contract?
“Madeline,” my mother murmurs, taking my elbow and leading me away. “Go. Sit. The guests are hungry, and you’ve kept them waiting.”
My lips part, but I don’t argue. Funny how she has nothing to say about my husband taking his time with the evening. Luckily, Benedict finally lays eyes on me as I shuffle myself into the chair, arranging and rearranging my skirt. I didn’t bother changing into something more casual.
A dark shadow falls over my shoulder. Somehow I’ve missed him moving across the room; he leans in and says, “Let me take the lead with press inquiries tomorrow. I’ll handle the message.”
I nod, lips tight.
Then he’s seated next to me, but gone again—back into business talk with a man from Vail who owns several hotels and once tried to franchise with Crown & Range. I sip my wine. I pick at my dinner.
The one dance we share comes after dinner, as the quartet transitions into a slower, moodier set.
It goes without saying that we skipped the first dance together.
Had there been one planned for Derrick and me?
I’m hazy with wine, unable to remember the itinerary of my own event, which I had no hand in planning.
He finds me without saying a word, extends his hand, and I take it because I have to.
His hand is warm, his touch steady. He leads me to the center of the dance floor and places one hand on the small of my back, his other closing firmly over mine.
We begin to sway.
I keep my eyes averted, afraid of what might spill out if I look into his.
“You’re doing well,” he murmurs.
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” I scoff, but a thrill of triumph goes through me at the praise.
“It’s meant to be honest.”
We turn slowly, bodies close but not touching too much. The distance is maddening. Everything about him is maddening.
“How are you so calm?” I ask.
“Because I can’t afford not to be.” His jaw flexes. His hand tightens just a little at my waist.
What does he have going on under this mask? Once again I can’t help wondering if he regrets this already, if he’s disgusted by the circumstances. Although it doesn’t seem it, as we make a turn and he pulls me closer, his hips pressed against my belly, my breasts pressed against his chest.
The music continues. So does the quiet tension between us.
Then, just as the song ends, he leans in—just barely. I feel his breath at my ear.
“Kiss me.”
I do. Reflexively. Because everyone’s watching. My lips ghost over his cheek, the stubble gritty and sharp and bringing everything back into focus.
Benedict steps back, nods once, and disappears into another conversation with another CEO.
I sit. Alone. Again.
The night continues in a haze of champagne and whispered gossip.
Ben doesn’t come back.
The more he keeps his distance, the more I want him to.
Which is, of course, completely insane.