Sandra Marton - The Bride Said Never!

Laurel swallowed a groan.

Just last week, during lunch, Dawn had predicted that was exactly what would happen.

Annie had brought her daughter to New York for the final fitting on her gown, and they’d all met for lunch at Tavern on the Green. Dawn, with all the drama in her eighteen-year-old heart, had looked at Laurel and sighed over her Pasta Primavera.

“Oh, Aunt Laurel,” she’d said, “you are so beautiful! I wish I looked like you.”

Laurel had looked across the table at the girl’s lovely face, innocent of makeup and of the rough road that was life, and she’d smiled.

“If I looked like you,” she’d said gently, “I’d still be on the cover of Vogue.”

That had turned the conversation elsewhere, to Laurel’s declining career, which Annie and Dawn stoutly insisted wasn’t declining at all, and then to Laurel’s plans for the future, which she’d managed to make sound far more exciting than they so far were.

And, inevitably, they’d talked about Dawn’s forthcoming wedding.

“You are going to be the most beautiful bride in the world,” Laurel had said, and Dawn had blushed, smiled and said well, she certainly hoped Nick would agree, but that the most beautiful woman at the wedding would undoubtedly be her aunt Laurel.

Laurel had determined in that moment that she would not, even inadvertently, steal the spotlight. When you had a famous face—well, a once-famous face, anyway—you could do that just by entering a room, and that was the last thing she wanted to do to the people she loved.

So this morning, she’d dressed with that in mind. Instead of the pale pink Chanel suit she’d bought for the occasion, she’d put on a periwinkle blue silk dress that was a couple of years old. Instead of doing her hair in the style that she’d made famous—whisked back and knotted loosely on the crown, with sexy little curls tumbling down her neck—she’d simply run a brush through it and let it fall naturally around her shoulders. She hadn’t put on any jewelry and she’d even omitted the touch of lip gloss and mascara that was the only makeup she wore except when she was on a runway or in front of a camera.

She’d even left early, catching a train at Penn Station that was supposed to have gotten her into Stratham a good hour before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. But the train had broken down in New Haven and Laurel had started to look for a taxi when the station public address system announced that there’d be a new train coming along to pick up the stranded passengers in just a few minutes. The clerk at the ticket counter confirmed it, and said the train would be lots faster than a taxi.

And so she’d waited, for almost half an hour, only to find that it wasn’t a train that had been sent to pick up the passengers at all. It was a bus and, of course, it had taken longer than the train ever would have, longer than a taxi would have, too, had she taken one when the train had first ground to a halt. The icing on the cake had come when they’d finally reached Stratham and for endless minutes, there hadn’t been a cab in sight.

“Aunt Laurel?”

Laurel looked up. Dawn and her handsome young groom had reached her row of pews.

“Baby,” she said, fixing a bright smile to her face as she reached out and gave the girl a quick hug.

“That was some entrance,” Dawn said, laughing.

“Oh, Dawn, I’m so sorry about—”

Too late. The bridal couple was already moving past her, toward the now-open doors and the steps that led down from the church.

Laurel winced. Dawn had been teasing, she knew, but Lord, if she could only go back and redo that awful entrance.

As it was, she’d stood outside the little church after the cab had dropped her off, trying to decide which was preferable, coming in late or missing the ceremony, until she’d decided that missing the ceremony was far worse. So she’d carefully cracked the doors open, only to have the wind pull them from her hands, and the next thing she’d known she’d been standing stage-center, with every eye in the place on her.

Including his. That man. That awful, smug-faced, egotistical man.

Was he Nicholas’s guardian? Well, former guardian. Damian Skouras, wasn’t that the name? That had to be him, considering where he’d been standing.

One look, and she’d known everything she needed to know about Damian Skouras. Unfortunately she knew the type well. He had the kind of looks women went crazy for: wide shoulders, narrow waist, a hard body and a handsome face with eyes that seemed to blaze like blue flame against his olive skin. His hair swept back from his face like the waves on a midnight sea, and a tiny gold stud glittered in one ear.

Looks and money, both, Laurel thought bitterly. It wasn’t just the Armani dinner jacket and black trousers draped down those long, muscled legs that had told her so, it was the way he held himself, with careless, masculine arrogance. It was also the way he’d looked at her, as if she were a new toy, all gift-wrapped and served up for his pleasure. His smile had been polite but his eyes had said it all.

“Baby,” those eyes said, “I’d like to peel off that dress and see what’s underneath.”

Not in this lifetime, Laurel thought coldly.

She was tired of it, sick of it, if the truth were told. The world was filled with too many insolent men who’d let money and power go to their heads.

Hadn’t she spent almost a year playing the fool for one of them?

The rest of the wedding party was passing by now, bridesmaids giggling among themselves in a pastel Hurry of blues and pinks, the groomsmen grinning foolishly, impossibly young and good-looking in their formal wear. Annie went by with her ex and paused only long enough for a quick hug after which Laurel fell back into the crowd, letting it surge past her because she knew he’d be coming along next, the jerk who’d stared at her and stripped her naked with his eyes...and yes, there he was, bringing up the rear of the little procession with one of the bridesmaids, a child no more than half his age, clinging to his arm like a limpet.

The girl was staring up at him with eyes like saucers while he treated her to a full measure of his charm, smiling at her with his too-white teeth glinting against his too-tanned skin. Laurel frowned. The child was positively transfixed by the body-by-health club, tan-by-sunlamp and attitude-by-bank-balance. And Mr. Macho was eating up the adulation.

Bastard, Laurel thought coldly, eyeing him through the crowd, and before she had time to think about it, she stepped out in the aisle in front of him.

The bridesmaid was so busy making goo-goo eyes at her dazzling escort that she had to skid to a stop when he halted.

“What’s the matter?” the girl asked.

“Nothing,” he answered, his eyes never leaving Laurel’s.

The girl looked at Laurel. Young as she was, awareness glinted in her eyes.

“Come on, Damian. We have to catch up to the others.”

He nodded. “You go on, Elaine. “I’ll be right along.”

“It’s Aileen.”

“Aileen,” he said, his eyes still on Laurel. “Go ahead. I’ll be just behind you.”

The girl shot Laurel a sullen glare. “Sure.” Then she picked up her skirts and hurried along after the others.

Close up, Laurel could see that the man’s eyes were a shade of blue she’d never seen before, cool and pale, the irises as black-ringed as if they’d been circled with kohl. Ice, she thought, chips of polar sea ice.

A pulse began to pound in her throat. I should have stayed where I was, she thought suddenly, instead of stepping out to confront him...

“Yes?” he said.

His voice, low and touched with a slight accent, was a perfect match for the chilly removal of his gaze.