Arm Candy (Real Love #2)(30)

“Six years ago today, my life changed forever,” he says.

“I didn’t know you were married.”

Davis’s eyes are warm and relaxed. “I wasn’t.”





Chapter 11


Davis


I’ve never been in bed with a woman on my wedding day. Since I stood sweating through my tuxedo jacket six years ago, I’ve held this day in some sort of bizarre limbo. I was supposed to spend the night undressing my bride and making love in the cabana we’d reserved for our on-site honeymoon. Instead I spent that night and the six that followed it in a rum-infused stupor.

When Grace showed up at my door this evening, I was on my way out to find her. I wasn’t lying. I decided earlier that I’d no longer revere this day like a depraved holiday. It’s way past time to move on.

My hand runs over Grace’s bare shoulder. She waits for me to say more, her bright eyes trained on me. What do I have to lose? I’ve already shared more with her than I have with anyone—anyone outside of mine and Hanna’s failed destination wedding. But then I didn’t have to share with them because they witnessed every agonizing moment.

“I had a runaway bride,” I state. It sounds cuter than it was. “Her name was Hanna and we scheduled a destination wedding in the Bahamas. She flew in with me the day before, slept next to me in our honeymoon suite the night before, and then in the morning, she went with her sisters to get her hair and makeup done.”

That was the last I saw of her.

“Her mother confirmed that Hanna was there when the photographer was snapping photos of her in her wedding dress. I was told she was in the white tent at the back of the beach when my two best friends, Vince and her brother Roger, lined up next to me. A justice of the peace nodded and the procession music started.”

The moment the music started, my heart hit my throat and the sting of tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I was about to be married and I was ready. Ready to start my life with Hanna and learn what the future held for us.

Not much, as it turned out.

“Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Two.” I take a breath and force myself to continue. “Hanna and her sisters didn’t emerge from the tent. Finally, Hanna’s mother stood from her seat to walk back and check on them. She emerged a moment later to say they were gone.”

I swallow past a very thick throat. I’ve come this far. May as well tell it all.

“After the initial panic passed, we learned from the front desk at the resort that she and her sisters had run through the lobby and climbed into a cab. They were laughing.” I shake my head, recalling the hot burn of embarrassment along my collar. “Vince was there—him and his now-ex-wife. Everyone else—Hanna’s mother and father, her brother—took Hanna’s side.”

Sympathy bends Grace’s eyebrows, but she doesn’t interrupt.

“Vince had to get back home to work. Understandable. I stayed on the island. That week was the last time I remember being really drunk. I pickled myself in tropical drinks day in and day out. I returned home a week later sunburned, hungover, and delirious from dehydration. Not my finest hour.” I quirk the side of my mouth but can’t manage even the smallest smile. “Hanna had emptied our apartment of our things—including the wedding gifts we received. And she was gone.”

“Did she contact you again?” Grace asks after a few beats.

“She called me a few weeks after that to tell me she’d changed her mind about getting married.” I manage a dry laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “No shit, right?”

“Wow,” Grace mumbles.

What else is there to say?

“Since then, I haven’t spent today with anyone but myself.” Questions brew in Grace’s narrowed eyes. I wonder what she’ll say next.

“So…after you were stranded at the altar,” she starts, “you came home and started serial dating?”

“Later that year I ventured out, yes.”

“Was Hanna…blond?” Grace asks, drawing a conclusion that would’ve made sense if I were pining or after revenge on the woman who broke my heart.

“No.” I wind a piece of Grace’s hair around my finger and tug. “She had red hair.”

Understanding dawns on Grace’s face, but her auburn brows close in over her pert nose a second later. She wants to know why her, but she doesn’t ask. I answer her unasked question.

“You’re different, Gracie. I didn’t want to be attracted to you. The moment I laid eyes on you, I couldn’t tear them away from you. I tried to get Vince to ask you out.”

“Vince?” Her tone is disbelieving and shocked in a way that tells me she would’ve told him no. That’s good to hear. “By way of what logic?”

“If you were taken, you’d be the woman who serves me beer, not the hot, delicious, fiery, sassy redhead turning my brains into chopped veal.”

“Charming.” She smiles.

I smile. It feels good to smile.

“Davis?” Grace wrinkles her nose.

“Yeah?”

“Are you fucked up?”

I bark a laugh, which surprises me more than the smile did. “On whose scale?”

“It’s just…I can understand how your fiancée humiliating you and leaving you with no explanation might really fuck you up.”