The Trouble With Love(52)

Daisy arrived at her side, and Emma’s expression must have revealed every horrible emotion rolling through her, because her sister wrapped her arms firmly around Emma’s biceps and started to tug her toward the exit.

“Let’s go to the ladies’ room,” she said softly, smiling widely at the rest of the attendees as though to say Nothing to see here.

Emma started to let herself be hauled off, her eyes never leaving Cassidy. He finally seemed to snap out of his daze, because his head whipped around toward her, and he started to move in her direction, his expression desperate.

And then Emma’s father started talking again.

“Damn it, will he not shut up,” Daisy hissed under her breath.

That made Emma skid to a halt. Daisy never swore. If her sister was saying damn in public, it meant that this train wreck wasn’t over yet.

“You knew,” Emma said to Daisy, her voice wobbling.

Daisy’s face was panicked. “Emma, I swear to God, I never wanted Cassidy.”

“But you knew he wanted to ask you out.”

Daisy closed her eyes. “Daddy told me when Cassidy picked you up on your first date. I was horrified, Emma, but I swear to God, he never even looked at me after he met you. And I never wanted him. You have to believe me.”

Emma searched her sister’s face. She believed her. And yet…

“You never told me.” Emma’s voice broke.

Daisy’s face crumpled. “I didn’t want to hurt you. You liked him so much, and—”

Emma pulled her arm free just as Cassidy appeared at her side, his hand reaching out for her, but she jerked back. From both of them.

She turned to face her father, determined to hear the last of what he had to say.

“Well,” Winston said, taking a swallow of his drink. “I’ll wrap this up….I know everybody’s anxious to sit down for the delicious dinner the Cassidys have planned for us, but I’ll just say one last bit.”

Her father squinted around the room then, and for a second she thought he had a moment of clarity. That maybe he realized that the bride hadn’t exactly dashed up to stand next to him while he spoke.

But he wasn’t looking for her. Instead, Winston’s eyes landed on Cassidy and he grinned, before lifting his glass. “If you could all grab your beverage of choice, I’d like to make a toast to my future son-in-law, who might just be the wiliest son of a bitch I’ve had the pleasure of working with.”

“Don’t,” Cassidy said harshly, from beside her, but not loud enough for her father to hear. As if her dad would have stopped.

And at this point, Emma wasn’t sure she wanted her father to stop. She wanted—needed—to hear it all.

“To Cassidy,” Winston said, with a nod. “For having the balls to one-up an old man. See, back when he was an intern, I was one step ahead of him, but about a year ago, he got in front of me. Not twenty-four hours after I told Cassidy that I’d only pass Sinclair Media Group on to family, my darling Emma bursts into my house for Sunday dinner with an announcement: She was engaged to Alex Cassidy. Well played, son. Well played.”

Winston laughed, although nobody else did, all long past realizing what Emma’s father hadn’t: This was not a story to be told at a rehearsal dinner.

Or at all.

Very slowly, Emma turned to face her fiancé. “You’re marrying me for my father’s company?”

Cassidy’s features twisted, and suddenly he looked decades older than his twenty-five years. “Emma. No. No. I just—”

“And you only asked me out because you thought I was Daisy?” Emma said, her voice coming out in a pained squeak that sounded nothing like her normal voice. Apparently one of the shards from her currently splintering heart had lodged itself in her vocal chords.

Daisy touched her arm, and Emma jerked, backing away from both of them, barely aware of the fact that everyone was staring at them.

Cassidy’s eyes burned into hers, begging, but she could only shake her head.

Their first meeting was a lie. His proposal had been a business move.

Their entire relationship was a lie.

“Emma, please—”

She turned on her heel, and did the only thing she could think of: She walked away. Walked out of the private room into the main area of the restaurant. Walked blindly past tables until she got to the reception desk, and then kept going.

Only when she stepped out of the restaurant did she halt, stopping to suck in the humid summer air in gasping breaths that didn’t quite help to clear her head, nor ease the ache in her chest, nor soothe the nausea in her stomach.

She heard the door of the restaurant slam shut behind her as someone joined her outside. Knew it was Cassidy.

And then she turned to face him.

She turned to end it.

SEVEN YEARS LATER

“Emma, you okay?” Grace asked, touching her arm softly.

Emma put a hand to her throat, blinking to reorient herself before sliding her palm over her pounding heart.

Mitchell’s father was still droning on, something about never going to bed angry, as Julie and Mitchell stood beside him, nodding and fake-smiling.

This wasn’t her dad giving a speech.

And this was New York, not North Carolina.

She was thirty-one, not twenty-four. She wasn’t the bride.