The Bride Test(28)

How much longer could this go on? Were Van and his lady trying to set some sort of world record?

Eventually, the noises came to a horrible crescendo and then quieted. Van tottered drunkenly to his feet and helped his partner up. They straightened their clothes with awkward conversation and disappeared. Khai waited for a count of sixty before he pushed the closet door open and walked out. He took a breath, and the air smelled like—no, he wasn’t going to think about what the air smelled like. An involuntary shudder coursed through him.

Esme followed him out of the closet, her cheeks reddened to a fantastic lobstery sheen, and went to get her green dress and shoes—he’d thought they looked familiar. Keeping her back to him, she stepped into her dress and pulled it up. A woman’s back wasn’t one of the restricted body parts mentioned in the footnotes of the Rules, so he let himself look. But it still felt like rule breaking. The curve at the base of her spine was one of the most elegant things he’d ever seen.

“Help me?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.

His feet took him to her on their own. As his heart pounded loud in his ears, he fumbled with the zipper and pulled it along the graceful line of her back, covering her perfect skin. When he finished, she turned around, and their eyes met.

“I wanted to wear the wedding dress,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t reach it.”

He glanced at the wedding gown hanging on the curtain rod. Yeah, she was definitely too short for that. “Do you want me to get it down for you?”

A smile worked over her face, one of those mind-scrambling, breathtaking smiles that made her eyes greener. He’d caused that smile. The knowledge sent warmth melting through him, better than a big sweater fresh from the dryer.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked.

Her smile widened. “You didn’t laugh.”

“Why would I?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Where did you go? I looked everywhere for you.”

“I took a walk outside. To clear my head. I’m not … good with people.” And the banquet hall and hotel had felt suffocating. Once he’d realized what was missing, he’d started to notice all the places where Andy should have been. Getting a drink at the wet bar, standing with the groomsmen, at Khai’s side …

“I’m also not good with people,” she said.

That was a revelation to Khai, and when he looked at her then, her imperfections stuck out for the first time. One of her eyebrows arched more than the other. Her nose wasn’t as straight as he’d thought. There, on the left side of her neck, a tiny birthmark. She wasn’t a photoshopped image on a magazine. She was a real person, flawed. Oddly, that made her more beautiful. She was also smart in her own strange way, with a sense of fairness that resonated with his own. She wasn’t at all what he’d thought in the beginning.

She stepped toward him, and when she bit her bottom lip, his eyes tracked the movement, mesmerized by the way her white teeth scraped over the full red skin. What if he leaned down and kissed her?

Would she let him? What would it be like to bring their mouths together? To feel those red lips against his own? To delve inside and claim—

Something skated lightly against his hand.

Cold. Unexpected. Wrong.

“What the—” He jerked away on reflex, way too quickly and violently, and she startled and backed away from him with wide eyes.

“Sorry,” she said as she hugged her hand to her chest. She’d touched him, maybe to hold hands, and he’d frightened her. He hated frightening people.

Explanations piled up on his tongue, but he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t even know if he should bother. What was the point? After this summer, they were never going to see each other again.

The impression of her touch remained on his skin, shimmery and unpleasant, and he knew from experience the sensation wouldn’t fade for another day. Light touches did that, and it was worse when people caught him by surprise. Like she had. If she’d warned him, and if she’d touched him the right way, maybe … He shook his head at his thoughts. There was no maybe.

The incident today with Sara had confirmed he wasn’t meant for relationships. Since that was the case, he couldn’t encourage touching. What if—he didn’t know—what if they explored this attraction between them, and she fell in love with him? That would be horribly irresponsible of him, wouldn’t it? He could never love her back. He’d just hurt her. And he never wanted to do that. She was supposed to be happy.

When he rubbed his hand against his pant leg in an effort to blunt the feeling, she watched the motion with a tightening of her lips.

“If you want to eat cake and dance, I don’t mind waiting for you here.” But he wasn’t going to join her. He was finished with that banquet room. And maybe it was cowardly, but he didn’t want to see Sara crying anymore.

“No, no, let’s go.” She flashed a smile at him and walked efficiently from the room.

As they strode down the hotel’s lavish hallways, Khai was very aware that she didn’t rest her hand in the crook of his arm. She kept a healthy distance between them, and he couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or relieved. He honestly hadn’t liked it before, but he liked this even less.

The ground shook with a rhythmic bass when they passed the doors to the banquet hall where the reception was taking place. The dancing had started. That meant dinner was over, the fruit-filled wedding cake had been eaten, speeches spoken, and the wedding was basically done.