Wilde at Heart (Wilde Security, #3)(81)

“Whoa.” He held out his hands to steady her, then did a double take. “Shelby?”

She was pretty sure her jaw hit the ground. “Reece?”

Then, at the same time, they both asked, “What are you wearing?”

For the first time since she’d known him, he was dressed down in jeans and sneakers. Under his jacket, he wore a graphic T-shirt of Pac Man eating a Hershey bar. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and a sexy scruff darkened his jaw. Oddly, he looked a lot like Jude, except for his glasses. And the blue he’d dyed into his hair.

“Oh.” Tears filled her eyes and she reached up to push a lock away from his forehead. “What did you do to your hair?”

“What happened to yours?” he countered, winding a strand around his finger.

She self-consciously ran a hand over her new color—a honey blond, as close to her natural color as she’d been in years. “I thought…maybe if I toned it down, you’d find me more…I don’t know. Acceptable, I guess.”

“Oh, Shelby.” His features softened in a way she’d never seen before and he held out his arms. “Come here.”

She hesitated, still playing with the ends of her new dye job. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see how vulnerable the admission had made her. Especially when the terror of rejection had her cold from the inside out.

“Shelby.” He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her gaze to his. She saw tenderness there and the ever-present fire of desire, but there was also a bit of shame and some worry lurking in the depths of his eyes. “I have never found you unacceptable.” He tugged at a strand of her hair. “I find this unacceptable. A normal hair color? A business suit? For f*ck’s sake, you’re even wearing pearls.”

She swallowed hard. “I thought you’d like it.”

He clasped her shoulders, rubbed. “This isn’t you, Shelby.”

“I thought— I don’t know. I guess I thought if I looked more the part of your wife, then maybe we could stay married.”

“I don’t want a Stepford Wife.”

Even dressed like this, he still didn’t want her. God, that hurt. So much that she suddenly couldn’t breathe because of the pain in the center of her chest. She nodded and tried to turn away before the tears blurring her vision spilled down her cheeks.

Reece pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry. I was—” Her breath shuddered out on a sob and fat tears spilled from her eyes, screwing her carefully applied makeup all to hell. “I was hoping this would change things between us.”

“I don’t want things to change.”

“I understand.”

“Hey.” That was all he said, then he waited in silence until she reined in the sobs and gazed up at him again. He cupped her cheeks in his palms, swiping away her tears with his thumbs. “Why are you crying?”

She sniffled. “I don’t want an annulment. I love you.”

The dimple in his left cheek flashed and he pulled a stack of folded papers out of his jacket pocket. “I never filled out the paperwork.”

“You…” She blinked at the empty pages. “Why not?”

“Shelby.” Again he waited until she lifted her gaze to his. “I let Jude pick out my clothes and dye my hair blue. Do you honestly think I’d show up to court looking like this if I wanted to end our marriage? I love you, and I want you as my wife. But I want the real you, not this cookie-cutter person you’re trying to turning yourself into. A person I foolishly tried to turn you into. I want—” He stopped short, closed his eyes and shook his head, then corrected himself, “No, I need the color you bring into my life. Before Vegas, I was not happy. I was existing, not living. I just didn’t realize it until you showed me that happiness is coming home to find you doing yoga to reggae music. It’s sneaking away from dinner parties for closet sex. It’s crazy pillows and paintings, whipped cream fights and getting dragged to a club in my tux and ending up covered in glow-in-the-dark paint.”

A fluttery feeling started in her belly and tingled through her body. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” He smiled and swept her hair back from her face. “Happiness, for me, is the two of us, together. I want us to stay together, so I sold DMW to Quentin Enterprises, gave my brothers their shares of the profit, and have enough left over that we can run away, change our names, and disappear. Mallory will never be able to use you again.”

“You’d do that for me?” she whispered. “Give up your life here, your brothers?”

He cupped her face in his palms and feathered kisses over her eyes, nose, and finally, her mouth. He took his time there, kissing her softly, thoroughly. When he finally broke the contact of their lips, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll do anything to keep you safe. I love you.”

“But I lied. About…so much.” She bit her lower lip. “I never owed The Headhunters money. My dad set up a bank account for me when I was little. I never touched it, never planned to, until The Bean Gallery went up for sale. I just told you I owed them because I knew you wouldn’t go for the marriage thing unless you thought you were protecting me.”

He winced. “Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t have.”