Chapter 26

I don’t know how I got into my wedding dress or from my house to Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart—I have no memory of any of it. I only know I got there in time for my future mother-in-law to fuss with my hair and put some make-up on me.

“My gracious, Rachel,” she murmured while she powdered my cheeks with enough blusher to make me look like a whore. “You’re just as pale as can be. Are you having the pre-wedding jitters?”

“I don’t think so,” I murmured wearily. “I just... I’m just tired. I had a very long night.” I was sitting in front of a mirror in a little anteroom to one side of the chapel letting her work on me. My eyes, which were now ringed in dark grey liner, looked tired and troubled, and my complexion was alarmingly washed out under the generous blusher. The waves of need had faded after Richard left, leaving a cold emptiness in their wake. But at least I was no longer having lust seizures.

“Oh yes, I heard about that.” Charles’s mother tsked disapprovingly. “Gracious, what a good friend you are, up all night at the hospital and missing your own rehearsal dinner.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” I mumbled, trying to hold still as she applied some kind of extremely sticky red gloss to my lips. I almost never wore much make-up, and to suddenly have five pounds of it on my face made me feel weighed down and clownish.

“Well, Charles and I were just worried sick, but we’re glad you’re all right, dear,” she said, flicking at my eyelashes with a mascara wand. “He was pacing and fretting half the evening, but I told him that if you weren’t there, you had a good reason not to show.”

“Uh-huh.” Suddenly, a wave of guilt swamped me. A good reason not to show? How about letting Richard breed me, getting lost in the painful ecstasy of his cock buried inside me to the hilt while I gave him what I had been promising to Charles for two long years? How was that for a good reason?

“Why, Rachel, where are you going?” My future mother-in-law looked flustered, and I realized I was on my feet and heading for the door.

“To see Charles,” I said, my hand on the knob.

“Oh, you can’t!” she exclaimed, one plump hand fluttering to her chest. “It’s bad luck for you to see him on your wedding day before you get to the altar.”

But I didn’t give a damn for bad luck. I only knew I couldn’t keep what had happened between Richard and myself a secret from Charles any longer. I couldn’t start a marriage based on lies. I would tell Charles what had happened, and if he still wanted me, so be it. If not... I didn’t know what would happen if not. I only knew what I had to do.

I found my fiancé in the anteroom opposite my own, checking his reflection in the mirror. His dark gold hair was smoothed back neatly, and he looked devastatingly handsome in the tailored Armani tux he was wearing. I tried to feel something about that, tried to feel the same waves of desire that overcame me when I was near Richard. But I felt nothing.

“Hello, Dearest.” He turned to face me and gave me a scolding little smile. “You’re not meant to be in here, you know.”

“I know, but I need to talk to you, Charles.” I shifted uneasily, the huge puffy white skirt of my dress swishing as I moved.

He frowned. “You look serious, I hope you’re not getting cold feet after all. The ceremony is just about to begin.”

“I’m not,” I said steadily. “But you might when you hear what I have to say.”

His handsome features took on a grave cast, and he sat down on the small blue couch in the middle of the room. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

There was nothing I could do but just say it. I took a deep breath, smelling the aroma of the church—wood polish and dusty hymnals mixed with the hundreds of white roses Charles had ordered to decorate the chapel.

“I’m not a virgin anymore, Charles,” I told him. “I lied about last night. I wasn’t in the ER all night—only part of this morning. The other part of the evening I was with Richard, and we…we had sex.”

“My God!” His face twisted in revulsion, and he sprang up from the couch and began to pace. “Are you serious, Rachel? You actually had sex with your own brother?” he demanded.

“He’s ~not~ my brother,” I shot back at him, and to my surprise, for the first time I really meant it. When I thought of Richard, when I saw his face in my mind, I no longer automatically labeled him ~family. ~“He’s not my brother,” I said again, still trying the concept out. I tried to think when I had finally let go of the old taboo in my mind and couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was because my physical need for Richard was so strong, or maybe the new bond between us had broken the old one. Maybe my emotions of love and lust were stronger than a tie seventeen years in the past. Or maybe it had finally just sunk in. “Richard is ~not my brother~,” I said it a third time, and Charles looked impatient.

“Yes, you’ve said that,” he pointed out, his voice cold. “But that wasn’t the song you were singing a month ago when he first wandered back into your life.”

“I…I know,” I said, scrambling for an explanation. “But, I don’t feel that way about him anymore. I just…I don’t.”

“Well, it was a short step from affection between siblings to screwing, wasn’t it?” he sneered. “Have you been fucking him all along? Laughing at me behind my back?”

“No,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and my chin up. After all, I felt I deserved every bit of what he was dishing out. “It’s been a gradual thing. I swear I never meant to hurt you, Charles. If…if you want to call the wedding off, I’ll understand completely.”

“Call it off?” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the carefully combed strands. “Not bloody likely. There are five hundred guests out there waiting to see us wed, and two of them are U.S. senators. Not to mention all the clients from my firm and my mother’s society friends. No, we’re getting married today if it kills us—I’d be ruined socially if we didn’t.”

I felt my heart sink. “Then…then you still want me? Even after what I did?”

“I want what I waited for,” he snarled. “What I paid for.” He grabbed my left hand and held it up, gesturing at the huge antique diamond engagement ring I’d somehow remembered to slip back onto my finger before I left for the church.

“What you ~paid ~for?” I stared at him in disbelief. “What do you think this is, some kind of financial merger?”

“Oh, there’s going to be a merger all right.” His laughter was low and ugly. “A merger between you and me ~tonight~. I was all prepared to be careful with you, Dearest, to break you in gently on your first time. But since that happy little occasion came and went without my participation, I think we can dispense with the gentleness, don’t you? In fact, I think a little rough riding might be the order of the day.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but I had a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach that I did. Charles was talking about rape, and despite my rough initiation to sex at the hands of Richard’s beast the night before, my mind rebelled against it. The thought of Charles touching me, taking me the way Richard had, turned my stomach. In fact, just the feel of his hand encircling my wrist made me feel sick and weak, as though I’d been breathing some kind of poison gas.

“I think you ~do~ know.” Charles was wearing a hard, angry grin. “I think you know exactly what I have planned for you tonight, Darling.”

“I can’t do this,” I said. “I don’t know why I thought I could.” I twisted the diamond ring off my finger and held it out to him. Here, take it and let me go, Charles. I’ll get out of your life and you’ll never have to see me again.”

“Haven’t you been listening to me?” His grip on my wrist tightened painfully. “I said we’re going through with this wedding, even if it is a sham. I’ve waited two years to have you and I won’t wait a second more.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re crazy,” I said. “You can’t ~make~ me marry you. And if you think you can get me up to the altar and I’ll say ‘I do’ because I’m too embarrassed to make a scene, you’re dead wrong. I don’t care if there are five ~thousand~ people sitting out and ~half~ of them are Senators, I’m not marrying you, Charles. Now ~let me go!~”

“Not until I get what I paid for!” he snarled. And then he pushed me hard against the flowery wallpaper that decorated the antechamber’s wall.

The breath rushed out of my lungs, and I was momentarily stunned at his sudden actions. The only time Charles had ever acted remotely like this was when he had grabbed my arm in the police station the night I insisted on taking Richard home with me. I had never dreamed he had such violence in him—or such malice.

The feeling of him fumbling to get under the voluminous white tulle skirt of my dress broke through my disbelief. Apparently, Charles had decided not to wait for the wedding night since there wasn’t going to be one, and he wanted what he considered his due now. I felt bad about cheating on him, bad about jilting him at the altar in front of his family, clients, and friends. But not nearly bad enough to let him rape me.

“Stop it! ~Stop~!” I demanded, pushing at his hands and kicking at his legs. But Charles was like a man possessed. He wanted me, and he was intent on having me. This was so much different than the night before, I thought disjointedly as I struggled with my fiancé turned would-be rapist. So entirely different, and it wasn’t just because Charles was behaving more like a beast than Richard ever had.

The night before, I had feared Richard in his beast form, but I had wanted him as well. Or rather, my body had wanted his. I had been wet and ready to accept him, my nipples tight peaks of need, and my sex flooded with my own desire. I had none of those feelings now. Now I was just frightened and revolted. And weak…so very weak. Just being near him seemed to make me ill.

“Charles, ~no~!” I gasped as he got his hand up my skirt and ripped away the crotch of my sheer white nylons, leaving me defenseless. “Get away—get back!” I threw the heavy diamond ring at him hard since it was the only weapon I had. It hit him on the cheek and left a bloody scratch, but that only seemed to make him angrier.

“Hold still, ~Dearest~,” he snapped, working to get my legs apart. “It will all be over in a moment. Just lean back, relax, and enjoy yourself. Or don’t—I don’t give a damn either way.”

I beat at him weakly, feeling like I was moving underwater. I felt sick—literally sick to my stomach. I wondered distantly if throwing up on his head would stop Charles in his mad assault and doubted it. He was enraged—a man who’d been cheated of his rightful property. Because that was all I was to him, I now realized, just property. A pretty piece of arm candy to show off during the wedding of the decade to all his clients and society buddies. I just wished I had seen it sooner. And even more, I wished I had the strength to push him off me. But I felt so weak, so terribly weak…

“Get off her. She’s ~mine!~” The sudden roar in the tiny room was so loud I thought it would make my ears bleed. With immense relief, I saw Richard storm through the door, his green eyes glowing possessively. But Charles was so intent on having me that he didn’t even look around. He had the fly of the elegant tux trousers open now and his short stubby cock was sticking out, proving that he meant business. Despite my efforts to push him away, he was still fumbling between us to make a connection. Only my huge skirt had saved me so far but I had the feeling he was crazy enough to just rip it off in order to get to the prize.

Richard didn’t give him a second warning. Instead, he grabbed Charles by the scruff of the neck as though my fiancé were a small kitten and heaved him across the room. I heard a hollow thumping sound as Charles landed in a heap in the corner and his head connected with the wall. He scrambled to his feet indignantly, clutching his head with one hand.

“How…how dare you?” he spluttered, pointing at Richard. “This is my wedding and that’s ~my~ fiancée.”

“Not anymore.” Richard’s voice was a low, menacing growl and “She’s my mate now. You ever come near her again and I’ll kill you.” He looked at me. “Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he, Rache?”

I swallowed hard. “I…I’m fine. Just a little sick to my stomach.”

“Well, well, and supposedly he only just fucked you last night. Having morning sickness already, ~Dearest?~” Charles hissed.

“That’s enough. Richard took a step towards Charles and at first I thought my fiancé, or should I say ~ex~-fiancé, would stand up to him which would have been a very stupid move. Instead, he straightened his tie and cleared his throat.

“Well,” he muttered and ran a hand through his hair to try and restore it to its former state of perfection. He reminded me of a cat that has been surprised into being clumsy and is grooming itself to hide its embarrassment.

“I’m leaving, Charles,” I said, smoothing my dress down with shaking hands. “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“Go on, then. Go.” He stood up straighter and gave me a superior look, as though dismissing me like a grubby child who’s been caught where she doesn’t belong. As though he hadn’t just been trying to rape me.

“Tell your mother I’m sorry she went to all this trouble for nothing,” I said. I was through apologizing to him but I did feel bad that his mother had planned, not to mention paid for, the entire wedding for nothing.

“I’ll tell her she was right about you all along,” Charles snarled, looking down his aquiline nose at me. “She always said you were trash, now I can see she was right. But first I shall go inform my guests that there will be no wedding today—or any day for that matter. Not with ~you~, Rachel. I hope you realize what you’re missing because I’ll ~never~ take you back.”

“I don’t want you to,” I said quietly. “Don’t worry, Charles, I’ll be perfectly happy if I never see you again.”

He lifted his chin. “We’ll see if you’re still singing the same tune once you’ve had five or six months of living in incestuous squalor with that…that--”

Richard’s menacing growl cut him off, and Charles shook his head and repeated, “We’ll just ~see~.” He stalked past us, giving Richard a very wide berth, and slammed the door of the antechamber behind him.

After a moment of silence, Richard turned to me. “Do you think we should have told him his dick was still hanging out of his fly before we let him go out in front of five hundred people to tell them the wedding is off?”

I burst into a fit of hysterical giggles. “Was it still? I didn’t even notice.”

“He’s swinging in the breeze,” Richard assured me, beginning to laugh too. Then he came over and put a soothing hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

At his touch on my skin, the horrible weakness seemed to melt away, and the nausea that had been oppressing me passed at once. Wow, touching him was better than taking a Tums and chasing it down with a Red Bull.

I was still laughing at the idea of Charles stepping into the crowded chapel with his dick hanging out (What would the U.S. Senators think of ~that?)~ and the crazy thought about Richard made me laugh even harder. I don’t know when the laughter turned to tears, but suddenly I was sobbing in his arms.

“Hey, it’s all right, baby. It’s all right.” He cradled me close, and I fit against him perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle, just the way I always had. “Come on.” Richard swung me up into his arms and kicked open the door.

“Where... where are we going?” I managed to ask, my head still buried in his shoulder.

“Home,” Richard told me. “To finish this once and for all.”