Under false pretenses.
I had to remind myself of that when Cora’s eyes found mine and her plastered-on smile crumbled behind a real one. She was smiling at me the way she smiled at him—like I was her world.
Matthew Adams had never been her whole world, but unknown to her, she’d been mine. That was why I was standing here now, posing as my twin brother, as his fiancée took the final steps toward me. I was doing this for her because I knew she loved him, and I didn’t want to see her hurt again at my brother’s hand.
Marry the woman you love, Matt, then let her spend the rest of her life with the man she loves.
The orchestra was just playing its final chords when Cora stopped beside me, her eyes matching the real smile still on her face. God, she was beautiful.
Too beautiful, I thought again, as I noticed the line of groomsmen appraising her with more than just casual regard. Cora had always been more than another one of the pretty girls; she was the standout. Every guy knew the type. The girl who shouldn’t be real, but there she was, passing you in the hallway every morning. The girl who’s noticed by every person she passes, male or female. She was so beautiful on the outside, few people took the time to get to know the beauty hiding underneath, but I had. I knew she was beautiful everywhere.
Jacob. Channel Jacob, I reminded myself as everyone took a collective seat behind us.
“Hey,” I whispered to her, winking.
Hey? What a moron. Who says hey to the woman he’s about to marry when she stopped beside him looking so damn perfect. I couldn’t feel my lungs.
“Hey,” she whispered back, like she didn’t think anything of it.
Because, yeah, Jacob totally would have said hey to his bride like a moron.
Cora had been versed in moron for practically two decades.
As the minister started droning on about something I probably should have been paying attention to, I tuned out. This wasn’t my wedding. This was hers. This was his. So instead I watched Cora, memorizing every detail of her face as she stared at the man across from her, who loved her like she was both a poison and an antidote.
When the pastor asked if I promised to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, until death do us part, that was the easiest question I’d ever had to answer. It was the simplest part of this mess of a day.
“I will.”
I was a married man. I’d married the woman I’d loved since we were eight years old.
Then why was my mood so damn grim? I splashed some more cold water onto my face at the sink of one of the many first floor bathrooms inside the house I’d grown up in. Outside, the reception was well under way. I could hear music and celebration spilling across the estate. Why did I feel like I’d soaked my world in kerosene and was about to drop a match?
The wedding had gone fast. Too fast. It felt like five minutes after I’d slipped into Jacob’s tux, Cora and I were being announced as husband and wife. If she suspected anything, she hadn’t shown it. She’d just said her vows, slipped a ring on my finger, and we’d exchanged an innocent kiss that didn’t make me feel innocent things.
I could still feel her lips on mine, the warmth of them seeping into mine, the slightest hint of mint on her breath. After nearly two decades of fanaticizing about kissing her, I finally had. At her and my brother’s wedding. How was that for a story to one day tell the grandkids?
Provided I had any since, yeah, Cora. I’d been so hung up on her, I’d gone on a pathetic handful of dates in my twenty-seven years, and after that kiss . . . fuck, I knew I’d spend the future just as hung up on her.
After drying off my face, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to try calling Jacob again. I’d been sneaking off to the bathroom all night to try to get a hold of him, and this call, like the ones before, ended in the same result. No answer. I was starting to worry. My brother had always drunk more than he should have, which had gotten him into plenty of shady situations.
Usually those situations involved waking up next to some woman whose name he didn’t know, but it was past six o’clock. His drunken stupor from last night should have worn off by now, along with the hangover, leaving enough room in his head for realization to hit that, holy shit, today was his wedding day.
Either Jacob hadn’t hit pause on whatever party he’d disappeared to last night, or something bad had happened. And I would feel like a real prick if I’d spent the afternoon marrying his fiancée and dancing with her and touching her if he was in some ditch in need of help.
I was just looking up the numbers to some of the local hospitals to see if a Jacob Adams had been admitted when a pounding sounded on the door.