The Wedding Date Disaster (Harbor City 4)

The words were innocuous, but that didn’t stop the icy dread slithering through her veins. Something was wrong, really wrong. She stood there in the middle of the cabin with the man she’d fallen in love with, and it was all she could do not to cry and she didn’t even know why.

“Come on, Hadley, don’t hold out on me now.” Each word came out hard and cold, completely erasing the Will she thought she knew. “The gig is up—we both know you’ve been working on this little plan of yours for months.”

She had no idea what was going on. How he’d found out about the loan from her parents or why he was so mad about it. “Will—”

“And last night, that was for insurance obviously.” His lips curled upward, but it wasn’t any kind of thing that could be called a smile. “A nice touch. I mean, some people might say it was a step too far, but the Holt fortune is pretty big.”

Getting trampled by the bull in the north pasture couldn’t have hurt more than that accusation thrown out so casually that the cruelty was doubled. It sent her two steps back and reaching out for the wall to keep her balance.

“That is bullshit,” she finally got out, her voice hoarse.

Will let loose with a harsh chuckle. “Come on, you said it yourself: it was time to stop pretending.”

What. A. Bastard. Heat rushed up from somewhere deep inside her, a reservoir of fury she didn’t realize she possessed. “That’s what you think I was talking about? My nonexistent gold-digging scheme that you’re obsessed with?”

“Vigilant, not obsessed,” he snapped back. “Really, I think you should be proud of yourself, of just how you were almost able to pull it off.”

“The level of assholery here is epic.” Not to mention the case of emotional whiplash she had now—it had been what, a few hours since he signed his note with Xs and Os? Wow. He must have really meant everything he said.

“I agree.” He stalked forward, not getting anywhere near her but still moving around the room like a caged animal. “You really should have picked a brother and stuck with it.”

“You need to get your head out of your ass and stop assuming that everyone out there is just waiting to fuck you over. Grow up and learn that not everyone in the world is waiting to fuck you over, but with your shit attitude you sure do make it tempting.”

“I’m sure you’d like me to think that this was just my imagination.”

“Seriously, what is wrong with you?” She clamped her jaw shut so tight, her molars would have winced if they could to keep the angry tears building up from falling down her cheeks. For someone who’d spent most of her life faking that everything was perfect, she sure had been fucked over by someone who put her skills to shame. Fuck her, she’d believed him. She’d believed in them. She was an unrivaled moron. “I thought I’d been wrong about you, that I could just be me, that’s what I meant about not pretending. I thought we had something real.”

He scoffed. “The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves, darling. Then again, I bet that just makes you a more convincing gold digger.”

“Get out.”

“What, you don’t want to try to convince me of your down-home country truthfulness?” he asked, smirking as if this was all just a game.

Each word was salt getting ground into all the jagged wounds in her heart and at some point in time, a woman had to know when she’d reached her limit. Fuck this. She may not be perfect, but she was a better woman than he deserved.

“I’m done wasting my time with you.” She tossed him the keys to the rental. “Just go. Follow the gravel road to the highway and then your phone GPS will start working well enough to get you back to the airport.”

He paused inside the open door, keys in hand and a smug look on his handsome face. “What? No goodbye kiss for the road?”

“You really are the worst, Will Holt,” she said, truly meaning every single word of it for the very first time ever.

The bastard just took off his black cowboy hat and sent it sailing onto the bed. It landed with a soft thump in the middle of all the twisted-up sheets, a final fuck-you to what she’d been foolish enough to think meant something. Then he walked out the door and drove off in the rental.

Hadley kept it together until the dust cloud kicked up by the car’s tires disappeared. Then, with a silent cry, she let the tears flow.

Chapter Nineteen

Still seething and his gut a block of ice, Will boarded the plane back to Harbor City. The entire drive back to the airport, he’d spent mentally reviewing every single second of the trip, looking for what he’d missed, that telltale sign of Hadley’s true plan. Like some kind of masochistic fool, though, instead of finding the answers he wanted, he kept remembering the softness of her hair, the way she smiled when she didn’t think anyone was looking, and her absolutely hilariously awful drawing attempts during Pictionary.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket before sitting down in seat 3A and called the number he’d found a million reasons to avoid until he couldn’t anymore. Web picked up on the second ring, his hello too happy for what was about to come next, but Will didn’t have a choice.

“Cancel the check to Hadley,” he said without returning his brother’s greeting.

“What check?”

Will’s grip on his phone tightened. Sometimes his brother’s literal-mindedness was enough to send him over the edge, and he didn’t need any help today. “Fine, don’t make the money transfer.”

“Did you get kicked in the head by a horse? Because you are not making sense.”