that she was going to so say or do something that she was going to regret, and sadly, kicking him in the balls probably wouldn’t make her feel bad right now.
So, with that in mind, she continued to walk towards the exit, ignoring the curious looks as well as the ones of disgust because she was walking away from a man in a wheelchair. Yeah, she’d admit that she was acting like a bitch, but she really didn’t care at the moment. She was too damn tired and too damn hungry to give a damn what anyone thought.
Doubling her steps, she walked through the exit, past the tired looking travelers and headed for the line of taxis. Within seconds she was in a car and heading towards the nearest hotel with twenty-four hour room service.
The boys could have their secrets.
That was more than fine with her, she told herself trying not to cry or feel sorry for herself, but with so many hormones surging through her body and the fact that she was tired and hungry, it was impossible. By the time they’d arrived at the large hotel she was a mess, barely able to say thank you to the taxi driver as he helped her with her meager possessions or the doorman who held the door for her as the concierge ran to get her a box of tissues.
Since she wasn’t able to communicate without hysterically, they settled for nods, shakes of her head and holding up fingers to let them know how many rooms she needed, nights, etc. Twenty minutes later with a new understanding of mortification, she was finally in a room, the door locked behind her and a large room service order placed.
Knowing that she had time for a warm bath to settle her nerves before the food arrived, she started a large bath in the two person garden tub, took off her clothes, grabbed a twenty dollar bottle of orange juice from the mini-bar and settled into the nice, hot bath and felt herself instantly begin to relax.
This was exactly what she needed, she told herself as she took a sip of the overpriced-watered-down drink. She just need a night for herself to think things through and figure out some things for herself. She already knew that she would do whatever it took to make things work with Danny.
That really was a no brainer.
She loved him more than anything and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. No, her problem was this secretive business between the cousins, the fact that he hadn’t even mentioned that they were now married even though they were both wearing matching bands and she’d found the Las Vegas marriage certificate in the bottom of his duffle bag the other day.
The problem she had was this highhanded bullshit that apparently went along with being a Bradford.
Well, that and she had a craving for pumpkin pie…
Chapter 9
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t release that information,” the desk clerk said with a professional, friendly smile, but the look in his eyes said it all…
He thought Danny was the biggest piece of shit to ever disgrace his hotel lobby. That was fine, because he wasn’t all that thrilled with himself either at the moment. That didn’t mean that he was going to sit here and let some asshole keep him away from his wife.
It just wasn’t happening.
“Tell me which room my wife is in,” he bit out between clenched teeth as he grabbed onto the armrests of his wheelchair, prepared to shove himself to his feet, uncaring that he couldn’t walk on his own yet, just so he could grab this prick by the throat and force him to tell him where his wife was.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we respect our guest’s privacy,” the man said with that damn polite smile that was going to get him killed even as the look in his eyes told Danny how much the little prick was enjoying this. He’d bet every last cent that he had that his wife had been crying by the time she got here, which only made him that much more desperate to get to her.
He would have been here sooner, but since his father was currently indisposed that left him with Jason and Trevor to help him and since both of them were full of shit…
“You’re going about this all wrong,” Trevor pointed out as he idly tapped his fingers against the marble countertop as he glanced around the small, empty hotel foyer.
“You’re wasting your time,” Jason added from where he leaned against the wall behind him.
“No, I’m not,” he bit out, damning that bike messenger to hell and back for cutting him off before he could get in the cab and away from his cousins.
“You really are,” Jason said with a shrug as he pushed away from the wall and helped himself to a small cup of lemonade by the courtesy desk. “If you were smart,” Jason started to explain only to pause to take a sip of his juice, “you’d let one of us take her home so that the curse would end sooner.”
Trevor shook his head with a disgusted snort. “That’s not going to work.”
“If we separate them, the honeymoon ends,” Jason said, gesturing towards Danny with his cup, “End of story.”
“You think so?” Trevor asked, chuckling without humor while he sat there, wondering how he kept getting stuck with assholes.
They were great guys.
They really were and if they weren’t his cousins, they’d probably still be two of his best friends, but God, some days he just wanted to beat the shit out of them and throw their bodies down a deep fucking well and today was definitely one of those days. While he was trying to get to his wife and make sure that she was okay, they were arguing about this fucking curse, trying to decide “their” next move and making this a hell of a lot more difficult than it needed to be.
All he wanted to do was to find his wife, pull her in his arms and hold her before he broke the bad news to her that she was now a Bradford, which meant that she was going to have to deal with some seriously fucked up shit for the rest of her life.
That was it.
“The curse only fucks with us during the first year of marriage and only until we get home. Once we get them both home safely, this fucking curse will end and they can get a fresh start,” Jason argued.
“How do you know this won’t follow them if we intervene?” Trevor snapped and it was in that moment that he realized that his family was fucking crazy.
Well, he’d already figured that out before, but that wasn’t the point. He’d been lucky enough to marry the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and instead of savoring that victory, he’d been doing everything he could to protect her from a curse that he suddenly realized might be nothing more than Bradford bullshit that they’d all made come true over the years as a result of their paranoia.
He was truly a fucking moron.
“Where are you going?” Trevor asked, but he ignored his cousin and focused on the prick manning the desk.
“My. Wife,” he bit out, sounding every bit the marine that he’d once been. “Where is she?”
*-*-*-*
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bradford, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked a bit distractedly as she frowned at the nervous man in front of her, almost positive that this had been the overly-polite man that had handed her a box of tissues when she’d checked in a few hours ago.
He shifted nervously as he wrapped his arms around himself, but the move didn’t hide the fact that he was trembling. He looked over his shoulder, towards the elevator as he cleared his throat. “We need you to leave,” he repeated hoarsely, looking close to crying.
“Because…,” she said slowly, having a pretty good idea about what had terrified the middle-aged man.
Keeping his eyes locked on the elevator, he admitted, “I’d rather not say.”
“I see,” she mumbled, following his gaze to the elevator and then to the stairway door where another employee stood waiting and looking like the tiniest noise would set him off into a full out run.
“Does this have anything to do with a very large man in a wheelchair?” she asked, and yup, just like that, the man standing near the door made a run for it.