Broken Heart. Laura Browning

      Avoiding him was nearly impossible. Wherever Stacey looked, Mason Hatch was in her line of sight. Since she was attending her brother Brandon’s wedding, she couldn’t leave, but she sure wished Jace would stick by her side this once. She scanned the room, but her husband was nowhere to be seen.

      “Hubby MIA again?” Mason’s voice was as smooth as silk in her ear. The fact he simply echoed her thoughts didn’t make his intrusion into them any more palatable. “I could tell you where to look, but I don’t think you’d like what you’d find.”

      “Stop it!” Stacey hissed between clenched teeth. Every time she encountered Mason, he made some cryptic remark about her husband. Stacey was tired of it, in part because she had enough doubts concerning her marriage. But not today. She refused to have them today. Today was supposed to be perfect. Jason had made love to her last night, had tried once again to talk her into starting a family. She wanted children. She did, but something always held her back. She couldn’t stall too much longer, doing so wasn’t fair to either of them, yet the mere thought of a divorce in her oh-so-Catholic family made her shudder. God, was she really contemplating divorce? Her mother would flip.

      “Just trying to make conversation among these Virginia purebreds,” Mason purred, once again barging into her brain. Why was there always a hint of amusement in his voice, as if he were actually laughing at her? Yes, she had been unfair to him, but had his contempt been there all along? Had he always regarded her with a smirk?

      She sneaked a glance, finding her heels brought her nearly eye-to-eye with him. He was not short by any means, she’d simply inherited every bit of the Barlow-Barrett height and her mother’s slenderness to boot. How often she had wished for even a touch of her younger sister Preston’s curviness and her infinitely more diminutive height.

      “Why can’t you single out someone else to talk to?” she demanded, knowing she sounded as petulant as she felt. “Don’t you have a date?”

      He arched one dark brow, his eyes glittering like obsidian. “Perhaps I’m conducting a scientific experiment.”

      “Oh? And what would your experiment be?” She didn’t want to continue this conversation, but she had no defense against his goading, had never been able to resist it, and that was what had gotten them in trouble to begin with. He was the match. She was the kindling.

      “To see if there’s actually a living, breathing woman still left under your high-class brittleness, or has the rarified air of your married life already drained it away?”

      It shouldn’t hurt. Not anymore, but it seemed she could still bleed if pricked. And Mason was stabbing deep with his verbal needling. She stared into his still cynically amused expression. “Fuck you,” she whispered, her lips barely moving because she felt so frozen.

      “The F-bomb, baby? In public?” He laughed, letting his gaze drop along her body. “Been there, done that.”

      Before she could think of any response, he had walked away, leaving behind only the deep contempt with which he’d stared at her. Stacey stood at the edge of the laughter and the crowd, feeling more isolated than if she’d been standing alone on the deck of her sailboat somewhere in the middle of the ocean. She swallowed and stuck her chin up.

      A Barlow-Barrett must always stand straight and hold her head high. It had been one of the hardest of her mother’s lessons for Stacey to learn as a gawky teenager. Taller than her peers, what she’d wanted to do was slump. As she did now, right before she slunk away into some dark corner where she could lick her wounds in private. But there was never any privacy in her family. They were in the spotlight whether they liked it or not.

      Stacey needed to move. If she continued to stand here on her own, she would draw attention, something her mother would never forgive. Feeling some disgust at how tied she still was to pleasing her parents, Stacey moved back among the guests. No one would be able to fault her for not circulating, not making people feel welcome. The entire time she nodded, smiled and made appropriate comments, one part of her brain was detached. Nearly a half hour passed before she saw Jason return to the ballroom in the company of a man she had seen once or twice at various functions she’d attended recently with her husband. They were both tall, attractive men–perfect foils for one another. Jace’s dark hair appeared slightly ruffled, but his companion’s short blond locks were in perfect order. Even as she looked at them, she saw the two men laugh before they gripped hands and parted company. Her husband looked more relaxed than he ever seemed to be with her.

      Jace headed her way, a smile curving his generous mouth as he saw her. Cupping her elbow a moment later, he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “You look lovely, Stacey, as always.” His compliment sounded impersonal as his gaze skated over the gathering. “Everything going all right? No outbreak of pole dancing by the bride or her guests?”

      “Jason!” Stacey admonished. “Lucy is a wonderful person. You know the dancing was only to support herself until her art career got going.”

      He grimaced. “Still, darling, a stripper, no matter how noble the cause, is not exactly our kind of people.”

      “You pay too much attention to what other people think,” she shot back, then realized the same applied to her.

      Stacey remembered the day she and Brandon had plucked Lucy from the bay after her dinghy capsized. She’d been prepared to think badly of the woman until then, but after meeting her and getting to know her, Stacey had realized how lucky Brandon was. She opened her mouth to defend her brother’s bride, then shut it. She didn’t want to create any dissension with her husband, not when it seemed things might be going better between the two of them. Besides, her defense would do nothing to change what was so ingrained as to be second nature to him. Anything or anyone different was hushed, hidden or looked down upon.

      “People like us have to, darling. Have you thought any more about what we discussed last night?” Jason’s hand rubbed the small of her back, his head bent solicitously to her.

      Her stomach fluttered with nerves rather than desire. “I don’t know, Jace. I… Can you give me a little more time?”

      Displeasure flitted across his aristocratic features before he once again assumed the urbane smile he wore at all social functions. “We’re Catholic, darling. Babies are expected. You’ll turn thirty next month, so you’re not getting any younger.”

      She wasn’t getting any younger? As if her eggs were any older than his sperm? But Stacey didn’t say anything. Once again she heard her mother’s voice, like a metronome of patrician aphorisms. As a Barlow-Barrett, you must support your husband. Lord, she was trying, but it seemed more

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