No, she answered silently, bitterly. He was one man in desperate need of a sense of humor.
“I’m trying to prevent you further embarrassment,” he added with the same infuriating calm. “I considered waiting until you’d arrived at the church, the guests filling the pews. I could just picture your eager groom at the altar, standing there in his black-and-white tux—he is wearing a tuxedo, isn’t he?”
She couldn’t bear to be the brunt of Kahlil’s scorn. She’d witness him level others in the past, but never her. Kahlil had never been anything but protective, generous, loving.
Her heart squeezed on the last one, pained by the unwanted memory. Their marriage had been brief. Too brief but she couldn’t go back, couldn’t undo the past. “I think it’s time you left.”
He put his hand in the door to keep her from shutting it in his face. “I’ve tried to be polite, but perhaps it’s better if I’m blunt. There will be no wedding next Saturday. And as long as I live, there will be no wedding to any man, ever.”
She ground her jaw together, struggling to contain her temper. Maybe in his country men could veil their women, tell them how to dress, what to think, where to go, but not in the United States, and not in her home. “I don’t belong to you.”
“Actually, in Zwar, you do.”
“People are not objects, Kahlil!”
Pushing the door all the way open, he picked her up, hands encircling her rib cage, thumbs splayed beneath her breasts. His fingers felt like fire against her skin, searing straight through the bodice of her gown. Her breasts tingled, her senses responding to him just as they’d always responded to him. He could turn her into puddles of need in no time flat.
Kahlil tipped her backwards just enough to knock her off her feet, and sent her heart racing. “How could you possibly think I’d let you marry another man? How could you think I’d give you up?”
“Because the divorce—” she choked, beginning to feel genuinely frightened, not by him but by the idea of still being married to him. Their marriage was over; it had to be over.
“What divorce?” he demanded.
“The divorce…our divorce.”
The dark hallway threw sinister shadows across his face. “There was no divorce. You never returned the last of the paperwork, and with documents unsigned the divorce was dropped.”
Her mouth dried. Her heart hammered harder. She could feel every ragged beat, every quick painful surge of blood. “Documents?” she stuttered, repeating the word as though it were foreign.
“I contested the divorce, refused to accept that you’d left me. It wasn’t desertion, I told the judge, but a temporary leave of absence. The judge sent you paperwork and you never filled it out. Therefore the divorce wasn’t granted.”
“You bought the judge. You gave him money—”
“Don’t get carried away. Your legal system isn’t all that corrupt. If you want to place blame, place it on your shoulders.”
He’d rendered her speechless, stole her breath, her words, her anger.
Could he be possibly right? Had she somehow let paperwork slip?
Her brain raced, struggling to remember that first year, those horrible months of struggling with the baby on her own. She’d moved a half-dozen times in as many months, did temp jobs on top of her regular job just to pay her bills. Swallowing hard Bryn found her voice. “I didn’t know you could contest a divorce in Texas.”
“In Texas, anything’s possible.”
She suddenly saw him scooping Ben into his arms, boarding his private jet and taking off. He’d have Ben. She’d never see him again. The vision was so awful, so vivid and real, it felt as though he’d thrust his dagger, the one he wore beneath his robes, straight through her heart. “Why are you doing this?”
His gold-flecked gaze slowly moved across her face, scrutinizing. “You married me. You understand the vows. I’m keeping the vows. And so are you.”
“I’ll never live with you again, Kahlil.”
“But you are my wife. You’ll remain my wife.”
She crossed her arms over her chest chilled to the bone. A life tied to him. It would be a life in chains. And Ben…she closed her eyes, unable to bear the thought of Ben trapped with her.
Her lashes lifted, her gaze fixed on her husband’s face. She’d once found him impossibly beautiful. Now she found him impossibly frightening. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Her stomach fell, plummeting to her feet. Never. Ever, ever. She dug her fingers into her bare upper arms, fingers pressing into muscle, nails into firm flesh. “It’s not going to happen.”
He smiled, a small, hard, uncompromising smile. “It will. I’ll bet my life on it.” Kahlil moved to the door, opened it and stepped onto the small cement porch. “I’ll send my car for you tomorrow. We’ll have dinner, discuss the future.”
She lunged toward him, fists clenched. “There is no future!”
“Oh, yes, there is. How does seven o’clock sound?”
She’d have Ben here then. It would be his bathtime, then stories and bed. She couldn’t possibly go out, couldn’t possibly let Kahlil return here, either. “You can’t just bully your way back into my life. If what you say is true…” Her voice fell away. She swallowed hard, unable to fathom such a truth. After a tense silence she forced herself to continue. “I need time. I need to make some calls, and of course, there is Stan—”
“Oh, yes, nice old Stanley Hopper. Your boss, your fiancé, your insurance agent.”
“Get out.”
Shrugging he reached for the doorknob, twisting it open. “I’m staying at the Four Seasons. I won’t leave town until we’ve sorted matters out.” He leaned over, dropped a kiss on her parted lips. “By the way, you look lovely in that dress.”
She’d forgotten all about her wedding gown. Self-consciously she pressed the skirt smooth, the silk delicate and light beneath her fingertips. She’d been trying it on, making sure it didn’t need any last-minute alterations. “I wanted to see if it fit.”
“It fits.” He smiled, eyes glinting. “Beautifully.”
Bryn was still shaking an hour after Kahlil finally left. She’d changed, made a cup of tea, but couldn’t relax, couldn’t calm down.
Kahlil was wrong, he had to be wrong. She wasn’t married to him. She wasn’t his wife. She couldn’t be.
Her thoughts raced here, there, scattering in a thousand directions as she drove to Ben’s preschool to pick him up.
If she were really still Kahlil’s wife, then Kahlil would have a legal right to see Ben. To take Ben.
Making
