Marriage: Impossible (Voretti Family Book 1) (10 page)

“You’re getting pretty emotional over someone who was just a mistake.”

“Sorry, Dr. Love. I forgot I was talking to a relationship expert.”

“At least I can man up enough to admit my feelings.”

“What feelings? You’ve been dating Annabelle for what? A week? And suddenly you’re getting married?”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“No, you don’t.” Somewhere in the back of Sean’s head he knew this was not the measured, reasonable argument he’d planned. But the words kept coming, fueled by something more powerful than logic. “You think you’re with the right woman, but you’re not. You’re…”

“I’m what?”

Hearing that warning note in Ty’s voice was like diving into a freezing ocean. All at once, Sean’s mind cleared, leaving him focused only on the task at hand. “I know it must be lonely without Bri. But this is not the solution. You can date Annabelle for a while, and then, if it still feels right….”

“Look.” Ty took a step forward, getting into Sean’s face. “You’re my best friend, and I know this wedding came out of nowhere, so I let you have your say. But that’s enough. I know Annabelle. She knows me. And we love each other. That’s all you need to know.”

Sean pulled in a breath. “I can’t let you do this.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“The hell I don’t.” He boxed Ty against the truck’s tailgate, blocking any escape routes. He’d throw his friend inside if he had to. Drive around until Ty came to his senses. “I won’t let you ruin the rest of your life.”

Ty’s nostrils flared. “This is my choice. Stay out of it.”

“No.”

“I’m not playing, Sean. Out of my way, or—”

“I can’t! Not when it’s all my fault.”

“Whoa.” Ty stood down. “Dude. What are you talking about?”

 
Time to go all in. That was the only chance Sean had of convincing his buddy the wedding was a mistake. “Don’t you get it? You never would’ve joined the Navy if it wasn’t for me. You wouldn’t have been hurt. Bri wouldn’t have left you.”

“Bri didn’t—”

“You wouldn’t be engaged to some chick you barely know.”

In the ensuing silence, the words seemed to echo off the dark clouds overhead.

“Okay. Let me get this straight.” Ty’s nostrils flared. “You think it’s your fault I’m about to ruin my life by marrying the woman I love. Does that sum it up?”

“She’s not the right woman for you. You’re only—”

“You know what?” Ty shoved him into the tailgate. “I think I will kick your ass.”

*

Keri downed the rest of her margarita as she scanned the restaurant for Ty and Sean, telling herself for the thirty-seventh time that there was no reason to panic. So they’d disappeared for twenty minutes. They were probably talking. Catching up.

No way would her brother get into a fistfight over her virtue the night before his wedding. He and Sean were mature adults now, not the same kids who’d given each other matching bloody noses during a “friendly discussion” about who was going to ask Marni Hart to prom.

Just in case, though, she hopped off her stool and retraced the path the boys had taken through the restaurant. With each step, her pace quickened and the pit in her stomach grew. Why had she given them such a big head start?

She pushed through the front door. Past the twinkle lights strung along the restaurant awning, it was dark, and she paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

She heard Sean before he saw him, his voice raw with panic. “You never would’ve joined the Navy if it wasn’t for me. You wouldn’t have been hurt. Bri wouldn’t have left you.”

Adrenaline shot through her veins. She sped down the sidewalk, heels wobbling.

The guys were facing off, so focused on each other they didn’t notice her stumbling to a halt behind Sean’s truck.

“I think I will kick your ass.” Ty threw himself at Sean.

Her heart jumped into her throat. “Stop it!”

Ty’s fist slammed into Sean’s stomach.

She didn’t think. She hurled herself into the tangled mess of arms and legs, bracing for the impact of a stray fist.

It never came. Strong arms cradled her against a rock-hard chest.

Sean
.

Ty backed away, breathing hard. “I was only trying to knock some sense into him. Though I doubt that’s even possible.”

“You’re the one who needs some sense knocked into you.” Sean’s tone was murderous. “You were half an inch from taking out her eye.”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him.

“I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t’ve hit my sister.”

That word—
sister
. Sean froze as soon as it came out of Ty’s mouth. A second later he was moving again, but only to eject her from the protective circle of his arms. He took a big step away, as if he didn’t trust himself to be close to her a second longer.

Ty barked out a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. “Look, dude. It’s the night before my wedding so I’m gonna get back to my fiancée. Maybe one day you’ll find someone you love as much as I love Annabelle, and then you’ll understand.” He took a step toward the restaurant, then stopped. “I hope you do.”

Pressure built behind her eyes. If Sean loved her like that….

Sean sank down until he was sitting on the bumper of his truck. His shoulders bowed, and his head fell into the cradle of his hands.

She crossed the remaining distance between them cautiously. “Are you all right?”

His head snapped up. A car approached, headlights raking over him, and the look on his face was pure anguish. And then, before the headlights passed, the look was gone.

“You should be at the party.” His voice had no inflection.

“So should you.”

“It’s been a long day.” He got up, walked to the driver’s side of the truck, and unlocked the door. “I’m going to take off. I’m sure you can find someone to hitch a ride with once the party breaks up.”

Panic pushed her into motion. She wrenched open the passenger’s side door and jumped in before Sean could leave her behind. “I’m not going back to the party. Do you really think I’d leave you alone like this?”

“Like what?”

“You’re upset.”

“No.” He shoved the metal end of his seatbelt into the buckle. His key nearly took out the ignition, and he gunned the engine. “I’m tired.”

“Ty is happy. Let’s be happy for him.”

“
Happy
?” He shot onto the road, speeding before he’d even cleared the parking space.

“He’s about to marry the woman he loves.”

“He’s about to marry the woman he’s settling for because I couldn’t bring Bri back. I couldn’t even do that much right.”

Silence stretched around them, and Keri remembered his earlier words to Ty.
You never would’ve joined the Navy if it wasn’t for me. You wouldn’t have been hurt. Bri wouldn’t have left you
.

My God. Had he been lugging around that huge burden for the past six months? She wanted to hug him and smack him at the same time. “It’s not your fault, Sean. Ty made his own choices.”

“Because of me. He never would’ve enlisted if I hadn’t. He had his acceptance letter from San Diego University, but when he found out I was joining the Navy, he went to the recruiter with me. I told him he was an idiot. He didn’t need the GI bill—he had your parents to pay tuition, rent, whatever he needed. He laughed. Said he wasn’t going to let me have all the fun without him.”

“That was his choice. And he loved it. You know he did.”

“Yeah.” Sean’s hands clenched around the steering wheel. “Right up until those bastards blew his leg to hell and back with an IED.”

“And you think that’s your fault, too?”

“He was my responsibility. He wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for me.”

The pain in his voice destroyed her. She’d do anything to take it away. But all she had were words. And she had to choose exactly the right ones. “If you and Ty had switched places—if it had been you who’d been hurt—would you have blamed him?”

Sean was silent, staring at the thin patch of white his headlights cast on the road. “That’s different. I told you—I’m the only reason Ty joined the Navy. If it wasn’t for me….” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done, and I can’t fix it. Not even this disaster of a marriage. I don’t know why I even tried. I thought, maybe….”

She sat silently, waiting for him to go on. Wishing it weren’t so dark, so she could see his expression.

“But I couldn’t even manage that. The second I said Annabelle might not be the right one, he lost his shit.”

“He wasn’t mad because you questioned if he belonged with Annabelle. Well, okay—he was mad about that, too. But, mainly, he was angry because you were treating him like a helpless little kid who can’t make his own decisions.”

Sean shook his head, the motion so slight he probably wasn’t even aware of it. “That’s not what I was doing.”

“Weren’t you?”

She loved his strength. His fierce sense of loyalty and responsibility. But, more importantly, she loved
him
.

The knowledge filled her with purpose. She wasn’t going to let him drown in guilt.
 
“I hate to break it to you, but you’re not all powerful. Ty doesn’t want or need you to take care of him.”

As the words echoed in the silent truck cab, the truth of them hit her—as sudden and cataclysmic as a heart attack. She’d been doing the same thing as Sean—telling herself it was okay to lie about their marriage because she was the only one who could help him. Because he needed her to take care of him.

She’d been lying to herself. Sean was an adult, perfectly capable of taking care of himself. The fact of the matter was, the only one who could help Sean was Sean.

She needed to tell him the truth.

K
ERI
CLEARED
HER
throat. But before she could force her confession out, Sean was talking.

“I guess…I’ve never thought about it like that.” He pulled into the reserved space for his apartment. “Maybe I have been taking too much on myself. I can’t change my perspective in a second, but I’m going to try. I really am. And what you said before about finding a therapist to talk to—I want to do that. I need to do that.”

“That’s great.” Her voice sounded funny. Maybe because her heart was beating all the way up in her throat.

The force of his gaze was too much. She should’ve confessed while he was distracted by the road.

“And I’m going to try to make this marriage work. I know I don’t deserve you, but I love you.” He sighed. “I don’t want to fuck this up. I’d kill anyone who hurt you, including myself.
Especially
myself. I want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

She felt the words more than she heard them, and her body floated away on a cloud of euphoria. “Then be with me. That’s what makes me happy. Because I love you, too. So, so much.”

Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay up in the clouds forever, and when she came back to earth, the panic was right there, waiting. “But we have to talk. There’s something—”

“Later.” He cut the engine. “You love me, and I love you. We can talk about everything else in the morning.”

*

Sean had no memory of getting from his truck to his bedroom. Time had stopped, only starting again when he pulled Keri to him. His lips touched hers, and sparks flew.

He’d kissed her hundreds of times in the past week, but this was different. This was more than her lips meeting his. More than frantic desire. This was their bodies saying the words they’d only just shared with each other.
I love you.

He laid her down in his bed, on his sheets. Covered her with his body. Caught her breathy moan in his mouth.

He didn’t understand how he’d gotten so lucky, but he was done fighting it. She loved him, and that changed everything.

“Hurry, Sean. I need you.”

“Need you too, honey. But I want this to last.”

He undressed her as slowly as he could bear. Urgency pulsed inside him, but he refused to rush this. He was going to remember every sigh, every touch, every heated kiss because this was the best night of his life.

You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve to be happy.

The familiar voice was faint. Easy to ignore. Sometime in the past hour, it had lost its power.

And then Keri pulled him closer, and he couldn’t hear the voice at all. Not when she was making that catchy moan, arching against him like he was all she wanted. Everything.

Somehow, he found a condom. She came almost as soon as he thrust inside her, and the feel of her, tight around him, was almost too much.

I love you.
He tried to say it, but the pleasure was building too fast. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but go where it took him, higher and higher until he fell back to the earth, broken—forever changed.

But as he lay there panting, his arms wrapped around Keri, the pieces inside of him bonded back together stronger than before.

She had done that. She had shown him how to heal.

*

Sean came awake to a piercing cold.

He’d kicked off the covers sometime during the night, but summer temperatures in Southern California rarely dipped below sixty degrees, so that wasn’t it. The problem was, Keri was gone.

He sat up. It was after 0900, hours later than he usually slept.

The blinds were closed. Still, the room was small, and enough light leaked between the slats to see that Keri wasn’t looking through his closet for a clean shirt or sitting at his desk checking her email.

His heart pounded like he’d sprinted ten miles uphill.

Calm down.

If he had a panic attack every time his wife had to use the bathroom or decided to get some breakfast, this marriage wouldn’t last a month. But as he pulled on jeans and double-timed it down the hall, he couldn’t regain the fragile sense of peace that had soothed him to sleep last night.

The apartment had that deadly silence that fell before a balls-out firefight, and he knew even before he pushed through the half-open door that he wasn’t going to find Keri in the bathroom. She wasn’t in the kitchen either.

A faint rustle drew his attention. Keri was curled up in the middle of his couch, where the cushion sagged because he always sat in the exact same place. Her feet were drawn under her, and a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, and she was
here
. Right here in his apartment where she belonged.