When Honey Got Married (22 page)

About the Author

Australian writer Ally Blake is a redhead, a footy fan, a devotee of the language of Aaron Sorkin; she is addicted to stationery and M&Ms, weak in the face of Italians and firefighters, married to a spectacular and ever-patient man, mum to three beings of pure delight, and a firm believer in love, luck, and fairies.

She is also a best-selling author with more than twenty-five fun, flirty romance novels under her belt with over three million copies of her books sold worldwide.

For Ally’s take on life, writing, and other fancy stuff, head to
www.allyblake.com
.

Honey Lived Happily Ever After

Ally Blake

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Ally Blake. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Edited by Shannon Godwin

Cover design by Danielle Barclay

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-092-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition May 2013

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Clint Black, Cole Porter, The Graduate, Harry Winston, Technicolor.

To our incandescently hapless Honey and the whimsical (and imaginary!) town of Bellefleur. ‘Twas a trip and a pleasure.

Honey Moreau was married.

Honey
Delacroix
, she reminded herself as she stared blindly at the privacy screen at the front of the stretch limo and for a moment felt like she was smack-bang in the middle of the final shot of
The Graduate.
Only she’d actually married the groom.

Married. She’d married Brent Delacroix! She waited for her heart to give an ecstatic little kick against her ribs at the thought. Then she waited some more. But nothing happened. No kick, no vibration, not even a hint of a whisper of a murmur.

She
was
married, though. At least she was pretty sure it was over and done with. She remembered standing behind the big doors leading out to the lawn of the glorious Belles Fleurs plantation. She remembered hearing the music swell, feeling her daddy’s hand locked tight over hers. Remembered the light press of her mother’s hand in the small of her back as the doors swung open. Remembered the swell of liquid panic rise in her throat and then…

Nothing.

She looked down at her hands, cupped neat and still in her lap. No wringing, or chipping at her perfect nails. No tapping her feet, which were placed neatly on the floor of the luxury car that hummed and rocked beneath her, her knees locked together and tilting slightly to one side. She was far too well-bred for all that. So well-bred, in fact, that a diamond-encrusted band encircled her ring finger. Harry Winston. Platinum. Custom-made.

She let her fingers twirl the ring in place, quietly surprised to find the metal warm when she felt no warmth. No warmth at all.

And yet her entire life—cotillion, French lessons, cheerleading captain, prom queen, Junior League, political science degree—had been in preparation for this day. Meaning, now that she’d made it, she ought to be feeling happy. Satisfied at the very least.

She’d take relieved at this point.

Because the truth was, at the close of the most expensive, most exquisite, most exorbitant wedding ever seen in the fair city of Bellefleur, while back at the glorious Belles Fleurs plantation her wedding guests looked to the sky, to fireworks currently soaring from a river barge from the river beyond, all Honey Moreau felt was numb.

Delacroix
, she reminded herself.

At that, though a few beats after her brain told them to, her eyes slid to her husband—her
husband
—in the distant hope he might appear as shell-shocked as she felt. But it was hard to tell when all she could see of him was from the neck down. He had his head out the window like a hound dog, his mind still in party mode as he watched the fireworks erupting behind them.

While her head spun in so many directions, she was worried it might twirl right off.

She. Was.
Married
.

Which—despite the blood, sweat, and tears that had gone into breeding her to be just that—was a miracle in and of itself.

Consider.

She’d earned Brent on the rebound. From Pippa. Her best friend. Who’d fled town leaving him in need of…comfort, which she’d all too willingly supplied. Not the best start to any relationship, surely.

And probably part of the reason they’d broken up more times than she could count. Though her mother assured her none of that mattered, so long as they got back together more times than they split. Score one to Honey!

Score two, he
had
proposed a year ago. After nine years together. Count ’em:
nine
. Even while there was no doubt she’d have said yes. At any point. It was her duty to marry well. To marry wealth. To marry with political allegiance. Brent ticked all those boxes with a big gold pen.

The fact that she’d been in love with Brent Delacroix, since the moment she’d first seen him, was mere happy coincidence.

Or perhaps that was the biggest reason of all that she’d spent the last year driving herself plum crazy. Had he proposed because he couldn’t live without her? Or did he realize he couldn’t live without what she brought to the table?

And just to keep things real interesting,
then
there was the proposal itself. They’d been taking one of their regular “breathers” when Brent had gone to a conference in Dallas with his assistant, Eve, a Bellefleur High alumna, a girl whom Honey had always found sweet, despite the rumors she was some kind of man-eater.

Brent had come home from that trip changed. Gruff. Serious. Determined. He’d put down his foot that day, demanded that she marry him. She’d liked that. The putting down of the foot. And the proposal. She’d been so happy she’d blubbered all over his beautiful woolen suit.

It had taken about half an hour before she’d begun to wonder. Why
then
? Why the sudden determination after years of dillydallying? Had she pushed him into it? Or had she in fact pushed him into Eve? What if their entire relationship had been based on his knee-jerk reactions to the moments he’d slipped from the pedestal he’d built for himself? Was she, the well-bred judge’s daughter, his way of dragging himself to the straight and narrow?

The fingers gripping her ring slipped and she scratched her palm. She brought the spot to her mouth, careful not to muss her lipstick as she pressed the tender site to her mouth. At least, she tried, but the hand shook. It shook so hard she shoved it back into her lap, driving it into a mound of Parisian white tulle that cost more than the average small car.

She scrunched her eyes tight. Not wanting to see the dress. Or the inside of the extravagant car. Or the reflection of the fireworks bouncing off the windows. At what point had she let her wedding become a snowball rolling down a cliff followed by an avalanche?

No. It was worse.
She
was that snowball. And for twelve months she’d been waiting for the avalanche to rain down on top of her. Not waiting, pushing,
forcing
it. Because the expectation that it would happen, just
had
to happen, that even
one
of the wobbly pieces of their foundation would come unstuck, had been hell on earth.

She put her hands out to brace herself as they turned the corner that would take them to Baton Rouge, and the gargantuan honeymoon suite at the Villemont—thank goodness for Grace Henson, the backup wedding planner, on that score, as Honey’s original planner had tried to steal her original booking out from under her after eloping with someone else’s groom!

Then Brent pulled his head in. Sitting on the other end of the seat with a
whump
, and pressing the button to close the window. The sound of the car’s tires swishing against the road dissipated, leaving them in near silence bar the soft strains of Cole Porter humming through the speakers.

Brent’s neck was pink from the wind. His Delacroix-blue eyes bright. Even as anxiety pummeled her every nerve, willing the numbness to abate and let in all the dammed-up feelings threatening to overwhelm her, nothing could neutralize her reaction to the guy.

Her next breath in was long and deep as her eyes roved over skin brown against the snow white of his shirt, and over pressed black trousers that strained against the might of his left tackle’s thighs. He’d hooked his dinner jacket neatly over a hanger, and his bow tie hung loose at his strong neck.

When her eyes found his, it was to find him watching her with a half-smile and laughter in his eyes.

Despite the million reasons she had to doubt, her heart finally came to the party, flipping over in her chest at the sight of him, even after all those years. As when he looked at her like that, all quiet and focused and relaxed, it
looked
like love.

Not that she was entirely sure what love looked like.

Her parents loved each other. She got that. But you’d never see anything so gauche as a public display of affection from them. They took discreet to a whole new level. And as for the way her father had turned his back on her little sister, Nina, when she’d run away from home, so quick, so unforgiving… Was
that
love? One mistake, one disagreement, and it was gone? Was love worth risking your heart for if it was that easy to lose?

“Whatcha thinking about all the way over there, wife?” Brent asked.

Everything it is possible to think about and then some.
“Nothing much.”

“Hmmm,” he said, his eyes sliding to the privacy screen then back to her, the politician in him thinking about talking in front of an audience. He shuffled closer, his thigh brushing against hers. Or it might have if not for the acres of white tulle taking up half the seat. “I think you forget that I know you, Honore Moreau,” he said, his voice dropping a note. “Something’s rattling around inside that tangled old mind of yours. And you’d better tell me what or I’ll begin to worry we’ve run out of things to say.”

Now that her heart was working again, it pumped harder than smart, but not in a hearts and flowers way. In the hope-her-new-husband-hadn’t-a-clue-what-she’d-been-thinking. She was the wife of a well-respected businessman now. A future senator for the great state of Louisiana. A woman in her position couldn’t be seen to have doubts. Fears. Moments.

She knew. It had been bred into her since before she could walk.

“I was thinking fireworks,” she said, sliding her hands over her hair, as if it might tidy the thoughts below. “Wondering if they might have been a bit much.”

Ha!
Said she who’d insisted on two bands, an ice sculpture of her and Brent celebrating the Bellefleur Pirates’ state final win senior year, and spun-glass bees and hummingbirds to hover over the de-stamened honeysuckle centerpieces like they were floating midair. And even that had been a hard compromise after discovering that
real
stuffed hummingbirds might contravene a law or two.

Brent’s smile grew, his lone dimple flickering in his right cheek, and her heart raced just a little more. “Tell you the truth, Hon, at one point I wondered as much myself.”

Honey’s next breath in stayed put. Pressing against her lungs until they burned.

Then why hadn’t he
said
so? She’d been waiting for an opinion from him. Any opinion. Even a negative one would have gone a long way to satiating the craving for input. A sign that he was as invested in this marriage as she was. That it was what he wanted, not merely what was expected.

“But you were right,” he said, smiling, dimpling, chucking her gently under the chin with a bent knuckle. “They were awesome. ’Til today, I’d thought you’d been fussin’ over party decorations, but the whole dang thing was spectacular. Nobody’ll be forgetting today for a long time. It’ll go down in Bellefleur folklore.” He held up his hand as if reading an old-time movie theatre tent. “When Honey Got Married…”

Half-mortified at his
fussin’
comment, half-elated at how happy he looked, Honey still backhanded him across the upper arm. He feigned great pain. And she couldn’t help but laugh. Then she couldn’t help but snuggle into his chest.

At least she tried, only to find she couldn’t. Literally.

Her dress was stuck in the door.

Meaning that even when she wanted nothing more than to hold him, be held by him, she just had to sit there. With a breach between her husband and her as they drove into their future.

Talk about a sign.

“How long ’til we get to the Villemont, do you think?” she asked. It was either that or sob.

“Ten minutes,” he said. “Fifteen at most. Excellent choice by the way. The incumbent gave a great speech about conservation of the bayou in the ballroom there when he was in the state legislature.”

She knew. It was why she’d picked it.

Oblivious, Brent stretched his long legs out in front of him and breathed deeply, his broad chest filling with air, pressing out the buttons of his vest until they looked ready to snap before letting out the breath on a long, contented sigh. Then he looked through the window as the pretty-as-a-picture buildings of Bellefleur’s long, wide Main Street flickered by.

While Honey looked at him.

She could still remember the first time she’d seen Brent Delacroix. The first day of preschool, he’d had his Stars and Stripes lunch box under his arm, his hair short and tidy, his jeans neatly pressed. She and Nina had always been boisterous creatures by nature, handfuls for their conservative parents who prayed for them to be well-bred southern misses. Brent, with his quiet confidence, had been like a revelation to her four-year-old self.

To this day she felt the same awe. The same hope that she might one day too be able to feel as content as he appeared. Not that she’d managed it so far. Not even close. If anything, she was spinning further and further the other way. Into chaos. The surplus energy she’d channeled into the wedding of the century. But now that the wedding was done, what was she going to do?

Maybe if she didn’t love the guy so darned much, then the diamond-encrusted band on her wedding finger wouldn’t feel like it was cutting off the blood supply to her…everything. She fiddled with the band some more, trying to ease the discomfort. She rearranged, tugged—

“Honey?”

She was so deep inside her neuroses she flinched, her arm flying sideways to connect with something soft. The resultant “ooof” told her that something was Brent.

She made to go to him and was yanked back by her trapped dress. Yanked so hard her other elbow smacked into the window.

She cried out and rubbed at the spot. While her new husband sat on the other side of the huge car, hissing and rubbing his eye with his big palm, wedged deep into the doorframe, away from any more threat of flinging limbs, she couldn’t get to him to kiss him better.

She waited for the car to slow, for the driver to check, to see why they’d both cried out, but the car just kept on moving. The thought of what else the driver had been called to ignore in the back of that same car made the whole thing seem suddenly all so ridiculous, all so much the opposite of the romantic declarations and teary speeches and excessive festivities they’d just left behind.

All Honey could do was laugh. And laugh. Until she could barely breathe.