Page 37 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

“Yeah, maybe, but she’s staying at my apartment and Daniel has no idea. Maybe he would’ve punched me if he’d known that.”

Isaac stared at me for a long beat, then burst out laughing. “Oh, man. This really does just keep getting better and better. Jasmine is going to be thrilled.”

I shot him a look. “This isn’t funny.”

“No, you’re right,” he wheezed between laughs. “It’s hilarious.”

“She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, Isaac.”

“Sure. Of course. Absolutely nowhere else. It’s not like her whole family, her fiancé, and his whole family live right here in this city.”

I glared at him. “First, she refused to go live with any of them. Second, he’s not her fiancé, and third⁠—”

“So, wait.” He suddenly stopped laughing, his eyes widening as he stared at me. “If he’s not her fiancé, does that mean they’re broken up?”

“For now, it sounds like it.” I picked up my drink and took a long sip. “At least according to Daniel, they are. In fact, it doesn’t sound like he even considers it a breakup. It’s more like he really does think of it as a deal between their dads. Like either he and Maggie will both show up at an altar at some point and get married, or they won’t. Nothing else to it.”

Isaac nodded thoughtfully, then grinned. “Oh, this really is going to be fun.”

I scowled at him, but somewhere deep down inside, I had a feeling he was right. I just wasn’t sure fun was the word I’d use for what it was going to be.

Spectacular clusterfuck sounded better. Impending disaster? Now that would probably be right on the money.

CHAPTER 16

MAGGIE

Ryan’s apartment was the absolute epitome of bachelorhood. If any girl had ever been confused about what it meant to walk into a man’s apartment as a woman and know, at first glance, that you weren’t supposed to stay, all she would need to understand was a picture of his place.

Seriously.

While he was gone, I wandered around, taking stock of the apartment I now called home. So far, I’d established that he owned approximately seven thousand shirts in varying shades of white, gray, and blue—and that they were hung in his closet with military precision.

His more casual clothes were in a different closet, like business dare not mix with pleasure even symbolically. It was either that, or he hadn’t wanted to take the chance of leaving closet space open in the event that some woman he brought home saw it and took it as an invitation.

Another thing I’d learned was that he was a die-hard baseball fan. There were framed photographs and a few signed balls displayed on shelves, a baseball cap thrown over the back of a chair in his bedroom like that was the one thing that was allowed the indulgence of being out of place.

Then there were his books.

They were a depressing mix of finance, business, and a few biographies of people who claimed to conquer industries every morning before they’d even had their first sip of coffee. Wedged between those was an entire section that defined the term guy lit.

There were military thrillers and spy novels, some action heroes holding guns while staring moodily into the middle distance. I loved reading, but there wasn’t a single thing on his shelves I would even consider picking up.

Girls take heed, Ryan Thayer does not want you curling up on his couch with one of his books.

Also, he owned so many movies involving explosions that he might’ve been doing research on behalf of a small-scale terrorist organization. The television he watched those movies on was so large, it probably felt like he was right in the action, whether it be a ballgame or a filmed war.

Every piece of his furniture was constructed of glass, leather, or wood. No metal though, which was interesting. His kitchen situation, on the other hand, was appalling. One look was all it’d taken for me to know he’d been serious when he said he wasn’t a very good cook.

Maybe he knew how to make ramen and mac and cheese out of a box, but I doubted his oven had ever met a roasting dish and he certainly didn’t own a serving platter. All he had were a couple of pots and pans, cutlery, crockery, and bottle openers. There were plenty of those.

Honestly, it was all pretty reassuring.

For a guy who walked around looking like he belonged on the cover of a magazine, he was surprisingly normal. With my investigation into who exactly I was living with now complete, I padded across the cool tiles to his windows, looking down at the city I’d so desperately wanted to stay away from.

My time on the lam was limited. I knew that for a fact. Marcus had already been here, and by now, he would have told Daniel and my parents that I was back. It was only a matter of time before another Pembroke—or a Hawthorne—came knocking.

I needed a plan beyond waiting for Marcus to let me know that my parents had said no to giving me total control over the wedding. There was only one person I could think of who might be able to take control of the situation without making it worse, and that was Cathy.