Page 54 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

“I don’t need to,” he said evenly. “The last time I tried to help, you ran away.”

“What if I promise not to do that again?”

His eyebrows swept up. “Will you promise not to do it again?”

“Only if you agree to help me plan it.”

He stared right into my eyes for a few more seconds. “Fine, but only if you’ll actually get married at the end.”

I held out my pinky. “I promise.”

He glanced at my finger, frowning when he glanced back up at me. “If we’re making a blood oath, I get to bite your finger this time.”

“It’s a pinky swear, not a blood oath.”

The corner of his mouth inched up as he hooked his little finger around mine. “I would just like to state for the record that we’re both in our late twenties. A blood oath would be more age appropriate.”

“You’re promising to help me plan a wedding, not to eradicate a supernatural race humanity isn’t allowed to know about.”

He tightened his finger around mine. “You have to swear that you won’t run, Maggie.”

“I won’t.”

Something in his eyes changed then, a suspicion taking root before he narrowed them at me. “Swear that you will not leave the altar without a ring on your finger.”

Damn it. He’s good, isn’t he?

I looked down at our linked pinkies, meaning to say the words, but they took longer than usual to form. “I swear.”

Ryan didn’t look away—and he didn’t let go either, staring right at me with his finger still wrapped around mine and his eyes still slightly narrowed, but then he nodded and finally pulled his hand away.

Strangely, I missed the heat of his pinky as soon as it was gone, but at the same time, relief cascaded through me. I still didn’t know if my parents were actually going to agree to this, but if they did, then at least I knew I could count on Ryan to make sure I got what little I could.

A wedding I actually wanted.

Unless my plan worked and we could find a way to make it so wonderfully, spectacularly ridiculous that no wedding would be happening at all.

CHAPTER 23

RYAN

Back in New York after almost a month spent trying to walk Maggie away from the edge of the cliff she kept insisting on racing back to, I stood in her parents’ house, listening to her and her mother yell at each other. I’d rather not have been here at all, but I was starting to suspect that I’d become the Pembrokes’ communal emotional support animal.

While I paced their exquisite Fifth Avenue foyer, I did my best not to eavesdrop, but Maggie and Adelaide were making it pretty hard not to overhear them. Neither woman seemed interested in keeping her voice down, and every now and then, Cliff interjected as well.

As I studied a crystal chandelier that looked like something out of the Great Gatsby, Adelaide’s voice drifted down the hall once more. “You cannot possibly be serious. A carnival, Maggie? People are going to be talking about this wedding for years. Let’s not give them a reason to ridicule us.”

“At least it will give them something interesting to talk about,” Maggie snapped. “This is what I want, Mother. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“Yes, well, I want to be sipping cocktails on a tropical island with a reasonable daughter who is already happily married.” Adelaide sniffed. “You could’ve been, you know. You and Daniel could’ve had all this behind you.”

“Maybe we would’ve if that wedding hadn’t made me feel like I couldn’t breathe,” Maggie insisted. “And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to plan my own big day. As it is, the groom is your choice. The rest should be mine.”

“Perhaps it could be if you weren’t being ridiculous,” Cliff said with more than just a hint of disapproval in his tone. “Honestly, Maggie. Woods and a carnival? It sounds like the set of a horror film.”

I started pacing again, fully understanding why Cliff and Adelaide were so sure Maggie was playing some kind of game. Even to me, the list of demands she’d sent them on our way home from Chicago had seemed outlandish.

If I was Cliff, I would’ve fainted at number four—and I was still fairly certain number seven involved fire. Maggie insisted we’d only need cool-burning smoke bombs to get the effect she was after, but I wasn’t convinced.