The Tycoon's Misunderstood Bride (5 page)

But Jason wasn’t finished with her. 
He grabbed her arm and swung her about, forcing her to stop and hear what he had to say. 
“Listen, my dear.  We’re getting married so get over yourself.  You came here proposing to marry me.  I’ve now accepted.  In business, you should never go back on your promise.  It makes for a very poor future,” he threatened
ominously
.

Emma had
burned off
all her righteous
out
rage and now she was
genuinely
intimidated
by a man who practiced this on a daily basis.  How was she supposed to win an argument with a man like Jason Montenegro?
 

Regardless,
she wasn’t going to tie her life to this awful man.  Her father, she hadn’t had a choice.  But Jason Montenegro, she could reject. 
With as much dignity as she could muster while feeling as if he’d just wiped his feet on her nose, she shook her head and stood her ground. 
“No.  I’m sorry, I made a mistake.  Please ignore my proposal.”

She was almost to the door when his next words stopped her.  “Are you saying you don’t want to find your mother anymore?  After all she’s done to get to you, are you now relinquishing all rights to her?”

If he’d said anything else, she would have walked through the doors and ignored him.  All of her father’s
filthy
money could just rot in hell.  But
he’d latched onto the one thing she couldn’t give up, the one thing that might be a balm to her damaged soul. 
Emma desperately wanted to find her mother
, to find out why she’d left and hear from her own mouth that she hadn’t abandoned Emma to a soulless monster
.  Hearing
Jason
say the words reminded her of the past twenty years and how much she’d missed the loving arms and sweet voice of her mother. 

Emma leaned her head against the door, defeated yet again
with humiliation burning in her chest
. She felt Jason walk up behind her
, the heat of his body burning into the wool of her shapeless jumper
.  “The sixteenth, Emma.  I’ll pick you up at
noon
.  Be ready.”

She refused to let the tears fall
with this man to witness her
trouncing
.  There had been too many
wasted
tears in her life and she was
frankly
sick of being one of those women who cried.  It was time to be strong.  It would be what her mother would want, she told herself.  His last words reminded her that she didn’t have any money, nor did she have access to any. 

Without turning around, she spoke with a tone that surprised even her with the strength behind the words. 
“I don’t have any funds to buy a new dress so you’ll just have to accept me like this.”

She was about to open the door when he shoved some bills into her hand.  “Here.  Buy a white dress.  Every girl needs a wedding to remember, don’t they?”
  His sarcasm wasn’t missed on her. 

She stared at the bills in her hand, astonished at the amount.  But it was his money and he was more of a bastard than her father had ever been.  Because
Jason had
been nice initially, she’d trusted him.  And she’d lost her pride
with his crushing of that trust
. 

She turned to toss the cash back at him but again, he read her mind and stopped her
with a few
ruthless
words
.  “Don’t toss it aside, Emma.  I can be very generous but you’ll need to learn to treat me right.”  His words were soft and close to her ear.  Unfortunately, she had no idea what he meant by them.  All she knew was that she could smell his scent and feel the heat of his body.  His lips even brushed against the sensitive shell of her ear, sending shivers down her nerves and scaring her with the intensity. 

She turned back to look at him, her green eyes wide with the
alarm
his touch instilled in her.  Instead of throwing the bills at him, she crushed them in her fist with one hand and rushed out the door with the other, racing blindly away from a man who had broken through her defenses and made her feel what her father had always been telling her she was.  She was wanton and the feelings stormed through her, even as she raced to the elevator. 

Good grief!  Was she really the slut her father had accused her of?  The elevator doors opened up and she almost fell inside, desperate to get away from him. 

She’d convinced herself that she wasn’t like that.  Her father had picked out several men in the past to escort her to various functions but they had all left her cold, revolted even.  How could such a simple, brief touch have made her react so violently then? 

No!  She wasn’t evil or sluttish.  She wasn’t the whore her father had claimed she was.  Thankfully Tim was still waiting by the curb
with the car
and
she swung herself into the
back seat
, desperate to get away from the Montenegro building. 

Tim must have understood since he drove away quickly, not asking her where she wanted to go. 

Emma sat on the cold, stone bench watching the sun set on the horizon.  The air was damp around her with the smell of spring teasing her.  The cold of the air and the stone bench seeped into her body but she didn’t care.  It had been a glorious
ly sunny
day but she hadn’t enjoyed any of it. 
She h
ad in fact been terrified
of the repercussions of her message, but forced
herself to follow through on her plan. 

Would he have received the message yet?  And would he even bother to read it if he had?  She’d woken up this morning, determined to change her life
by taking charge and not being a doormat any longer
. 
O
ne of those changes was that she would never subject herself to the humiliation and fear that her father had instilled in her. 

Oh, Jason Montenegro would never
physically
hurt her. And she couldn’t imagine him yelling in like a lunatic, which was what her father sometimes looked like when he’d reached the heights of his passionate
rage
.  But Jason
could still hurt her if she let him.  But as of today, she would no longer let any man hurt her or wound her pride again. 

She wasn’t sure how she had the courage to do it but she’d sat down this morning and written a note, then asked Tim to deliver it to Jason Montenegro’s office. 

Ever since Tim had left, Emma had been wondering what the man’s reaction would be.  And now she had it.  Nothing.  Not even a return note acknowledging and accepting her backing out of the wedding. 

“Excuse me,” a female voice said from behind her. 

Emma turned slowly and smiled slightly at the sight of her father’s housekeeper standing on the stone path behind her
, hands nervously clenched in front of her as if she expected someone to snap at her any moment
.  “Yes, Ms. McGregor?”
she prompted with as much kindness as she could muster.  The woman had dealt with a great deal
from
her father.  Emma wanted to be completely different. 

Nancy McGregor had been her father’s housekeeper ever since Emma had been born but had never spoken to her except to relay messages
over the years
from her father.  But Emma had hidden in the kitchens on more than one occasion, and this woman had turned a blind eye, never giving her father the slightest hint that his daughter was hiding
somewhere in her domain
. 

Nancy looked down and then back at Emma, her hands twisting in her apron. 
“I couldn’t help but notice the announcement in the newspapers this morning,” she said.  “About your wedding coming up
tomorrow
,” she said, her hands
releasing the apron and
her palms
rubbing
against her
upper
thighs nervously. 

Emma hadn’t read the newspaper this morning so this
announcement
was a surprise.  “I didn’t know that it had been submitted.” 

Nancy
looked down and shrugged slightly.  “Yes, well, the thing is, I don’t know if you have anything appropriate to wear,” she started
off
awkwardly
.  “But I have something you might want to see.”

The woman’s tentative offer intrigued Emma enough to strike her curiosity.  “What is it?” she asked.

Nancy smiled with obvious relief now that she realized that Emma wasn’t going to criticize or reject the offer completely. 
“Come with me, if you don’t mind.”  Nancy
eagerly
led the way back into the house and through the large
rooms
, up the winding staircase.  All the way back to the
last guestroom, Emma followed the housekeeper, her curiosity growing with the
increasing
sense of mystery. 

“I was cleaning the house shortly after your mother left,”
Nancy
started, her voice trailing off to a whisper on the last word.  “In any case, I found this,” she said and pulled out a large, white wardrobe bag, dusty and the zipper slightly rusted
but Nancy was holding the bag with a reverence that Emma hadn’t ever seen in the woman before
. 

“What is it?” Emma asked. 

Nancy
hooked the hanger on the back of the closet door, then slowly unzipped the bag.  Emma gasped when she saw the beautiful wedding dress inside.  “It was your mother’s,” Nancy
explained with a huge, excited grin
.

“Oh, Ms. McGregor!  How on earth did you save this from destruction?” Emma asked.  She touched the glowing white silk with loving fingers, gently sliding down the pearls sewn into the tee length fabric.  “Its lovely, isn’t it?” Emma said dreamily
, remembering a picture she’d seen a long time ago of her mother wearing this dress, her arm hooked into her father’s and looking up at him with love and a huge smile
. 

“Please, call me Nancy,” the housekeeper
tentatively
suggested
.  “Now that your father has passed away, I’d rather not stand on so much formality, if you don’t mind.”

Emma’s eyes glanced over to the housekeeper’s
kind and weathered
face, wondering if sh
e was serious.  “I’d be honored
if you would call me Emma instead of Ms. Mason.”

“Agreed,” Nancy smiled
, visibly relieved
.  “As for how I saved it, your mother had me put it back here shortly after she arrived.  I think she was trying to save it then, but we’ll never know, will we?”

Emma shook her head
, her eyes looking over the intricate dress lovingly
.  “Not true.  I intend to find her,” Emma said
with a passion she had tried to suppress over the past few days
.  “Was there anything else you might have saved?” she asked hopefully.

Nancy
shook her head sadly.  “No.  I’m sorry but your father was quite thorough about packing everything else away.  There was just the one picture I was able to…” her voice trailed off again.

It was only a small setback, she told herself.  Even this glorious dress was at least a small connection to her mother
that Emma would savor
.  “Well, don’t worry about it.  I’ll find her somehow,” she said
, firmly believing her words even if she wasn’t exactly sure how to go about accomplishing the goal
.

“I’m glad you’re excited,”
Nancy
said
, a huge, relieved grin on her features
.  “I’d better go get dinner started
.”

Emma shook her head.  “Don’t bother,
Nancy
,” she said, still looking at the dress.  “I’m not really hungry
. 
I think I’ll warm up a little with a bath though.”