Page 114 of Leave

Bullshit, they did.

I cleared my throat. “Uh, while you all do that—why don’t I go check on him?”

“Thank you, Riley.” Sophia looked desperate. Like she was on the brink of tears, fury, and just lying down on the floor and giving up. Poor woman must’ve been at critical mass for stress. I didn’t know if she was worried about Nolan, ready to strangle him, or both, but I figured this was a good time for me to intervene for both of their sakes.

So I flashed her a smile, then left the sanctuary in search of Nolan.

The men’s room seemed like the most obvious place since Leann presumably wouldn’t follow him in there. Not that sheseemed to give a flying fuck about boundaries, but I assumed she had some social graces. Well, when she was sober, anyway.

Either way, I checked the men’s room first, and—jackpot.

Nolan was facing one of the mirrors, eyes closed as he white-knuckled the sink. His jaw worked so hard, he was going to get an earful next time he went to dental.

“Hey,” I said cautiously after the door had shut behind me. “It’s just me.”

So much tension left his posture at the sound of my voice, he swayed a little, and I had a heartbeat of panic that he was going to collapse. I crossed the room and touched his back. “Hey. Talk to me. You okay?”

“No,” he croaked. He sounded like he was close to throwing up. Or like he already had. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were wet and his face was pale. “I can’t do this. I can’t…” He dropped his gaze again and shook his head. “I can’t get out of it, but I also can’t… Fuck, what the hell do I do?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Not one that would go down smoothly with his family, anyway, so I did the next best thing. “Come here,” I murmured, and wrapped my arms around him.

Jesus. This man had never felt so utterly brittle and defeated. Like all the fight had gone out of him, and he was justdone.

This wasn’t something I could ease with a joke about using mutant mind powers on Leann. There was nothing I could do or say to help him, because he couldn’t escape this. Nothing could undo what she’d done to him in the past, and he couldn’t get away from her until this wedding was over. Even after that, she was still part of his family. Still inextricably tied to the people he loved most in the world.

No wonder he kept asking for orders thousands of miles away from home.

“What do you want to do?” I asked softly. “We can leave.”

“No, we can’t,” he croaked, slowly shaking his head. “And even if we do, we have to be back tomorrow for… Goddammit.” He raked a shaking hand through his short hair. “I thought I could do this. I thought we’d just have to do the rehearsal, do the ceremony, and be done with it. Being in the same room with her always fucking sucks, but I didn’t think it would be…” He flailed the same hand toward the door, then let it fall to his side with a heavy slap against his leg.

“I don’t think the wedding is going to be better than the rehearsal,” I said gently.

“She’ll behave for the ceremony,” he muttered.

“Yeah, but the reception…”

Nolan closed his eyes and breathed a few curses. Then he looked at me, and I’d never seen so much pleading or desperation in this man’s face. I’d sure as hell never heard so much in his voice: “Please don’t leave me alone tomorrow. I… I don’t want to be clingy or—”

“Baby, there’s nothing clingy about it. I’m not letting you out of my sight while that fuckingpredatoris in the building.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Thank you. I know everyone out there”—he gestured toward the door—“would think I was a weak idiot for being this fucked up over her… For being afraid of her…”

“That’s because they don’t know what she did to you,” I said quietly. “There’s nothing stupid about how you feel around her. It’s self-preservation.”

He closed his eyes again and nodded.

Fuck, it hurt to see him like this. And I’d been so angry and helpless in the sanctuary, watching her mess with him—but there’d been nothing I could do. Not without drawing attention to wounds he didn’t want anyone knowing about. Not even when she’d knocked him onto a pew and—I was sick just thinking about it—“fallen” on top of him.

My tongue tried to stick to the roof of my mouth as I spoke. “Tomorrow, if you want to leave early—or even just step out for a little while—we’re gone. Okay?”

Eyes still closed, he nodded again.

It sounded like so little. Yeah, sure. We could step outside. We could say one of us forgot something at the hotel and take off for a short while. But he still had to come back. He still had to go through the ceremony, and he had to sit through whatever drunken shit ended up being her matron of honor speech.

My mouth moved before I could think twice. “It’s not too late to back out.”

His head jerked up and he looked at me with wide eyes. “What? Of course it is! It’s my brother’s wedding! I can’t just—”

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