On the Verge of I Do Page 2

  Then again, if whatever had his fiancée’s Southern belle skin turning even paler was connected to her father’s murder and her mother’s subsequent arrest for the crime, or anything else related to her family’s recent troubles, surely she would have shared the news with her sister rather than asking Kara to leave so they could talk privately. That prospect had his brow puckering and the wheels in his head turning at a rapid pace.

  “Here, come sit down,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her over to the sofa he and Kara had so recently vacated. Her long, slim, perfectly manicured fingers were chilly against his own, her movements stiff as she sat.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked, suspecting it wasn’t when she refused to meet his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Eli,” she said, her voice wavering slightly. Her dark auburn hair fell around her face and shoulders like a shroud, shifting only when she finally raised her gaze to his. Taking a deep breath, she seemed to steel herself for whatever it was she was about to tell him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, the words rushing together, “but I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can go through with the wedding.”

  For a second, Eli was certain he’d heard her wrong. Maybe his mind had been on something else, and her words had gotten jumbled with his wayward thoughts.

  “Excuse me?”

  In a burst of energy unlike any she’d shown since arriving at his office, Laurel jumped up, letting her purse fall to the floor while she skirted the coffee table and began to pace. Back and forth, back and forth, long, agitated strides wearing a path in front of his desk.

  “This was a mistake,” she said, twisting her hands together at her waist, keeping her gaze straight ahead as she spoke. “We rushed into things. And even though it seemed like a good idea at the time, circumstances have changed.”

  Stopping on a dime, she turned to him, her arms falling to her sides. “My life is a mess right now, Eli. My father has been murdered, my mother was accused of killing him, I’ve suddenly got one new half brother and another step-ish brother I didn’t know existed…”

  He’d never heard a woman’s voice be both strong and weak at the same time, but hers was. Her words were filled with conviction, even as emotion caused them to tremble.

  “You’ve been amazingly supportive, and I know Mama has been keeping a stiff upper lip. She always wears a smile, tells us everything will be fine, insists we go forward with the wedding because she doesn’t want to admit how precarious the future is—for her, as well as the rest of us.”

  She took a breath, her chest rising as she drew air in, then blew it out again on a sigh. “But I don’t think I can do that. Everything isn’t okay. My whole world has been turned upside down, and I have no idea what tomorrow might bring. There is just no way I can get married right now, no matter how disappointed people might be. I’m sorry.”

  Eli sat in silence, watching Laurel’s green eyes glisten and the tight line of her mouth quiver while she waited for him to respond.

  He wondered if she expected him to be upset. To shoot to his feet and go red in the face as he shouted at her about wasting his time and money. Or maybe to not take no for an answer, insisting that she would go through with the wedding, regardless of the nightmare she was currently going through with her family.

  He probably should be feeling those things, at least to some degree. He was being dumped, after all. Dumped, jilted, for all intents and purposes, left at the altar. Shouldn’t his male pride be rearing on its hind legs, bristling with indignation?

  Instead, he found himself not feeling much of anything. He was sitting there, staring at his now ex-fiancée, thinking that her eyes weren’t quite as vibrant a green as her sister’s.

  They were pretty, of course. Laurel was, without a doubt, an extremely lovely woman. Every inch of her, from the crown of her salon-perfect head to the toes of her six-hundred-dollar designer shoes, was the picture of classic, genteel beauty.

  But the green of her eyes lent itself more to jade, while Kara’s were a deep, glittering green that reminded him of emeralds or South Carolina’s own lush salt marshes.

  The fact that thoughts like those were even circling in his head at a time like this was probably a fairly good sign that Laurel was absolutely right to call off the wedding. She might be using her family’s recent upheaval as an excuse not to go through with it, but he was beginning to think that they simply might not be right for each other.

  Their courtship had certainly not been any romantic, whirlwind affair. More precisely, Eli had begun to feel that it was probably time for him to settle down, and Laurel had seemed like a wholly logical choice of wife. They’d grown up together, been friends for years, and when he’d proposed to her—in more of a business proposal than proposal-proposal fashion—she’d accepted with a gentle nod and a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

  From there, events had carried along in a very systematic, well-planned manner, just like everything else in both of their very systematic, well-planned lives.

  They’d never even slept together. Something that Eli was just now realizing should have been another bright, flashing, fiery red flag. Though at the time, through all the months of their extended engagement, it hadn’t seemed unusual at all. Not even for Eli, who considered himself a man with a more-than-healthy sex drive.

  Pushing to his feet, he crossed the short distance to Laurel, wrapping his hands around her upper arms, just above her elbows. He stared into her worried eyes for a moment, then leaned in to press a comforting kiss to her cheek.

  “I understand,” he told her gently, pulling back to offer her an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll even talk to Kara about cancelling the arrangements. You just take care of yourself, and do whatever you need to in order to be there for your family.”

  Eli felt, as well as saw, the tension leave Laurel’s body. The hard line of her mouth, her stiff spine, and the stillness of her chest while she held her breath all relaxed in a whoosh of relief.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, letting her head fall against his shoulder. “Thank you so much.”

  “I want you to be happy, Laurel. I would never want our marriage to feel like a duty or make you unhappy.”

  Lifting her head, she smiled up at him, her eyes glittering again, but for a different reason.

  “You’re a good man, Elijah James Houghton. And one day, you’re going to be a wonderful husband to a very lucky woman. I’m only sorry I’m not that woman.”

  Going up on tiptoe, she bussed the hard line of his jaw before collecting her handbag and letting herself out of the office, leaving him once again alone and woefully unattached.

  Two

  Eli sat on the far bench seat of his regular booth at Tamblyn’s, nursing three fingers of Scotch on the rocks and waiting for his longtime friend, Rakin Abdellah, to arrive.

  The two men had met during their days at Harvard Business School, rowing together on the university team and bonding over their mutual lack of immediate family—Eli having been a foster child from a very early age, and Rakin having lost his parents in a light plane accident when he was young. And now they were working together, too, with Rakin’s overseas import/export company supplying many of the essential items for Eli’s hotels and resorts.

  Eli had been at the restaurant for nearly half an hour now, and was on his second glass of Scotch. But Rakin wasn’t late—Eli was early.

  He’d stayed at the office until his usual quitting time, but couldn’t say he’d gotten a hell of a lot done after Laurel dropped her bomb.

  He wasn’t sorry, exactly, and he certainly didn’t blame her. Even if her personal life hadn’t been in upheaval, prompting her to call things off, he wouldn’t have wanted her to go through with the wedding unless she felt one-hundred-percent sure it was what she wanted to do. Neither of them deserved to spend the next fifty years in a miserable, loveless marriage.

  But he did regret that their engagement had come to an end
. There was a certain level of embarrassment involved. The humiliation of having to tell people the wedding they’d expected to attend in only a month’s time had been cancelled. Of having to face his friends and business acquaintances and wonder if they were wondering what had happened…if he had done the dumping or she had, if he was happy to once again be a free agent or was wallowing in misery… .

  But more than that, he was disappointed to find himself without a serious relationship prospect.

  It wasn’t that he was desperate. Lord knew he’d had his fair share of girlfriends, some sticking around longer than others. He’d also had his fair share of one-night stands. Glancing around, he decided he could probably pick up any single woman in this restaurant in about ten minutes flat.

  The problem was, he didn’t want any of the women in this restaurant. He wasn’t sure he’d entirely wanted Laurel—not the way a husband should want a wife. But she’d been a good match for him, and he’d been hopeful that in time, passion would grow.

  It wasn’t even the idea of being without a woman—a serious girlfriend, an intended, a bride-to-be—that bothered him, it was the extra distance that had been put between him and his desire for a family.

  Without a doubt, he loved his foster parents. Warren and Virginia Young had taken him in when he was twelve years old. While most families preferred toddlers or babies, the older couple had been happy to take in a preteen boy and raise him to adulthood. They had even suggested, more than once, that he allow them to adopt him legally.

  As much as he appreciated the offer and the deep sentiment behind it, he’d politely turned them down. They were his parents, and he was their son, in nearly every sense of the word. Absolutely.

  But something inside of him would always make him a bit of a lone wolf. He didn’t want to take someone else’s name, because he wanted to make something of his own. He didn’t want anyone to ever look at him and think that he wouldn’t have amounted to anything if it hadn’t been for the charity of the wealthy, deep-rooted Southern family who had taken him in.

  He was sure some folks already thought that, and in all honesty, his prospects probably had improved tenfold when he’d moved in with the Youngs. Without them, he would have been left to languish in the foster care system, and for that, he would always be grateful.

  But with the exception of a stable home environment and an Ivy League education, everything he had and everything he’d built, he’d earned and done on his own. Though several million of them had been offered, he hadn’t accepted so much as a dime from his parents to start Houghton Hotels and Resorts.

  Eli took another sip of the super-smooth Scotch, scanning the front of the restaurant for his still-missing dinner companion. It wasn’t yet six o’clock, and Rakin was normally quite prompt, so he was sure his friend would be there soon.

  Swirling the remaining liquid at the bottom of his glass, he let his mind drift back to his current situation.

  He had solid family roots. He’d created, and was running, a very successful Fortune 500 corporation. Now he found himself yearning for a wife and kids and the whole picket fence American dream—or his adaptation of it, at any rate.

  He’d thought marrying Laurel would be the first step toward realizing that dream, but now he’d been forced two steps back.

  Ah, well, he had time. He was only thirty-five, after all. And according to statistics, there were plenty of women in the world looking for rich, eligible men. He just had to be careful that when he met one, she was as interested in him as she was in his millions.

  “You look deep in thought.”

  The low male voice caught him by surprise, even though he’d been waiting for Rakin to arrive. Eli lifted his head just as his friend slid into the opposite side of the booth and settled against the soft, russet-colored leather.

  Raised for most of his life in Diyafa by his paternal grandparents after his parents were killed, Rakin possessed the jet-black hair, brown eyes and darkly tanned skin of his Middle Eastern heritage. But he was also half-American, which meant he’d spent holidays, vacations and much of his college years in the United States with his mother’s family, making him comfortable in either country and both cultures.

  “Business troubles?” Rakin asked, raising an arm to signal for the waiter.

  “Nothing so simple as that,” Eli muttered.

  Rakin raised one dark brow in question. They’d been friends long enough that words weren’t always necessary. Rakin knew that if something was wrong, and if Eli wanted him to know the details, he would share in his own good time.

  “Let’s order first,” Eli told him, “and discuss that shipment of linens for the Seabrook Island location. Then maybe I’ll be ready to tell you about my day.” After a bite to eat and a few more fingers of Scotch.

  When their waiter appeared, they asked for drinks, then pored over the leather-bound menus until they arrived. Eli knew why he was drinking, of course, but was surprised when Rakin ordered the same. He suspected he might not be the only one having a rough day.

  Once their orders had been placed, the two men squared off, hands wrapped around their respective glasses. After a few seconds, one corner of Eli’s mouth curved in a grin. Rakin’s quickly followed suit. They both chuckled.

  “You first,” Eli said.

  “The linens are on their way,” Rakin told him. “Everything is on schedule. I should have them for you late next week. At the moment, they’re scheduled to be delivered directly to Ocean Breezes, but there’s still time to change that, if you’d prefer they be delivered to your office here in Charleston.”

  Eli gave an approving nod, but that’s not what he’d meant, and they both knew it.

  “And…” he prompted. Partly because he was genuinely interested in what was going on in his friend’s life, and partly to buy time until he had to reveal the latest turmoil in his own.

  Rakin sighed, dropping his attention to the table. “Grandfather is threatening me with disinheritance.”

  Eli sat back, eyes going wide. “What? Why?”

  Lifting his gaze back to Eli’s, Rakin said, “He wants me to marry. He’s been pressuring me about it for quite some time, but now he’s serious. He wants it done sooner rather than later, and doesn’t particularly care about my opinion on the matter.”

  For a second, Eli didn’t say anything, just let the words sink in, the irony of the situation wash over him. Then he let out a bark of laughter.

  “This is funny to you,” Rakin said. It was a question, but it came out more of a statement—a very disgruntled one.

  Eli shook his head. “I’m sorry. It isn’t funny. But if you knew what happened to me today, you’d be laughing, too.”

  “All right, I’ll bite. What happened today?”

  “Laurel called off the wedding.” He said it quickly and succinctly, like tearing off a bandage, then downed the last of his second glass of Scotch.

  It was Rakin’s turn to look shocked. “What? Why?”

  Eli’s mouth curved in amusement. Weren’t those the exact words he’d uttered only moments before when Rakin had told him about his grandfather’s command that he marry? Surely his friend could see the humor in that.

  “She says things are too erratic right now, her life too chaotic with everything that’s going on with her family.”

  Rakin inclined his head sagely. “I can understand that, I suppose. The Kincaids certainly have had their share of bad luck lately.”

  Eli nodded in return. “Agreed. Although I think Laurel’s reasons for backing out of the marriage have more to do with her feelings for me than anything that’s going on with her family. Her feelings…” he muttered into his empty glass, “or lack thereof.”

  “You don’t think she loves you?” his friend asked quietly.

  “I think she cares for me,” he answered honestly, “the same way I care for her. As friends. I’m just not sure that’s enough to build a marriage on.”

  Rakin cocked another brow. From the expression on
his face, Eli could tell he finally recognized the irony of their situations.

  “I guess I’ll have to let you know, since I have to enter a loveless marriage or risk being disinherited,” Rakin told him.

  “Something you’re not willing to risk, right?”

  His friend gave him a look—a cross between What do you think? and Would you?

  As CEO of his family’s multi-million-dollar import/export company, Rakin had worked too hard and had too much to lose to gamble that his grandfather would change his mind.

  “Well, if you’re interested,” Eli told him, feeling less troubled than he had since walking into the restaurant, “I can introduce you to a very attractive single young lady from a very respectable Southern family. She was engaged, but I have it on good authority that she jilted her fiancé only a month before they were supposed to exchange vows.”

  “Yes, I imagine you could,” Rakin replied dryly just as the waiter returned with their entrées. Once the young man made sure they had everything they needed and left to refill their drinks—this time, both men switched to coffee—he added, “Let me try one more time to change Grandfather’s mind. If I can’t, I may just take you up on that.”

  * * *

  It was nearly 9 p.m. by the time Eli and Rakin finished dinner and parted ways outside the high-priced restaurant. Despite the fact that Eli had drunk three Scotch on the rocks straight, he’d then downed a very filling meal and just as many cups of coffee during the rest of the evening, so he was far from intoxicated.

  He was also far from in the mood to go home and sit alone for the rest of the night. If he did, he knew he’d only end up opening another bottle of Scotch and starting all over again.

  He was restless, and quite frankly, didn’t want to be alone. Which didn’t mean he was lonely, per se, but as nice as his high-rise luxury apartment was, it would still be empty and too quiet for his current state of mind.

  Almost before he’d realized it, he was driving toward the French Quarter, headed for Queen Street. It was late, but there was a chance Kara would still be up. And after all, he had promised Laurel he would take care of informing her sister about the cancelled wedding.