Once Upon a Wedding / Accidental Princess. Nancy Robards Thompson
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second, she imagined leaning over the table and tasting the tequila straight from Connor’s lips.
“Kelsey, your drink?” he all but growled. The heat in his gaze made it clear he knew her sudden thirst had nothing to do with margaritas.
Maybe if she downed the whole thing in one swallow, the brain freeze might be enough to cool her body. She sucked in a quick strawful of the tart, icy mixture with little effect. Frozen nonalcoholic drinks had nothing on Connor McClane.
Still, she set the glass down with a decisive clunk. “You can’t come back here and decide what’s best for Emily. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like Todd. You’re not the one marrying him. Emily is, and her opinion is the only one that matters.”
Connor let out a bark of laughter. “Right! How much weight do you think her opinion carried when we were dating?”
“That was different.”
“Yeah, because I was a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks instead of some old-money entrepreneur with the Wilson stamp of approval on my backside.”
A nobody from the wrong side of the tracks. Kelsey schooled her expression not to reveal how closely those words struck home. What would Connor McClane think if he learned she had more in common with him than with her wealthy cousins?
Kelsey shook off the feeling. It didn’t matter what they did or didn’t have in common; they were on opposite sides.
“Did you ever consider that Emily’s parents thought she was too young? She was barely out of high school, and all she could talk about was running away with you.”
“Exactly.”
Expecting a vehement denial, Kelsey shook her head. “Huh?”
One corner of his mouth tilted in a smile. “I might have been blind back then, but I’ve learned a thing or two. Emily was always a good girl, never caused her parents any trouble. She didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs. No tattoos or piercings for her.”
“Of course not.”
From the time Kelsey had moved in with her aunt and uncle, she’d lived in her cousin’s shadow. She knew all about how perfect Emily was—her fling with Connor the sole imperfection that proved she was actually human.
“Emily didn’t have to do those things. She had me. I was her ultimate act of rebellion.”
Kelsey listened for the arrogant ring in his words, but the cocky tone was absent. In its place, she heard a faint bitterness. “No one likes being used,” she murmured, thoughts of her ex-boyfriend coming to mind.
Matt Moran had her completely fooled during the six months they dated. With his shy personality and awkward social skills, she couldn’t say he swept her off her feet. But he’d seemed sweet, caring, and truly interested in her.
And she’d never once suspected he was secretly in love with her cousin or that he’d been using her to get closer to Emily. So Kelsey knew how Connor felt, and somehow knowing that was like knowing him. Her gaze locked with his in a moment of emotional recognition she didn’t dare acknowledge.
The question was written in his eyes, but she didn’t want to answer, didn’t want him seeing inside her soul. “What was Emily rebelling against?”
Connor hesitated, and for a second Kelsey feared he might not let the change of subject slide. Finally, though, he responded, “It had to do with her choice of college. She hated that exclusive prep school, but Charlene insisted on only the best. I suppose that’s where you went, too.”
“Not me,” she protested. “I had the finest education taxpayers could provide.” One of Connor’s dark eyebrows rose, and Kelsey hurried on before he could ask why her childhood had differed from her cousins’. “So after Emily survived prep school…”
He picked up where she left off, but Kelsey had the feeling he’d filed away her evasion for another time. “After graduation, Gordon wanted Emily to enroll at an Ivy League school. She didn’t want to, but her parents held all the cards—until I came along. I was the ace up her sleeve. Guess I still am.”
The bad-boy grin and teasing light were absent from his expression, and Kelsey felt a flicker of unease tumbling helplessly through her stomach. Did Connor know something about Todd that would stop the wedding? Something that would tear apart all Kelsey’s dreams for success and her chance to prove herself in her family’s eyes?
“Emily invited me because her parents are pushing her into this marriage. She’s pushing back the only way she knows how. She wants me to stop the wedding.”
“That’s crazy! Do you realize Emily is having her dress fitting right now? And we’re going to the hotel tomorrow evening to make final arrangements for the reception? She loves Todd and wants to spend the rest of her life with him.”
Leaning forward, he challenged, “If you’re right, if Emily’s so crazy about this guy, then why are you worried I’m here?”
A knowing light glowed in his green eyes, and history told Kelsey she had every reason to worry. After all, on the night of her senior prom, after spending the day having her hair artfully styled and her makeup expertly applied, and wearing the perfect dress, Emily had stood up her parents’ handpicked date…to ride off with Connor on the back of his motorcycle.
Having met Connor, Kelsey could see how easily he must have seduced her cousin. With his looks, charm, his flat-out masculine appeal, how was a woman supposed to resist?
And Kelsey wondered if maybe Emily wasn’t the only one she should be worried about.
Chapter Two
“Honestly, Kelsey, why are you ringing the doorbell like some stranger?” Aileen Wilson-Kirkland demanded as she opened the front door. She latched on to Kelsey’s arm and nearly dragged her inside her aunt and uncle’s travertine-tiled foyer.
“Well, it’s not like I still live here,” Kelsey reminded her cousin.
Aileen rolled her eyes. “You probably rang the doorbell even when this was your home.”
“I did not,” Kelsey protested, even as heat bloomed in her cheeks. Her cousin might have been teasing, but the comment wasn’t far off. She’d never felt comfortable living in her aunt and uncle’s gorgeous Scottsdale house, with its country-club lifestyle and golf-course views. Before moving in with her relatives, home had been a series of low-rent apartments. And, oh, how she’d missed those small, cozy places she’d shared with her mother.
“I didn’t want to barge in,” she added.
“You’re kidding, right? Like I haven’t been dying to hear how things went! Did you pick up Connor? Does he look the same? Do you think—”
Ignoring the rapid-fire questions, Kelsey asked, “Where are Emily and Aunt Charlene?”
“Emily’s still having her dress fitted.”
“Oh, I’d love to see it.” A designer friend of Kelsey’s had made the dress for her cousin, but so far Kelsey had seen only drawings and fabric swatches.
For such a gorgeous woman, Aileen gave a decidedly inelegant snort as they walked down the hall. “Nice try. Do you really think you can escape without going over every detail from the first second you saw Connor right up to when you left him—” Emily’s older sister frowned. “Where did you leave him?”
“At a restaurant.”
“By himself?”
“What else could I do, Aileen? Follow him to his hotel and ask for an invitation inside?”
“Well, that would make it easier to keep an eye on him.”
“Aileen!”
Waving