Another guard put a restraining arm in front of Matt’s chest.
“You came after me,” Matt responded in a clipped voice. “A lawsuit’s not going to get you anywhere—even if you stay in town long enough to bring one.”
Lauren looked at Matt. “Is it true? Is what Parker said true?”
He glanced down at her and said nothing, but she could read the answer in his eyes.
“We’ll talk later,” he said curtly.
She took a step back. He’d transformed once again into a stranger with hard blue eyes, a corporate tycoon with a will of steel.
Within moments, his siblings and their spouses arrived, peppering them with questions and exclamations of surprise.
She slipped away in the ensuing confusion. She had to get away.
“Lauren, wait!”
Matt’s voice sounded behind her, but she just kept going. She knew he couldn’t leave without explaining things to hotel security, though she was also sure Matt’s wealth and social prominence would mean he was treated with deference and respect.
She, on the other hand, would be paying the price for tonight for a long time to come.
Outside the hotel, the March night greeted her with a cold blast, and she welcomed it. She needed to clear her head.
She asked a liveried bellhop to summon a cab, and luckily, one was on the scene in a couple of minutes. She avoided looking at anyone else, but she could feel the stares of those who’d obviously witnessed the debacle inside.
She got into the back of the cab, and as it took her home through Boston’s darkened streets, a knot of dread lodged itself in her throat.
She leaned back and rested her head against the back of her seat. So much for her plan to cultivate Matt’s image as a rich, refined bachelor that any woman would be happy to take home to her mother. Of course, that plan had recently been replaced by the one where she would be happy to take him home to her mother.
Still, if she hadn’t scarred his reputation as an eligible bachelor by showing up on his arm tonight, then the run-in with Parker certainly had.
She was such a fool. She couldn’t believe she even thought she might be falling in love.
Obviously, she hadn’t learned anything in the past five years because she was repeating her mistakes.
She’d been wrong again to think she’d made an ideal match—her ideal match. Instead, she was once more Ms. First Runner-up.
She should have trusted her initial instincts instead of persuading herself to dismiss the superficial similarities between Matt and Parker.
Of course, that was before she knew of Matt’s past betrayal and present deceitfulness. Now she knew the similarities between the two men ran to even more than the superficial. They were both un- trustworthy snakes.
By tomorrow, gossip would be circulating, and the newspapers would be flashing headlines about the fight at the Boston Park Plaza—apparently over her.
Things were such a mess. She felt like weeping.
She paid the driver when he pulled to a stop in front of her apartment building, then got out, digging into her purse for her keys.
“Lauren.”
She turned at the sound of Matt’s voice, and her heart tripped over itself.
“How did you get here?” she blurted.
She watched him walk over to her from his car.
He was the last person she wanted to see right now. She was an emotional wreck. She might as well hang a sign on her heart that read Condemned.
Even disheveled and bruised, however, he was the most magnetic man she knew.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Nine
Matt cursed under his breath. The look on Lauren’s face told him all he needed to know.
She looked betrayed, angry and hurt. And she had every right to. But he’d never meant to hurt her, and the realization he’d caused her pain stabbed him like a knife.
“How did you get here?” she repeated.
He sighed as he reached her. “The valet pulled up with my car just a few minutes after I saw your cab pull away from the curb.” He shrugged. “I left my brothers to deal with the security people back at the hotel.”
He didn’t add he’d driven with single-minded focus, guessing she was heading straight home.
“Let’s go up and talk,” he said.
“I’ve heard enough already,” she retorted.
“The lobby will do,” he countered, “but I’m not letting you stand out here in the cold.”
“How nice of you to be concerned for my welfare,” she responded acidly.
She turned and marched toward her building, using her key to open the front door.
Walking in behind her, he braked the door with his hand when she would have let it slam in his face.
She marched into the small reception area and turned to face him. “Say what you’re going to say, and be quick about it.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her strident tone, but decided it was best not to comment.
“On the night before the wedding, after the rehearsal dinner,” he explained, “Parker and I wound up at the restaurant bar along with the other grooms- men.”
She waited in tense silence for him to go on.
“We were the last two there, and I could tell something was up,” Matt said. “Parker seemed jumpy, and after a few drinks, he wanted to talk. After listening to him for a while, I encouraged him to call off the wedding.”
“So you don’t deny it!”
“No, I don’t. Parker was having doubts.”
“And you encouraged him in those doubts,” she accused.
“His doubts had a beginning and reality apart from me,” he countered. He had to make her see this.
“Parker is a weak guy,” he went on. “He was getting married to please his powerful family, but when he finally realized you weren’t exactly what they had in mind for a daughter-in-law, he concluded he’d rather be roaming the world as a free agent than settled down to domestic bliss.”
He wasn’t sugarcoating it for her. There was too much at stake, and he didn’t want to lose her. If keeping her meant he had to paint Parker in all his unpretty stripes, then so be it. She’d had blinders on in that department for way too long anyway—it’s what had almost gotten her to the altar.
“Not exactly what they had in mind?” she repeated. “You mean because my family isn’t East Coat establishment, wealthy or well-known?”
He nodded. “You’ve got to have known Parker was putting up his share of the money for the wedding from his own pocket. His parents wanted nothing to do with putting together a rehearsal dinner where you’d be introduced to their friends and associates.”