The groom-to-be was the last person he expected to see stepping off the elevator car. Both of them had been adamant that they follow tradition and not see each other before the wedding service.
Logan didn’t mind. It meant that he had Tori almost all to himself last night. They’d gone out for drinks and dinner with her sisters, then retired to her suite and stayed up until two in the morning reminiscing about elementary school, lazy summers, and busy course loads. Nearly twenty years of friendship rehashed over and over again until their faces hurt from grinning.
Now Stephen McKenzie was in front of him. The man was about to marry the most perfect woman on the planet. He had no fucking excuse not to be smiling.
No reason to have his car keys clutched tight in his white-knuckled fist. The wedding was downstairs in the hotel ballroom in forty-five minutes.
Logan stood a little straighter. Yeah, he towered over the guy. At six-four, he towered over everyone. Usually, he didn’t care about using that to his advantage. Right now, the way the groom looked a little green as his eyes flitted nervously back and forth between Logan and the bridal suite door? Logan would use every bit of physical menace he could muster.
“What’s up, Steve?”
“It’s Stephen.” Right there. That was why the guy was a jackass. Because in a moment where something was wrong, where he was nervous about something, he still cared most about his name. Selfish prick. “I need to speak to Victoria.”
Logan wanted to step in his path, but he didn’t have that right. Instead, he gestured toward the door. The words didn’t come out the first time he tried to force them past his lips, but they burned like hot rubber on pavement when he pressed them a second time. “She’s just getting dressed, but go ahead.”
Stephen didn’t move.
Logan gave him one last benefit of the doubt, even though his stomach was churning because he suddenly had a damn good idea about what was going on. “Is someone hurt?”
“Ah…no.”
He slid his gaze down the hand gripped around the car keys. “Going somewhere?”
Stephen blanched. “I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can. Nerves are normal,” Logan said, his voice cold. Clipped.
“Maybe it would be better if you told her…”
“Told her what?” He wasn’t going to let this guy off the hook. He had to say it out loud.
Stephen’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat. “I can’t do it. I can’t marry Victoria.”
Two
Tori was mid-twirl, checking out the ribbons lacing up the back of her wedding dress, when they heard the crash from outside her suite.
Her sisters raced to the door ahead of her. Elspeth took one look in the hallway and slammed the door shut again.
“Tori, you should go check your makeup in the bedroom,” her middle sister said, panic painted all over her perfectly done-up face.
She rolled her eyes and pushed past Elsie. “What the heck is going on?”
When she pulled the door open again, she found Logan rubbing his fist and Stephen flat out on the floor, and all the blood drained from her head. “What…”
She rushed to her fiancé’s side and reached for his hand to help him up, but he waved her off. As he staggered to his feet, she whirled on Logan, whose face was drawn tight. She stared at him, unable to process what was going on. When she opened her mouth, no words came out, and the silence stretched painfully as the distant sounds of the hotel provided a surreal soundtrack to the worst thing that could have happened on her wedding day. She couldn’t find the words to express how upset she was right now. She’d always known that Logan didn’t care for Stephen, but to punch him?
“Explain yourself,” she finally said, her voice shaking.
His jaw flexed but he didn’t say anything.
“Logan!”
From behind her, Stephen cleared his throat.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she said as she spun around. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Instead of answering her, he stepped back from her. What the hell was going on? His face—around the dark red bruise forming just below his cheekbone—was unnaturally pale. She took another step toward him and he shook his head. “No.”
“No, what?”
“Don’t make this harder.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He…he hit me because I came up to tell you I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
“We need to call off the wedding.”
“What?” She laughed because that was preposterous. Stephen was the one who’d wanted to get married. He’d pushed her to pick a date when she had been happy just to be engaged for a while. “Oh my God, do you have a concussion?”
He shook his head, then groaned. Maybe he really did. But when he spoke again, his words were even more clear. “I don’t love you, Victoria. I can’t marry you.”
“You’re kidding.”