Holiday Wedding (Holiday Romance-Spicy Version #2)

30

Tuesday, December 24

Wedding Day

Gwen

It was all a bad dream. That’s what I tell myself the next time I wake up. I keep my eyes pressed tightly closed, desperately wishing I’ll open them to find Caleb before me. When I finally pry my eyelids apart, my spirits plummet.

The nightmare is real.

I’m tied to a chair in what looks like a storage area. The gray concrete floors beneath me are cracked and uneven. The ceiling soars high above my head, metal rafters with sporadic industrial lighting. Mounds of luggage are all around me. They’re piled on top of one another, creating a wall of black and gray with the occasional burst of color from a floral duffle bag or a maroon suitcase. Dust coats the canvas and hard-shell sides of the bags in the lowest portions of the stack. They’ve been here a long time, the luggage in this room. Forgotten things, lost and abandoned.

Have I joined them? Never to be found again?

My hands and feet have gone numb. My neck aches. It must have hung forward when I was unconscious.

I’m not alone. A man separates from the shadows and steps in front of me.

It’s him.

The guy who promised to reunite me with my friends.

Lies.

This man has knocked me out and tied me to this uncomfortable chair. The scary thing is that he seems so normal. He’s better-looking than most men, with dark blond hair, sharp cheekbones, and full lips. There’s something familiar about him. It takes me a few minutes to figure it out. When I do, a pit forms in my stomach. He’s weirdly similar to Caleb, like a poor man’s version of my fiancé.

“What’s happening? Who are you?” My words come out slurred. The effects of whatever drug he pressed to my mouth, chloroform maybe, linger in my system. I blink my eyes, trying to clear the blur from them. My head is pounding.

“Quiet!” he commands, his face twisting with anger. “You don’t get to speak. Not after the things you did.”

“What?” I’m bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“I think you know,” he sneers. “How you and your boyfriend like to go around sabotaging other people’s careers.”

“I have no idea what you mean.” I swallow with difficulty, my mouth parched. “Can I—can I get something to drink?”

He shakes his head, about to refuse, when a female voice, full of authority, speaks up from behind me. “Justin, get me a water.”

The man transforms. His rage vanishes, replaced by a look of adoration. He moves off to the side. I hear him rummaging around. I crane my neck, trying to follow his movements and to see the woman who spoke, but they remain out of sight. The woman’s voice was sultry and melodic—vaguely familiar—but I can’t place it.

Justin.

I know that name. Where have I heard it before? Sometime recently. I rack my brain. Something to do with Caleb? The answer is there in my mind, wispy and ethereal—just out of reach.

High heels tap on the concrete floor, and she stands in front of me. If I weren’t strapped to this chair, I surely would have fallen out of it.

Lola.

Lola Monroe, in the flesh, stands before me. She’s dressed in red, like Santa, but a distorted, sexy version. Tight dress with white fur at the neck and hemline. A wide, black belt. Tall, spiked heels. Christmas ornament earrings, similar to the ones that I have, hang from her ears, swinging with the movement of her head.

I’ve never met her in person, but I remember all too well the time I caved to insecurity and Googled Caleb, when we first got together. I had scrolled through pages and pages of photos of them with their arms around each other. Back then, those images had made me feel physically sick. I have the same sensation now.

“Lola, what’s going on?” Anger seeps into my voice. I tug my wrists and am rewarded by a sharp pain that shoots out to my fingers.

“You know my name,” she says with an amused quirk of her lips. “But do you know all the things you’ve stolen from me?”

She’s talking gibberish. I keep silent, staring at her stonily.

“Cat got your tongue, eh?” She comes closer and bends down until we’re eye to eye. She inspects me as if I’m a bug she’s about to squish with her stiletto heel.

“What is it about you?” she muses, her gaze traveling over me. “What does he see in you? For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. You’re a plain little thing. So mousey. Not worth his attention, or mine for that matter.”

She stands and stares down her nose at me. A scowl carves lines in her forehead, marring her near-flawless skin. “I thought at first you were a rebound from me. It made sense to go from someone like me to someone like you. Men do that when they get hurt. They run to something different, totally opposite from what they had before. But now he’s going to marry you, on Christmas Eve, of all days.”

Her beautiful face contorts with anger, turning it into something ugly. “I could have forgiven the rest of it, how you took Caleb and my career, but you went too far when you put the wedding on Christmas Eve.” She practically shrieks, “I won’t let you ruin my favorite holiday. Christmas is mine!”

Her hands turn into fists, and I’m sure she’ll lash out and hit me. She wants to do it so badly. I can sense it. Fear stirs low in my belly. I turn my head to the side, bracing myself. But she reels herself back in, slowly calming her panting breaths.

Once she’s under control, she gives me a satisfied, red-lipped smirk and says, “No. No wedding for you. It’s too late for that now.”

I suck in my breath. My head swings around wildly, looking for a window or a clock, something to tell me the time.

Lola laughs, the sound light and airy. She waggles her finger in front of my face, taunting. “Oh no, little mouse. You’ve been out for hours. Your wedding has come and gone. It’s past 7:00 p.m. Santa will be here soon, and all you’ll get is a lump of coal, you naughty creature.”

I want to believe she’s lying, trying to upset me, but the way she says it, with so much glee, tells me it’s true. I’ve missed my wedding. A sorrow I haven’t felt since my dad died descends on me. My head drops, and silent tears fill my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. An image of Caleb waiting for me at the end of the aisle fills my mind. The hurt and confusion on his face when I failed to show up is vivid in my imagination. It’s agony to wonder what he must have thought. Things have been strained between us. Did he assume I abandoned him?

These dark thoughts lead to ones that are even worse. What is Lola planning? Is she going to ransom me? Kill me? I want to sink into despair, but I can’t give up. I need to find a way out.

“I haven’t taken anything from you. You broke up with Caleb.” I’m proud the words come out strong, even though I’m quaking inside.

“That’s true, but it was temporary.” She looks at me with disgust. “He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”

“How did you do it? How do you know where Caleb is? Do you have a tracker on him?” I ignore her rambling and ask the questions that have been on my mind since I first heard about the Secret Santa website.

Her laughter is chilling. “Caleb? Why would I do that when it’s so much easier to monitor his bodyguard? They’re always together, those two. Back when I was dating Caleb, it wasn’t hard to put a tracker in Dean’s watch when he was in the shower.” She turns to Justin, who stands behind her, and takes a bottle of water out of his hands.

So that’s how she did it.

It all makes sense now. I decide to keep Lola talking. If I stall long enough, Caleb will realize I’m missing. He’ll send help.

“Everything you said proves I didn’t steal him from you.” I straighten my shoulders, pulling as tall as the ropes allow.

“You stole Caleb, and, even worse, you stole my career.” She twists open the water bottle and pauses dramatically.

My eyes are glued to that drink. I’m so thirsty I almost beg for it, but that’s what she wants.

“I might have miscalculated,” she continues. She casually takes a long drink.

Hearing her swallow makes me want to cry.

“Since we broke up, I’ve gotten fewer callbacks, not as many roles. You know Hollywood, they always side with the man.”

She screws the lid on the water bottle and hands it back to Justin. She smiles at him, slow and sensuous. He can’t glance away from her. He stares at her with a rapt, cult-like look of worship.

I frown, confused. “You still love Caleb though, right? I’ve seen the website. You write ‘naughty’ on every photo where he’s with another woman.”

Lola lets out a tinkling laugh. “Love? Oh, no. Not me. That was all Justin with the ‘naughty or nice’ and the lipstick on the clothing. The only reason I wanted that website was to make money. Got to replace those lost wages.”

“What?” My head swivels between the two of them.

Justin takes a step toward me. He snorts like he can’t understand why I’m so dense. “I wasn’t saying Caleb was naughty or nice. I meant the women he was with.”

His face reddens with anger. “It made me so mad how they would fawn all over him when I’m standing right there. They’re all so naughty! I’m better looking than Caleb, more talented. Why does he get all the attention? Those women should throw themselves at me.” Using both thumbs, he points to himself.

Lola sidles up to him and breathes into his ear, saying, “Absolutely, Justin. You deserve it all.”

Justin!

In a flash, it comes back to me. Caleb had mentioned that name as his understudy at the theater.

“Justin,” I call out. His attention snaps to me. “What are you getting out of this?”

“Me?” He steps closer. A glint of light reflects off something tucked into the waistband of his pants. Terror turns my blood to ice when I see it’s a gun, a small revolver.

“I get everything Caleb Freaking Lawson was too dumb to keep. I get his job.” He wraps his arm around Lola’s waist, the motion tentative. When Lola allows him to draw her close, his features turn into a smug smirk. “And I get his girl. He’ll be so upset after losing you, he’ll step down, and they’ll all be mine.”

“Lose me?” My gaze pivots between the two of them. “I would never leave Caleb.”

“You’ll have no choice.” There’s an unhinged satisfaction in the way Lola says it.

“You’re going on a trip, Gwen.” Lola turns to Justin and strokes a single red-tipped fingernail down his cheek. Justin purrs under her caress. “A trip you won’t be coming back from.”