A Beaumont Christmas Wedding. Sarah M. Anderson
interested in his plate. How was he going to keep this primal urge to haul her off under control if they were paired up for the wedding?
He could not let her distract him from his goals, no matter how much he wanted to. He had to pull this off—to prove that he was a legitimate Beaumont. Ravishing the maid of honor did not fall anywhere on his to-do list.
“Ah.” He looked up when he heard her chair scrape against the floor. She stood and, without looking at him, said, “I’m a little tired from the drive. If you’ll excuse me.” Jo started to stand, but Whitney waved her off. “I think I can find my way.”
Then she was gone, walking in a way that he could only describe as graceful. She didn’t stumble and she didn’t fall. She walked in a straight line for the stairs.
Several moments passed after she disappeared up the stairs. No one seemed willing to break the tense silence. Finally, Matthew couldn’t take it anymore.
“What the hell? Why is Whitney Wildz your maid of honor and why didn’t either of you see fit to tell me in advance? Jesus, if I’d known, I would have done things differently. Do you have any idea what the press will do when they find out?”
It was easier to focus on how this was going to screw up the wedding than on how his desire was on the verge of driving him mad.
“Gosh, I don’t know. You think they’ll make a big deal out of stuff that happened years ago and make Whitney feel like crap?” Phillip shot back. “You’re right. That would really suck.”
“Hey—this is not my fault. You guys sprung this on me.”
“I believe,” Jo said in a voice so icy it brought the temperature of the room down several degrees, “I told you I was asking Whitney Maddox to be my maid of honor. Whitney Wildz is a fictional character in a show that was canceled almost thirteen years ago. If you can’t tell the difference between a real woman and a fictional teenager, then that’s your problem, not hers.”
“It is my problem,” he got out through gritted teeth. “You can’t tell me that’s all in the past. What about the headlines?”
Phillip rolled his eyes. “Because everything the press prints is one hundred percent accurate, huh? I thought you, of all people, would know how the headlines can be manipulated.”
“She’s a normal person,” Jo said. Instead of icy, though, she was almost pleading. “I retrained one of her horses and we got to spend time together last winter. She’s a little bit of a klutz when she gets nervous but that’s it. She’s going to be fine.”
“If you can treat her like a normal person,” Phillip added. “Man—I thought you were this expert at reading people and telling them what they wanted to hear. What happened? Hit your head this morning or something?”
Matthew sat there, feeling stupid. Hell, he wasn’t just feeling stupid—he was stupid. His first instinct had been to protect her. He should have stuck with it. He could do that without giving in to his desire to claim her, right?
Right. He was in control of his emotions. He could keep up a wall between the rest of the world and himself. He was good at it.
Then he made the mistake of glancing at that silly donkey, who gave him a baleful look of reproach. Great. Even the donkey was mad at him.
“I should apologize to her.”
Phillip snorted. “You think?”
Damn it, he felt like a jerk. It didn’t come naturally to him. Chadwick was the one who could be a royal pain simply because he wasn’t clued in to the fact that most people had actual feelings. Phillip used to be an ass all the time because he was constantly drunk and horny. Matthew was the one who smoothed ruffled feathers and calmed everyone down.
Phillip was right. Matthew hadn’t been reading the woman next to him. He’d been too busy thinking about old headlines and new lust to realize that she might want his approval.
“Which room is she in?”
Jo and Phillip shared a look before Phillip said, “Yours.”
Whitney found her room on the first try and shut the door behind her.
Well. So much for her little fantasy about a Christmas romance. She doubted that Matthew would have been less happy to see her if she’d thrown up on his shoes.
She flopped down on her bed and decided that she would not cry. Even though it was really tempting, she wouldn’t. She’d learned long ago this was how it went, after all. People would treat her just fine until they recognized her and then? All bets were off. Once she’d been outed as Whitney Wildz, she might as well give up on normal. There was no going back.
She’d thought for a moment there she might get to do something ordinary—have a little Christmas romance between the maid of honor and the best man. But every time she got it in her foolish little head that she could be whoever she wanted to be...well, this was what would happen.
The thing was, she didn’t even blame Matthew. Since he recognized her so quickly, that could only mean that he’d read some of the more recent headlines. Like the last time she’d tried to redeem Whitney Wildz by lending her notoriety to the Bakersfield Animal Shelter’s annual fund-raising gala dinner. She’d been the keynote speaker—or would have been if she hadn’t gotten the fancy Stuart Weitzman shoes she’d bought just for the occasion tangled up in the microphone cords on her way up to the podium.
The headlines had been unforgiving.
Whitney shivered. Boy, this was going to be a long, cold two weeks.
As she was getting up to turn her fireplace back on, she heard it—a firm knock.
Her brain diverted all energy from her legs to the question of who was on the other side of that door—Jo or a Beaumont?—and she tripped into the door with an audible whump.
Oh, for the love of everything holy. Just once—once!—she’d like to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. She could sing and play the guitar simultaneously. She could do complicated dressage moves on the back of a one-ton animal. Why couldn’t she put one foot in front of the other?
She forced herself to take a deep breath just as a male voice on the other side of the door said, “Is everything all right in there, Miss...uh...Ms. Maddox?”
Matthew. Great. How could this get worse? Let her count the ways. Had he come to ask her to drop out of the wedding? Or just threaten her to be on her best behavior?
She decided she would not cower. Jo had asked her to be in the wedding. If Jo asked her to drop out, she would. Otherwise, she was in. She collected her thoughts and opened the door a crack. “Yes, fine. Thanks.”
Then she made the mistake of looking at him. God, it wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.
Matthew Beaumont was, physically, the perfect man to have a Christmas romance with. He had to be about six foot one, broad chested, and that chin? Those eyes? Even his deep red hair made him look distinctive. Striking.
Gorgeous.
Too darned bad he was an ass.
“Can I help you?” she asked, determined to be polite if it killed her. She would not throw a diva fit and prove him right. Even if there would be a certain amount of satisfaction in slamming the door in his face.
He gave her a grin that walked the fine line between awkward and cute. He might be even better-looking than his brother, but he appeared to possess none of the charm. “Look, Ms. Maddox—”
“Whitney.”
“Oh. Okay. Whitney. We got off on the wrong foot and—”
She winced.
He