A Game of Vows Read Online Free PDF Page A

publicize our marriage. Or rather, why you ran out on your wedding. It doesn’t matter either way to me.”
    She swore and took her phone from her purse. “Fine. But Shelby did go and speak to him.” She bit her lip and looked down at the screen. Still no calls from him, and she’d been sort of hoping there would have at least been one. There was a text from Shelby.
    “And have you heard from him?”
    “No.” Strange. But she couldn’t really imagine Zack playing the part of desperate, jilted groom. Decent he was, but the man had pride. She opened the text from Shelby and her heart plummeted. “Zack wasn’t at the hotel when she arrived.”
    “So he still hasn’t heard from you at all.”
    She clutched the phone tightly against her chest. Eduardo was watching her far too closely. She needed a moment. Just a moment.
    “Why don’t you bring my bags in?” she asked.
    Dark eyes narrowed, but he walked over to the entry and pulled her bags just inside the door, shutting it behind him.
    She bit her lip and looked back down at her phone.
    “Scared?” he asked.
    “No,” she muttered. She opened up the message screen and typed in Zack’s name, her fingers hovering over the letters on the touch screen as she watched the cursor blink. She really didn’t know what to say to him. “Nothing about this in the chivalry handbook?” she asked.
    Eduardo crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned against the back of the couch. “I think we both have to accept that we’re on the wrong side of honor at this point in time.”
    “Good thing I never gave honor much thought,” she said.
    Except she was now. Or at least giving thought to what a mess she’d made out of Zack’s life. She growled low in her chest and shot Eduardo one last evil glare.
    I’m so sorry about the wedding, Zack.
    She let her thumb hover over the send button and then hit it on a groan.
    “What did you tell him?”
    “Nothing really yet.” She pulled up another text window.
    I met someone else. I—She paused for a moment and looked at Eduardo. If she’d been speaking, she would have gagged on the next word.—love him.
    She closed her eyes and hit Send. Let him think that emotion had been in charge. She and Zack were both so cynical about love … he might even find it funny. That had been the foundation of their relationship really. Zack had wanted a wife, the stability marriage would bring. But he wanted a wife who wouldn’t bother him about his long working hours, and who didn’t want children. Or love.
    They’d been so well suited.
    “There. I hope you’re happy. I just ruined things with my best bet for a happy ending.”
    “You said you didn’t love him,” Eduardo said.
    “I know. But I like him. I respect him. How often do you get that in a marriage?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve only ever had separate bedrooms and blackmail in my marriage. What excuse did you give him?”
    “I told him how much I loved you, dearest,” she bit out.
    He chuckled. “You always were an accomplished little liar.”
    “Well, I don’t feel good about this one.”
    “You felt good about the others?”
    She truly didn’t know the answer. “I … I never thought about how I felt about it. Just about whether or not it was necessary. Anyway, I don’t lie as a matter of course.”
    “You just lie about really big things infrequently?”
    “Every job application has started with questions about college. Didn’t I get near-perfect grades at university? Didn’t I have a prestigious internship at Vega Communications? No lies. No one wants to know about high school, not once you’ve been through university.”
    “And your fiancé?”
    “Never asked many questions. He liked what he knew about me.” And neither of them knew all that much. Something she was realizing now that she was being haunted by her past. She and Zack had never even slept together. Not for lack of attraction. She’d been quite attracted to him, impossible not to be, but