The Devastatingly Beautiful Series (21 page)

I can see her face getting redder, her hands balling up, and I know my father is about to conjure the wrath of Molly Ward if he doesn’t watch it.

“Listen to me dear, you don’t know when this family is going to strike I have tried my hardest to get any drip of info I can, but every lead is coming up dry.” I know the true meanings of my father’s words and suddenly understand why he feels so strongly about this. The strong arm technique didn’t work with this case. My father’s always able to get information out of people if he has them beat long enough. I see Molly about to unleash so I jumped in before she explodes on my father. As cute as that would be, I’m not sure he would appreciate it.

“Dad we can’t pull out with the wedding weekend mere hours away. Robert would know something’s up. It’s not going to get us clear form this fiasco.” He’s quiet for a moment, then grunts. He agrees, but he isn’t happy about it. We have to play it cool, act unsuspecting. Put on the best act we can, then catch him before he’s able to strike. Whatever he has planned, I have an awful feeling about it.

We hang up the phone and sit on the couch together, coming up with a plan for the next three days. My dad’s sending a few guys to help us if need be, but I hope it doesn’t come down to that. There’s been too much blood shed in the last few months. I’m ready for a vacation. The only bright spot of the next three days is knowing that tomorrow night, after my surprise to Molly, I’ll officially be off the market for good. At least, I hope.

14

Molly

I’m up before the sun today, full of the normal wedding weekend buzz I get when shooting a big wedding, plus the nerves running through me due to the unfortunate situation with Robert. Tatum and I have an hour drive to the wedding venue this morning and we need to be ready to go by 9 am for the first photo shoot. I’ll never understand the complexity of this package, and maybe it was all bought just to have us around for whatever Rob had planned, but I can’t think that way right now. This is a real wedding, and the bride is just like any other bride. She’s going to want to record every moment of this weekend, and that’s what I’m getting paid to do.

We load up the car and grab breakfast sandwiches to go, leaving with plenty of time to get there and get set up. Luckily, since it is only an hour away, we’ll be able to come home at night and not use expenses on a hotel room. The whole drive he tries making small talk, beaming all morning about it being a great day, but I can’t stop thinking about the danger we could be walking in to. Knowing that I am being used in a game of revenge yet again makes my skin crawl. Growing up I never thought this is where my life would be today. A month after being attacked by the man I thought had been dead for the past five years I’m yet again on edge that something equally bad is about to happen to us. I just hope we’re able to stop him before he acts. I couldn’t take it if something bad happened to Tatum.

Once we get there and get our things unloaded we grab a coffee and wait for the family to start arriving. The bride and her bridesmaids are first, traveling in a huge Cadillac stretch limo. Must be nice to have the money to drop on something like that, I think. Then again, I guess Tatum has just as much, if not more, as this family. He just isn’t anywhere near as flashy as them. That’s one of the many reason I love him so much.

After catching all of the arriving moments, I go off to meet the groomsmen. I’ve never actually met the groom, so we have our formal introduction then I disappear into the crowd, grabbing any angle I can of the bride and groom’s secret looks at each other. Perfect, I think to myself, as I am able to catch a breathtaking shot of a short kiss between the two of them when they thought no one was paying attention. It’s those moments that make me love my job.

It is then that I hear his voice. He commands every room he is in. How such a young man can seem so powerful is beyond me, but when Robert Delany is in attendance he is going to be noticed. Next to me Tatum stiffens when he hears his voice, but I put my hand on his elbow to calm him. I’m sure if he had it his way he’d kick his ass from here to Hong Kong until Rob promised to back off.

“Ah, Molly…and Tatum. SO glad you could both make it,” he announces, loud enough to let everyone hear. Then, in a more hushed tone he leaned in as he hugs me. “So you brought Savage? That wasn’t a very smart move, Miss Ward.”

My back straightens at the menacing tone and I push out of his hold and glare at him, right into those dark as night eyes.

“I told you my plans days ago. You had time to fire me,” I practically spit at him.

“You are right. Matter of fact, why don’t you meet me in the dining hall in about an hour. I have some…business…things we need to take care of.”

“We will be there,” Tatum speaks up.

Rob looks at him as if it were the first time he saw him. He pauses, staring at him, then nods his head and walks away.

“That fucker,” Tatum growls “He’s going to try his hardest to get alone with you.”

“I know. We just can’t let that happen. Alone with the rest of the family is fine, alone with Robert Delany equals catastrophe.” I agree with him one hundred percent. I want to be alone in a room with that man about as much as I want my left leg sawed off. Just the way he’s been acting around me recently is enough to give me the creeps, add in the cryptic warning from Tatum’s dad to stay away and I don’t even want to be in a crowded room with him.

The day goes on as planned without any major snags. We meet Rob in the dining hall and it’s all business surprisingly, though the way he look at me made my skin crawl. I used to think he was so handsome, and before all of the drama started I thought I may have been attracted to him, but now he’s just being creepy. He’s becoming more and more obvious in his interest in me as the day goes on, and Tatum keeps getting closer and closer to marking his territory each passing minute.

About an hour before the day ends Tatum gets a phone call he says he had to take. He said it’s urgent, and it has to be if he’s going to leave me alone to take it. When he comes back to me, he looks pissed.

“Everything okay?” I ask, worried that he got news about the Delany’s from his dad.

“Yea. Listen,” he starts, then curses and runs his hands through his dark hair. “I fucking hate this, but I need to take off a little early. I’ll meet you at home, okay?” He looks menacing right now, and whatever has him this pissed off I feel bad for.

“What are you talking about, it’s an hour drive and we only have one car.” He can’t leave me. We’ve almost made it through our first day without any incident. This isn’t happening right now.

“I’ll call the guys from my dad, they’re near here. They’ll be here to drive you home and watch you in case something goes wrong. Someone just called in a foul smell coming from the studio. They think there may be a gas leak.” He shakes his head. “Molly he’s not going to try anything this weekend. There are too many people around and you have less than an hour before you can leave. When you are done, get right into the car and come straight home, got it?”

I nod, standing there wondering why no one called me about a potential gas leak. It’s my building after all.

“Hey,” he says, his hand cupping my chin. “I love you.” He kisses me goodbye and walks away. After he gets in the car and drives away, I make my way back to the wedding party for a few more shots of the rehearsal dinner gathering.

They’ve moved to the outdoor veranda, the music has started and everyone looks like they’re having a great time. These pictures are going to be beautiful. With about fifteen minutes left of my portion of the day, the bride realizes she can’t find her purse anywhere and everyone starts looking for it. It’s a madhouse in here, but I think I remember seeing it in the dining hall when I was walking through after Tatum left, so I head back there to grab it for her. What I don’t expect to see, though, is a dark room with Robert Delany smiling at me as I walk through the door. My stomach drops.

“Well Ms. Ward. Where in the world is your bodyguard?” he chuckles as he moves closer to me.

Shit.

Tatum

I hate lying to her, I really do, but it needed to be done in order for the surprise to still be a surprise. Even more so than lying to her, I hate that I had to leave her there without me. My dad’s men can’t get there for about fifteen minutes, but they’re on their way. Rob’s been eerily pleasant all day, which threw me for a huge loop. I at least expected a threat or sneer or snide comment… but there were none. Smiles and handshakes all around. I hate mind games, but apparently this man excels at them.

Now I sit in the car, about fifteen minutes from home, pissed off and surprised as hell that in a small town, no one knows how to work together. I gave three townspeople the inside scoop of my proposal in order for things to go smoothly. Three, that’s it. Apparently I chose the wrong fucking people because they can’t follow simple directions.

Molly hates roses. Most women get roses and swoon, but not my woman. She gets roses, then goes on a rant about how ugly they are and how they are so over rated and over used. So, in order for this proposal to be just perfect I had Betty call in an order of hundreds of flowers. All Calla Lilies. One task is all she needed to do and she fucked up big time. There were Red roses delivered this morning after we left, and she can’t get anyone to bring the correct flowers. She swears that she ordered the right ones, but who really knows. She’s a little crazy.

So, now I have an hour from the time I get home to the time Molly gets here to re-plan the evening. The plan was supposed to be Molly and I walking in the house together to the lights low, candles lit, and flowers everywhere. I was going to have her go inside before me and when she turned to look at me I’d be down on one knee, ready to propose. Now I have to figure out the flower debacle and re-plan my strategy in one hour. I can do this, I’ve done harder things in an hour. Let’s get to it!

***

Forty-five minutes later I have it all planned out. Instead of hundreds of flowers around the whole house, I was able to find enough Calla Lilies at a local flower shop a few towns over to make an even more romantic gesture. It took a little monetary persuasion to open the shop for me after hours, but she’s worth it ten- fold. She will walk into the house, lights off and music on. There will be votive candles lit in a path towards the bedroom, all the way up the stairs. The flowers will be in a path to the bedroom as well. In the bedroom, I’ll be down on one knee, waiting for her to walk in. There will be candles everywhere and not a light on in the house. I can just picture her face in the glow of the candlelight now, so beautiful.

My nerves are so high right now I could probably run a marathon. A few women in town caught word of what I was frantically trying to do so they pitched in helping set up the perfect scene. The whole time they were setting up I’m pretty sure I heard comments about how sad it was that I’d be off the market for good soon. What they don’t want to know is that I’ve been off the market for as long as I’ve known Molly. She’s been my everything from day one.

I’ve never been this nervous before. I’m a Savage, we get what we want every time we want something. To think that there is a chance, even after all we have been through, that she won’t want to be with me permanently scares the shit out of me. I have to do this, though. I’ve never been so sure of anything, ever, in my entire life. She needs to be my wife. She will be my wife.

Now, I wait.

Prologue

Tatum

Two months ago my world was shattered. Her face is still etched into my memory, her smell still on everything she touched. I won’t wash the sheets, I won’t take her products out of the bathroom. She will come back. I would personally see to it myself if I knew where the fuck she is. That asshole effectively ruined me when he took her, without a trace of where she went. My last words to her were that she’d be safe, but now she’s been missing for 57 days. That’s a long fucking time to go without the person you rely on to breathe.

The day I learned that she was gone was the second worst day of my entire life. She never arrived home after the first night of the Delany wedding weekend. I had received a text stating she was staying near the venue so she would be able to get an early start, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. I haven’t heard her voice in two months. I called, frantically, waiting to hear her voice but there was never an answer. I hopped on my bike, riding into the night to find her, thinking her phone may have died, but having a terrible feeling of the meaning of that text. Eddie traced her cell to the side of a road, but there was no sign of her. Even stranger is that there was a new photographer already set up and ready to go for the wedding. The Bride and Groom had just said that Molly needed to leave but set up a friend to do the photos. They didn’t seem fazed about it at all, actually.

When it happened initially everyone in town started talking. She was gone, the town sweetheart who had been through so much had just disappeared. Since no one knew who took her they just assumed she had run away. There was no reason to spook the town that she had been kidnapped. Her parents don’t even know. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the last time they called and lucky for me their relationship with her was so strained it wasn’t strange at all for them to go months without talking to one another.

I’ve been working my ass off trying to find Robert Delany, but even he seemed to drop off the face of the earth. When you have the money that his family does, anything is possible. The thought crosses my mind daily, now, that I may never find her but I try my hardest to push it back. I can’t think that way. I won’t.
I need my Molly
. Eddie is working practically around the clock to find his whereabouts, my father has men tracing his family’s steps in case one of them slips, and I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Florida waiting for the latest update to come through to see if I’m in the right place this time.

I’ve been to about seven different cities, all tracing leads that led to nowhere. My current location is due to a tip we got from tracing Rob’s sister’s credit cards. She’s recently taken out a new card in a different name, but has yet to make a purchase. Until recently. No one would believe the amount of time, energy, and money I’ve put into this search, but if losing everything I have makes me gain the one thing I want most, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Rob needs to think that I’m not frantic about this situation. He needs to think I’m as calm as can be, impartial really. He needs to believe I don’t care, possibly that I’ve even moved on. As soon as he lets his guard down, I’ll be there. I’ll kill him for what he did. I try not to let myself think about what he’s doing to her, but the thoughts creep in daily. He’s a womanizer, abuser, and a possible killer. And he’s had her for way too fucking long.