Read Sarasota Bride for Free Online Page A

finger beneath her chin. “You are expected to break up with your boyfriend, remember? You’re engaged now.”
    “This isn’t…”
    Drake interrupted her, “Fair? You made it clear that you don’t want my opinion, so I won’t offer it. The decision rests on you. Are you going to stick to the agreement or not?”

Chapter Five
    Libby followed a winding hall leading to a set of elevators anchored to the main lobby. She stepped in, punched a button denoting the harbor, and held her stomach as the elevator car plunged. Her two bodyguards silently stood next to her, one glancing indiscreetly — or so he thought — at her small breasts. The summer dress she’d chosen from Trey’s purchases was a butter-yellow, off-the-shoulder number that plumped her small mounds and created an actual cleavage, accenting an area society would deem lacking. But with her leaner body and too-skinny legs, breast implants would have looked like soccer balls protruding from her chest, not that she’d ever considered them. Libby always figured that if a man couldn’t love the body that she was in, then she couldn’t love the body that he was in. So following that rule made life simpler when stripping down naked and baring her all.
    A ding sounded before the doors opened. Gaslights lit the walkways outside, flickering beneath the tail end of the setting sun. She pushed back her curls, wishing she’d had the resources to straighten her long hair instead of blow-drying it. But she hadn’t her usual arsenal of beauty products with her, and thirty minutes to become presentable for any Easton restaurant, waterside cafe or not, was a nerve-wrecking undertaking. She sighed as she stepped onto the palazzo. Who was she kidding? She never found dressing for an event or a night out nerve wrecking. Simply, her life had been turned into a nerve-wrecking event, and, right now, she had no control over anything. Unless she could allow her father to go to jail…and face her mother during the countless years he was incarcerated.
    Currently, her most immediate predicament was standing next to a wrought iron high table, holding out his hand for her. Stephen. He was wearing her favorite True Religion jeans, the ones that hugged his perfect ass just…perfectly. His auburn hair glowed gold under the gaslights but there was no twinkle in his green eyes, no youthful smile that usually told her everything was going to be okay.
    “How’s Payton?”
    Dylan had texted her on the hour. “She’s doing better than the doctor expected. She’s on her way here.”
    “Give her my best, when you see her.”
    She was going to see Payton first thing in the morning, after all the drugs wore off and she’d rested thoroughly. “I will.”
    “You look,” he stopped and took her in from the bottom of her sixteen hundred dollar stilettos to her wild mane of blonde curls, “amazing.”
    She didn’t feel amazing wearing Trey’s luxurious gifts. In fact, she felt like shit. Because she was about to act like a shit to keep her tiny piece of the world revolving on its axis. “You always make me feel good about myself, Stephen.” He leaned down so she could kiss him. It was brief brush of the lips, chaste even, but her heart thudded against her ribs. He helped her in her chair, his moss green eyes dropping to her left hand, searching, no doubt, for the ring she conveniently hid beneath the mattress upstairs. So he already knew, just as Drake had predicted.
    “I always mean every word,” he said quietly, gesturing to the appletini he’d ordered her. His shirtsleeves were cuffed high on his tanned forearms, his gold watch showing she was half an hour late.
    “Thank you.” She took a sip, and then three more. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
    “I imagine you were shoring your courage,” he replied, a tick forming in his jaw. “Have you been seeing him the entire time we were together?” His fingers clenched around his whiskey glass, and she was afraid it would shatter in