“Are you okay, Mom?” he asks Mrs. Wilder.

“Yes, yes.”

He kisses her on the cheek, exchanges muffled words with bouncer guy, and turns toward me. “You. With me,” he says curtly.

I contemplate protesting, but I need someone in the family on my side. I throw one last glance at Jake, who’s whispering furiously with the minister and doesn’t turn around. So I follow his brother out of the room.

“Where are we going?” I ask Edward as he turns into a narrow corridor and down a flight of steep stone steps.

“Somewhere more private.”

Oh my goodness. He’s taking me to the castle dungeons. What next? Is the wedding inquisition coming to interrogate me? Are they going to send bouncer guy?

Edward leads me through a labyrinth of corridors and finally lets me into a small room with walls made of thick stone, no windows, and two doors. The room’s furnished with two chairs and an old-fashioned table.

“Wait here,” Edward says.

“For whom? How long?”

“Jake, and I’m not sure.”

“Please don’t leave me here alone.”

“You’re going to be fine; I have things to sort upstairs.” He walks through the door, then pauses and pops his head back into the room. “Ah, Gemma?”

“Yeah?”

“That was bad ass.” He winks at me and walks away, closing the door behind him.

I pace around the small cell, but there’s not really much I can do besides sitting in one of the chairs. I check my phone—no signal here. Not that I need to call anyone. What’s going on upstairs? What’s happening? Is the wedding off? It looked that way, but who knows?

Suddenly the door bursts open and Jake storms into the room. With a few flicks of his fingers, he removes his bow tie and sets his gray eyes on me. They’re ignited with… umm… emotions. Love? Hate? Anger? Passion? I’m not sure. I can’t read his features.

Even with the tortured face, he’s impossibly handsome. My eyes flicker over the bow tie hanging loosely around his neck and the open shirt exposing his Adam’s apple—too sexy. I move my gaze up to his shaven, strong jaw and back to his icy gray eyes, intimate and foreign at the same time. Three years have chiseled his face, making it even more gorgeous. Not fair. No one should look this good.

I make to get up on wobbly knees and go toward him, but he stops me with a raised finger. “Down,” he orders, moving the same finger downwards to indicate what I should do.

He starts pacing around the room. He stops, looks at me, and speaks.

“You…” He shakes his head and starts pacing again.

After a few seconds, it’s a repeat.

Stops. Looks. Speaks.

“Of all days… today!” Shakes head. Starts pacing.

It’s like a dance.

Stops. Looks. Speaks.