Dylan watched in dismay as his brother picked up a glass, poured whiskey all the way to the rim, and slugged back half of it in one gulp.
“I can’t marry her. I can’t do it. You have to go tell her!”
Shit. Chris had crazy-person eyes. And crazy-person hands—he was gesturing wildly, even with the hand holding the glass, and his frenzied movements caused the amber-colored liquid to slosh onto the rich burgundy carpet beneath Chris’s black leather wingtips.
It was becoming painfully clear that Chris was not joking around.
“Put the whiskey down,” Dylan said quietly.
His brother ignored the order and swallowed another mouthful.
With a sigh, he marched over and forcibly grabbed the glass from Chris’s shaky fingers. The suite had a dressing area on one side of the room and a living area on the other, which offered a set of leather armchairs situated in front of an enormous stone fireplace. Dylan promptly dragged Chris over to one of the chairs and forced him to sit.
“What’s going on? Why can’t you marry Claire?” Rather than sit, he crossed his arms and loomed over his brother.
“Because she’s not the right woman for me.”
Are you f**king kidding me?
He tamped down the retort before it could pop out of his mouth. But come on, Chris was only reaching that conclusion now?
Dylan had known from day one that Claire McKinley wasn’t right for his brother. He’d been hoping Chris would eventually see it too, but he hadn’t expected it to happen ten minutes before the couple’s frickin’ wedding. And it wasn’t just a small, private gathering that could easily be disbanded if Chris was actually serious about all this. This was an expensive, showy affair that would unleash waves and waves of gossip if the ceremony were cancelled. The senior partner of Chris’s law firm had graciously rented out the country club for the day so the couple could marry there. There were five hundred people waiting in that banquet hall, including Dylan’s mother, Shanna, who was over the moon about welcoming a daughter into their family.
Shit. His mom was going to be crushed.
“I’ve been deluding myself for months,” Chris was saying, his voice lined with so much misery that Dylan felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. “I kept telling myself that I’d made the right decision by asking her to marry me. Claire’s smart, she’s successful, she’s beautiful. But she’s got a lot of flaws too, and…I thought…”
Dylan sank into the other armchair. “You thought what?”
“That she would change.” Chris shrugged helplessly. “I was hoping she’d eventually start acting like…I don’t know, like the woman I wanted her to be.”
“For f**k’s sake, Chris, you were waiting around hoping your fiancée’s entire personality would change?”
It also didn’t escape him that his brother hadn’t said a word about love. Not even once. But he decided not to point that out.
“I’m an idiot, okay?” Chris dragged a hand through his perfectly groomed blond hair. “Deep down I knew it wasn’t right, but I kept telling myself I had to go through with it. The invitations were already sent out, and Mom was so excited, and then Lowenstein booked us the Lavender Ballroom at the frickin’ Marin Hills Golf Club as a wedding gift—I couldn’t exactly tell the senior partner of my firm, hey, no thanks, the wedding is off.”
Chris’s breathing grew labored. He was visibly trembling now, and Dylan had never seen his brother’s face so pale before.
“I should have listened to Maxwell,” Chris muttered. “He told me she wasn’t a good enough prospect, he—”
“Wait a minute, what?”
“Pres Maxwell—he’s one of the associates at the firm. He and his wife are members here—they’re the ones who nominated Claire and me for membership—and last weekend we had lunch with them. I played a few rounds with Pres and the boys, and Claire spent some time with the other wives.” Chris’s lips tightened. “I don’t know what was said exactly, but Pres pulled me aside on Monday morning and said that Claire told the women some personal details about her past. And they weren’t respectable details, if you know what I mean.”
Dylan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He sometimes forgot what a prude his brother was.
“Okay, so she talked to the country club ladies about sex. Are you telling me that’s why you’re breaking it off?”
His brother’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “I told you why I’m doing this, Dylan. That was just one example of how she’s not a good match for me.” Chris abruptly shot to his feet. “I can’t marry her. I can’t be with a woman who doesn’t respect me.”
“Who says she doesn’t?”
“There’s a lot more you don’t know,” Chris said darkly. “Unlike Claire, I’m not going to talk out of turn. Our personal shit and certain indiscretions aren’t anybody’s business but ours. Just trust me when I say that I need to end this.”
Dylan narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying she f**ked around on you?”
“I’m not saying anything.” Now those green eyes were imploring him, shining with fear. “You’ve got to tell her the wedding is cancelled.”
“I’m not breaking up with your bride for you, damn it.”
“But you’re the best man,” Chris protested. “And you’re my brother.”