Free A Beaumont Christmas Wedding by Sarah M. Anderson Page A

Whitney’s arm, shouting, “Why did you break Drako’s heart?”
    Matthew shoved and shoved hard. They were at his car, but people were pushing so much that he had trouble getting the passenger door open. “Get back,” he snarled as he hip-checked a man trying to grab a lot more than Whitney’s arm. “Back off.”
    He got the door open and basically shoved her inside, away from what had rapidly become a mob. He slammed the door shut, catching someone’s finger. There was howling. He was feeling cruel enough that he was tempted to leave the finger in there, but that would be the worst sort of headline—Beaumont Heir Breaks Beer Drinker’s Hand. So he opened the door just enough to pull the offending digit out and then slammed it shut again.
    Whitney sat in the passenger seat, already buckled up. She stared straight ahead. She’d gotten her hat back on, but it was too late for that. The parts of her face that were visible were tight and blank.
    Matthew stormed around to the driver’s side. No one grabbed him, but several people were recording him. Great. Just freaking great.
    He got in, fired up the engine on his Corvette Stingray and roared off. He was furious with the waitress—she’d probably called her girlfriends to tell them that Whitney Wildz was at her table. He was furious with the rest of the idiots, who’d descended into a mob in mere minutes.
    And he was furious with himself. He was the Beaumont who always, always handled the press and the public. Image was everything and he’d just blown his image to hell and back. If those people hadn’t recognized him from the get-go, it wouldn’t take much online searching before they figured it out.
    This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to happen—Whitney Wildz would turn this wedding and his message into a circus of epic proportions. Yeah, he’d been a jerk to her about it last night, but he’d also been right.
    Even if she was a cowgirl who fostered puppies and adopted greyhounds, even if she was a respected horse breeder, even if she was
nothing
he’d expected in the best possible ways, it didn’t change the perception. The perception was that Whitney Wildz was going to ruin this wedding.
    And he wouldn’t be able to control it. Any of it. Not the wedding, not the message—and not himself.
    He was screwed.

Six
    T hey drove in silence. Matthew took corners as if he were punishing them. Or her. She wasn’t sure.
    She wished she had the capacity to be surprised by what had happened at the restaurant, but she didn’t. Not anymore. That exact scene had played out time and time again, and she couldn’t even feel bad about it anymore.
    Instead, all she felt was resigned. She’d known this was going to happen, after all. And if she was disappointed by how Matthew had reacted, well, that was merely the by-product of him confusing her.
    She’d allowed herself to feel hopeful because, at least some of the time, Matthew liked her.
    The real her.
    She thought.
    She had no idea where they were, where they were going, or if they were going there in a straight line. He might be taking the long way just in case any of those fans had managed to follow them.
    “Are you all right?” he growled out as he pointed his sleek car toward what she thought was downtown Denver.
    She wouldn’t flinch at his angry tone. She’d learned a long time ago that a reaction—any reaction—would be twisted around. Best to be a placid statue. Although that hadn’t always worked so well, either.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Are you sure? That one guy—he
grabbed
you.”
    “Yes.” Had that been the same man whose hand had gotten crushed in the door?
    Even though she had her gaze locked forward, out of the corner of her eye she could see him turn and give her a look of disbelief. “And that doesn’t piss you off?”
    This time, she did wince. “No.”
    “Why the hell not? It pissed me off. People can’t grab you like that.”
    Whitney exhaled carefully through her nose. This