The Man Who Made Me Wait

I was engaged to my uncle — Hugo, my uncle in name only. But to him I was still a kid.

I reached to undo his tie with shaking hands, and he brushed them away. "You think I'm enough of an animal to sleep with my own niece?" The next day he flew to London, using work as the excuse.

Two years later we ran into each other at a karaoke bar. I was being asked out in public by a guy a few years ahead of me at school.

And Hugo stood there with a drink in his hand, leaning against the wall, watching the show like none of it touched him. … That night I sat uneasy in the back of his black town car while he held my chin and looked me over. "I raised you myself.

How dare you run off with someone else?" Chapter 1 All I'd meant to do was step out of our karaoke room for some air. I hadn't expected to run into Uncle Hugo in the hallway.

I'd barely seen him in two years. And I really hadn't expected Sawyer Talbot, from my program, to block my way and tell me he liked me.

I shook my head, at a loss. "I'm sorry, Sawyer, I—" "Bridget, is this about me being four years older than you?" He cut me off, like he'd had the line ready. "Older guys actually take better care of you.

Take me—" Hugo leaned against the wall with a drink in his hand, loose and unhurried. Like none of it had anything to do with him.

Sawyer must have been planning this for a long time. The second he finished, everyone poured out of the karaoke room and closed in around us. "Say yes!

Say yes!" "Come on, Bridget, look at him.

He's hot and he's rich." "You're not losing anything here!" I waited for the noise to die down, pressed my lips together, and finished what I'd started to say. "I'm sorry.

I already have a boyfriend." A few feet away, Hugo half lifted his eyes. Sawyer's brows drew together. He was losing patience. "You've been saying that since freshman year.

How come none of us has ever seen him?" "Call him over right now and I'll believe you." "Yeah, Bridget. You use that excuse on everybody. It's kind of lazy." That made me mad too.

I argued back, sullen. "We're getting married this year. Why would I lie about that?" I'd put it together not long after I saw Hugo. I was about to turn twenty.

He'd come back to marry me. And once the paperwork was signed, he'd be gone again soon enough.

Turned down again and again, Sawyer went from embarrassed to furious. "Married?" "You playing me for a fucking idiot, Bridget?" "Have I been too nice to you?" He jabbed a finger at me, face dark, opening his mouth to say something worse.

Then a larger hand closed around that finger and bent it back without mercy. His scream tore through the whole hallway. It was Hugo's bodyguard.

He kicked Sawyer in the back of the knee. Sawyer's leg gave out, and he dropped straight to his knees in front of me.

The manager came jogging down the hall at the noise, acting like the rest of us weren't there.

He put on a smile, made himself smaller, leaned in close to Hugo, and said miserably: "Mr. Marchetti, is everything—?" "Did this punk give you trouble?" Hugo didn't answer.

He'd only just started to lift the hand holding his glass. The manager could read a face better than anyone alive — he got there first and took the glass before that hand came down.

Hugo looked at me, one brow going up, smiling. "Are you coming or not?" Nobody in the crowd that had been egging Sawyer on dared say a word now.

They even opened a path for me on their own. I walked over to Hugo obediently and caught the faint smell of alcohol on him.

One girl worked up the nerve to call out to me, though carefully. Chapter 2 "So that's your boyfriend?" Hugo had always treated me like a kid.

He wouldn't like me deciding something like that on my own. I shook my head and introduced him instead. "He's my uncle." Nothing moved on Hugo's face.

He just rubbed, on and off, at the ring on his left ring finger — the one I'd put there myself the night we got engaged.

The manager couldn't read him and was sweating. "Are you feeling better now, Mr.

Marchetti…" "I can teach this little punk another lesson for you!" Hugo raised a hand to stop him. "Not worth it." Then he sent someone back into the room for his suit jacket.

He carried it in his own hand and asked me, "Do you want to stay a while longer, or come home with me?" Behind me, they were so curious about Hugo it was about to spill out of their eyes.

No way was I staying to be interrogated.

I moved a little closer to him, reaching for a sense of safety without thinking about it. "Uncle Hugo, I want to go home." The driver raised the privacy partition without being told, and I didn't know what to do with myself.

It was so quiet in the back that I could hear the tires running steady on the highway. Beside me, Hugo had his eyes closed, rubbing his temples.

I curled my hands in my lap and worked up the courage. "Uncle Hugo, does your head hurt?" "I… I could rub it for you." It had been almost half a year since I'd last seen him.

Hugo and I had drifted back to that unfamiliar distance again.

There was a thread of amusement buried in his low voice, and something about it pulled at me in a way I couldn't name. "Mm?

Going to all that trouble for me?" "I landed and got roped straight into a welcomeback dinner.

I hadn't gotten a chance to tell you I was back." It took me two seconds to realize he was explaining himself to me. "It's okay." I knelt up on the seat, reached over, put both hands on his temples, and worked at them seriously.

With his eyes closed, I could get away with letting my gaze trace his features this openly. He was really goodlooking.

His features weren't too delicate, and they weren't too severe. Betterlooking than anyone I'd ever seen. A horn broke the quiet. The driver hit the brakes.

The momentum threw me sideways. "Ah—" Just as I thought I was going down, a pair of hands caught me around the waist. Hugo pulled me straight into his lap, sideways.

I grabbed his neck without thinking. Our eyes met. My own blankness looked back at me out of his inkdark eyes. This close, the alcohol on his collar was much stronger.

I came back to myself and moved to get off his lap. But Hugo pressed a hand to my waist and locked me in place.

He looked straight at me and said, out of nowhere, "You're seeing someone?" I looked at him, confused, not following why he'd ask. "What…?" Hugo studied my face, unhurried.

Then his hand came up and took my chin, tilting it. My breathing went shallow. I was too nervous to look at him.

Hugo was drunk, and the pressure he usually kept deliberately in check wasn't staying hidden. "All grown up.

Getting bold, too." "Uncle Hugo…" I clutched the shirt at his shoulder, my voice shaking.

His murmur dropped lower and lower, but there was something buried in it, some obsession he couldn't say out loud. "I raised you.

Shouldn't you belong to me." The corner of his mouth lifted. "How dare you run off with someone else?" I wasn't sure what Hugo meant by any of it, and I didn't dare let myself think in that direction.

Chapter 3 In two years, all the time we'd actually spent together probably didn't add up to three months. He'd even turned me down once already. There was no way he liked me.

But right now he was drunk enough to hear only what he wanted to hear, and he wouldn't let go of me. So I set the knot in my chest aside for the moment.

Awkwardly, I put my arms around his shoulders.

Past the heat climbing up my ears, I said quietly, "I'm yours…" "I won't run." Hugo kissed the top of my head like a reward. "Good girl." I'd called the housekeeper ahead of time and asked her to make up the guest room for Hugo.

But when we got home he ignored it completely and followed me into the primary bedroom. The meaning was obvious. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

In two weeks, on my twentieth birthday, Hugo and I were going down to sign the papers. When my hand landed on his tie, my heart was so loud I wondered if he could hear it too.

Somewhere in the fog of facing something I knew nothing about, I couldn't say how much of what I felt was anticipation. Hugo looked down at me, mild.

A few seconds later he brushed my hand away, as gently as he had two years ago. "You're still scared." I pressed my lips together. "I'm sorry, Uncle Hugo." But it wasn't the same as two years ago.

More than scared, I was nervous. Hugo circled my wrist and lifted it.

He tipped his head slightly and touched his lips to the inside of it. "Don't apologize." That night I slept curled against Hugo. My body stayed tense anyway, without meaning to.

Late, in the quiet, Hugo stroked the back of my head. "Do you want to marry me?" I nodded a little and gave him the answer a good girl would. "I do." As if to prove it, I pressed closer against him.

I thought I probably liked Hugo, a little. Our families had settled the match between us when I was very small.

He was nine years older than me, and he'd never taken the ridiculous arrangement seriously. He was the one who told me to call him uncle.

When I was a kid, during the years my father was overseas building the business, Hugo was the one who took care of me.

Then, my last year of high school, my father's company ran out of cash and came to the edge of going under. His hair went white overnight.

It was hard for him to get the words out. "Bridie, will you marry Hugo as soon as you graduate?" "We can do the wedding first and deal with the legal part later." "Dad's company needs the Marchettis to put money in…" I resisted.

I didn't want a marriage with no feeling in it. And back then, Hugo was just my uncle to me. But my father worked day and night until he collapsed and ended up in the hospital.

Sitting by his bed, I gave in. Then he went to talk to Hugo, and Hugo turned him down without stopping to think.

The next day, the moment I got home from school, my father went down on his knees in front of me. Sobbing. "Daddy's sorry, Bridie." "After you graduate, will you go to Mr.

Ostrander…" "Hugo doesn't want you. I'm out of options." "Mr. Ostrander is the only one willing to help me." Mr.

Ostrander was seven years older than my father, with a big belly and not much hair left on top. Most important of all, he had a wife.

My father shook with crying, hard enough that blood seeped through the bandage on his wrist.

After Hugo turned him down, he hadn't been able to take the pressure from the creditors, and he'd cut his wrists. He didn't die. So now he meant to push me to my death instead.

I ran through the rain to Hugo's place. Hugo opened the door, saw me with my school uniform soaked through, and his brows drew tight.

Chapter 4 He pulled me inside. "What happened?" Tears and rain ran together and dripped onto the floor.

I caught his sleeve, helpless, and begged him. "Uncle Hugo, will you marry me…" I didn't want to die, and I couldn't stand there and watch my father die either.

Hugo was the only one left to ask. I knew I had no business dragging him into it. So the moment he said yes, I was ready to spend the rest of my life paying him back.

The night of the engagement party, we went back to the new place he'd bought.

One guest after another had come up to touch a glass to his, and by the end his steps weren't quite steady. I'd spent all day getting myself ready for this.

I still couldn't stop shaking when I reached to undo his tie. Hugo, leaning back on the couch, moved out of reach.

He propped his head on one hand and looked at me, amused. "What are you trying to do?" I squeezed my sweating palms, shut my eyes, and leaned in to kiss him.

Hugo tipped his head back and avoided me again.

He laughed softly, the way you'd laugh at a child throwing a fit. "You don't have to do this." "Or do you think I'm enough of an animal to sleep with the niece I raised myself?" He pushed off the armrest and stood, heading for the guest room