Page 38 of Stranded with the SEAL

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Olivia staredat the garment bag on the back of the door as if it were radioactive. Trevor had stood in the doorway for what seemed like hours, the space between them heavy and solid, before finally placing the hanger onto the hook and quietly closing the bedroom door.

This made everything real.

She raised the back of her hand to her lips, choking back a sob. Trevor. She let her eyes close, giving herself up to the grief that washed over her. They’d been living in a fantasy world, one where she had only the clothes on her back and the problems of a newborn babe, a magical place where this man had become the center of her universe, the one and only person she ever wanted to be with, the man who felt like home to the woman who couldn’t remember if she had one.

She turned and walked to the window, hugging herself tightly. Outside, the last rays of sunlight danced on ice-covered branches, the wind making the trees tremble and shake. This should be the night they’d make love, when she would open her body to Trevor as she had already opened her heart. An image of his golden-brown eyes appeared in her mind, and she grimaced as she realized all she had lost.

Trevor. A man strong enough for her to lean on and then some. Most important, she trusted him. There was a man who would never betray her, never let her down. His conscience wouldn’t allow it.

Had someone let her down before? Was there a man in her past who made her so desperate for the security she found with Trevor?

If she turned back now, she wouldn’t be able to have him. To feel his skin, sweaty and hot from wanting her, loving her, his body pressed against her own desperate flesh. Frustration had her clutching her hands into fists.

He didn’t have to tell her about the dress. About any of it. He could have kept his mouth shut and she would have fallen to her knees in front of him. But he had told her, bringing her the dress like the last dollar in the pocket of a pauper, and as she stood in front of the window, cold radiating from its panes, she hated him for his honesty, for that damn sense of honor that required him to set the record straight before she yanked and ripped the clothes from his body.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, lightly banging her head against the wooden window grill. He was in the next room mere steps from where she stood, but it might as well have been a football field from her for all she was able to do about it.

She didn’t know how long she stood there. Long enough for the cross of the grill to sink into her forehead and her anger to slowly drain into the floor. Turning around, she took in the garment bag, needing to see the dress inside. To see if it fit, if the style suited her, if she could possibly be the same woman who had picked it out and smiled and twirled, imagining her life with some ghost of a man long since forgotten. To see if she still wanted to be that woman, or to become someone else.

Crossing the room with harried steps, she ripped down the zipper and frowned.

The tiniest white beads and miniature iridescent sequins shined back at her. Olivia brought a tentative hand up to touch the fabric, impressed with its detail and workmanship. Whoever she was, she must have money, because a dress like this surely didn’t come cheap.

Pushing the plastic open and down, she revealed the gown in its entirety, releasing a breath as she dropped her shoulders.

It was exquisite, unlike anything she’d seen before. She removed her sweater and pulled the hem of her T-shirt over her head. This dress was a relic from another time and place when she knew who she was and what she wanted. It seemed impossible that it would fit, as if the woman she’d become over these last few days with Trevor could have changed her very shape and form.

As she slid her jeans down over her panties, she was struck by her hopes of making love to Trevor and how incredibly different this day had turned out. Twisting to see herself in the dresser mirror, she took in her bare lace brassiere and low-hanging bikini. This outfit was for him. All of this for Trevor. She stared at her own glassy expression, then her eyes closed and her hand dipped over her mound, cupping herself there, imagining her fingers belonged to the man outside that door.

All of this was for you.

A wave of dizziness had her inhaling quickly. The dress. She had to put on the dress and this awful spell would be broken. If the truth in her heart could only be proven, she would be free like the wrong woman trying on Cinderella’s slipper. Olivia gently lifted the straps from the hanger and dressed without looking at herself again. When she managed to maneuver the skinny zipper all the way up her back, she opened her eyes and her mouth dropped open.

Not only did the dress fit her perfectly, she looked incredible. The fabric seemed to hug her breasts, displaying them to graceful advantage, as the cut of the entire bodice seemed to drape her in femininity. Reaching down, she picked up the swirling skirt, the perfect balance of traditional fullness and refined lines.

This was her wedding dress. There could be no doubt about it. Her very real dress that she’d picked out for her very real wedding to a very real man she must love.

She whipped around, staring accusingly out that same frosty window, anger rushing in where emptiness had been. She wanted to kick out the panes, smash the wood grill with her bare hands, tear this cute little cabin to shreds. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right, anything she was feeling. This night was supposed to belong to her and Trevor, but instead that had been ripped from her hands and this fucking dress left in its place.

There was a knock at the door. “Olivia?”

She was breathing heavily and awareness prickled down her spine. What would she give if she could rewind the clock, tell him she didn’t want to see whatever it was he wanted to show her? She could have slipped her hands beneath his clothing, touching him intimately until he gave her everything she knew would make them both happy.

“Yes?”

He was quiet so long she wondered if he heard her. She reached up and touched the wooden door. He was hurting, too. He wanted her, too. Shared her feelings.

She closed her eyes and sighed. Heaven help her, she still wanted to make love to him.

Her eyes opened wide. Could she do that? Just make love to Trevor as if nothing else mattered, even the man she was engaged to marry? She was bound to him by a promise she couldn’t remember making.

That man is a stranger to me.

How could you betray someone you didn’t even know?

Her heart began to race as the possibilities crystalized. “This is crazy,” she whispered. It was one thing to make love to Trevor when she had no knowledge of her life, but she was standing here staring at herself in her wedding dress, knowing she was promised to another man as she considered loving this one anyway.