She reached behind her in an attempt to undo the very tiny buttons that ran up the back of the dress. It was impossible to slide them from the cleverly hidden loops crocheted into the tulle. No matter what she did, she couldn’t free herself from the dress. She wanted to collapse on the beige and white splotched tiles and just cry. That would look lovely when Elie came to get her—and he would. She was certain of it. He would come to claim his prize heifer. Laughter bubbled up, a bit of hysteria she couldn’t quite repress with two fingers to her lips.
Brielle stared at herself in the large mirror. She looked terrible, but then she always did when she was around Elie Archambault. She told herself it didn’t matter. He preferred tall, rail-thin models, not extremely petite women who had to fight to keep every extra pound from their already hourglass figures.
Elie had put on his questionnaire that it didn’t matter what his intended bride looked like, but she knew he had a preference. He was photographed for years going to charity events and fund-raisers, coming out of nightclubs and hotels, with the same type of woman on his arm. Models and actresses, all interchangeable as far as Brielle was concerned. Not one of them was under five foot seven. Not a single one.
She stared at her too-pale face in the mirror. She was desperate to take a bath in the very deep tub. Its elaborate silver faucet had all kinds of extensions coming out of it that she probably couldn’t get to work, but she didn’t care. She longed to immerse her bone-weary body in hot water and just forget everything for a few minutes—especially forget that she had a husband just outside the door waiting for her. A husband who was going to find out her deepest, darkest secrets that shamed her more than she’d already been shamed.
She’d like to pretend she didn’t want him to see her body, but she honestly didn’t care. What mattered was him never finding out all the things she hid from the world. She wanted to cry. To scream. Mostly, she wanted out of the damn wedding dress. Emmanuelle had gotten her into it, but Brielle hadn’t considered how she would be getting out of it. She thought to rip it down the front, but that seemed . . . wrong.
“Brielle, you’re going to have to come out of there sometime. You can’t sleep on the bathroom floor.”
She nearly jumped out of her skin. Elie’s voice startled her. It wasn’t that he spoke loudly; in fact, his voice was incredibly low, a blend of velvet and raw sex. The sound stroked along her nerve endings and brought her body to life in spite of the fact that she was so exhausted. That frightened her. She hated that he could have so much control over her when she already felt so out of control.
Brielle took a deep cleansing breath and forced herself to calm down. For years, she had worked hard to become self-confident, to become her own person. She wasn’t going to let this marriage to Elie Archambault destroy her hard-won confidence. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she might be able to come up with better ideas, but right now, there was only one way out for her and she was going to act like it was no big deal.
She had no choice; she was going to have to ask him for help. Could the day get any more humiliating? She closed her eyes for a moment and then, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, went to the door.
“I’ll admit I’m so tired that sleeping on the bathroom floor is a possibility at this point, but I’d like a bath, so I’ll sleep there in very hot water if you show me how to use that complicated silver faucet. The big holdup is my dress.”
“Your dress?” Elie echoed. He came into her line of sight. His hair still gleamed with beads from the shower. The drops clung to the ends of his hair. His eyes were so dark, they appeared to be nearly black. He had the kind of face that was chiseled granite, beautifully detailed with rugged lines and planes. An aristocratic nose and defined mouth that could be sensual or cruel, maybe both at the same time.
His shoulders were very wide, although he was so well proportioned, it was difficult to notice at first, but there was no escaping the fact that he had muscles that went on forever from his thick chest down to his impressive abs, which led lower into the loose towel hitched around his hips.
She didn’t look like that on her best day after six months’ worth of salads and six-hour workouts six days a week. A little groan of despair slipped out and she turned away from him.
“What is it, Brielle?” He came into the room and she stepped back to make way for him.
The master bath was spacious, mostly white tile above her head and on the walls, adding to the feeling of space, but Elie managed to dominate the entire room the moment he stepped inside. It was as though he sucked all the available air out of it, so she couldn’t breathe—or maybe she needed to just not look at him.