Stop the Wedding! Read Free Page A

to her clothing, but stopping when he reached her feet. With much effort, she resisted curling under her toes to hide them. Two days ago, in an effort to connect with a fourteen-year-old witness who’d locked herself into a bathroom stall, Annabelle had suggested an impromptu dual pedicure with blue nail polish that rolled out of the girl’s backpack. The strategy had worked, and since her conservative pumps had concealed the deed, Annabelle hadn’t yet bothered to remove the stuff.
    The man’s mouth twitched down at the corners before he looked back to the window, once again preoccupied. Embarrassment bolted through her. She’d been stared down by some of the most intimidating judges and attorneys in Detroit, but she’d never felt more completely dismissed in a seconds-long look. Whatever the man did for a living, he was either a miserable failure or a phenomenal success.
    Or more likely, a miserable success.
    She forced her attention elsewhere through the next few stops, but she was mindful of his presence a mere six feet away, through both her peripheral vision and something that could best be described as colliding energy fields. The man’s aura clobbered everything in its path, commanding regard even when his focus was elsewhere. Unnerved and flushed, she kept her gaze glued on a movie poster scribbled with graffiti.
    The man rose as the train slowed at the financial district station, then picked up a black leather duffel bag in one hand, an extra-deep briefcase in the other. From the corner of her eye, she noted that he allowed everyone else to disembark before he stepped out. But she recognized his cool politeness as a power ploy. She had studied people’s actions enough to know that the most influential, the most commanding figures always exited rooms and elevators last—a symbolic attempt to maintain their power by protecting their back, in her opinion. He strode away, head high, feet knowing, and took the first few steps two at a time, disappearing up into the stairwell.
    After the doors slid closed, the air inside the train seemed to collapse in the man’s absence, but Annabelle released a sigh of relief. She’d hate to tangle with the likes of him in a courtroom. Or in a bedroom , her infuriatingly hyperactive mind whispered.
    When the swaying ride north resumed, she pushed the image of the unsettling stranger from her mind, noting subtle and drastic changes to the landscape. Identifying progressive areas of the city was as simple as looking for mounds of orangey-red clay where the earth had been turned in preparation for homes and roads and malls. Downtown Atlanta and the metro area were an economically prosperous mix of gray and green, concrete and trees.
    Remembering the man’s fleeting appraisal, Annabelle repaired her scant makeup and random hairstyle as much as possible with a mirror the size of a matchbook, and pondered how to best approach the situation ahead. Blame lay heavy on her heart for Belle’s impromptu decision to marry. If she’d spent more time with her mother after her father’s death, if she’d visited more often, if she’d encouraged her to sell their old high-maintenance house, Belle wouldn’t have met and been taken in by Martin Castleberry. And since her neglect had contributed to the situation, it was up to her to help her mother see she was on the road to certain ruin.
    So should she simply sit Belle down and be brutally honest about the lunacy of marrying Martin Castleberry, or would her opposition strengthen her mother’s resolve? On the other hand, if Belle’s infatuation was simply a result of loneliness—as Annabelle suspected—perhaps she should use reverse psychology and feign exuberance to make her mother take a step back and analyze the situation more clearly…although doing so might stretch the limits of her own acting ability, not to mention her sanity.
    By the time the train reached the end of the northern line, Annabelle had settled upon a strategy of