Happy Ever After

Chapter 4

Alana could feel him watching her as she walked out of the reception hall. She felt like crying and struggled to hold back the tears. She would not let him break her, not after all this time.

When he took her in his arms, she had thought it would feel strange. After all, he wasn't the Matt she had known and loved but a virtual stranger. But it hadn't. It had felt all too familiar. The way they fit, the way he pulled her closer as they danced. The way her fingers brushed his neck and he tightened his grip on her hand. He even smelled like the old Matthew. The spicy aftershave mixed with a musky scent that was uniquely his. It was embedded on her senses.

For a moment he had looked lost in his thoughts, a strange expression on his face as he looked down at her. Then he'd called her beautiful in that same wondrous tone from back then and she felt her resolve melting. She didn't understand what was happening to her. She wasn't ready to forgive him for leaving so callously, nor was she ready to put her heart on the line again.

It had been ten years and they had both been so young. She had been ready to give up her dreams just to be with him. They had been together forever, and then they weren't. If he had been tired of her, he should have just said so. She would have let him go. She would have been devastated, but she would have let him go.

"I'm leaving and I'm not coming back," he had said while she looked on, broken, tears streaming down her face.

The not knowing why he had left the way he did ate at her until she had to let it go and move on with her life.

Alana drove back to the cottage she had been assigned on the far end of the estate. Once inside she changed into jeans and wrapped the amethyst gown in tissue. She packed up her toiletries, the few bits and bobs on the nightstand, and snapped the lid on her suitcase close. Taking a last look around, she locked the door behind her and left the key in the mailbox as she had been asked to do.

She was on the road to Paris when the tears started to fall, blurring her view. She pulled over on the side of the road and laid her head on the steering wheel, her body wracked with grief. Ten minutes later, feeling spent and sick from the crying, she took out her cell phone and pressed the speed dial button.

"Mimi, I need you."

-----

Matthew found himself in the middle of a busy kitchen. It was a large space, empty glasses and dirty dishes on one side, platters half-filled with food on the other. Servers stepped around him, some entering the kitchen to discard their trays, others headed in the direction of the reception.

He wasn't sure what he was doing here exactly. All he knew was that he hadn't liked the way things had ended. He had started to follow Alana, but ran into the Comte instead. The normally reserved Frenchman was slightly tipsy and started a long conversation about how he was glad to see his daughter married and wasn't love grand? Or something like that. Matthew wasn't paying much attention. His focus was on finding Alana and asking for another dance, dinner, drink, something. By the time the Comte had excused him Alana had disappeared. Again.

"May I help you, Monsieur?" A deep French accented voice interrupted him.

Matthew saw a short, arrogant looking man standing in front of him, arms akimbo, and a tall white chef hat on his head and a wooden spoon in his hand. Matthew thought the man looked like a caricature rather than a real chef.

"I'm looking for Alana Miles."

"Mademoiselle Miles is not here. She was to have left for Paris after the unveiling."

"I see. Thank you."

Matthew checked his watch and wondered if he could intercept her on the road to Paris. He almost called his assistant to tell her to reschedule the Global Resorts meeting when he realized that he had surely lost his mind. He wasn't sure what the laws were in France, but chasing a woman all the way to Paris would surely be considered stalking.