Baby, It's You by Jane Graves

town?”
    “Yes,” Marc snapped. “She has friends in this dinky town. And if you touch her again, this friend is going to be all over you.”
    “Yeah? What are you going to do?”
    “You know the easiest way to find out?”
    “How?”
    “Grab her arm one more time.”
    Greg turned to Kari. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”
    Kari flicked her gaze to Marc. “Yeah,” she told Greg. “I think maybe I am.”
    Greg’s expression turned ugly. “Gimme the ring.”
    “What?”
    “The ring! Give it to me!”
    With an expression of disgust, Kari yanked the ring off her finger and slapped it into his palm.
    “Sooner or later you’re going to be sorry about this,” Greg said. “But then it’s going to be too damned late!”
    He spun around and stormed out of the parlor. Jill watched him leave, then turned to Kari. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    Kari drew back with surprise. “What am I doing?”
    “How can you turn your back on Greg? How? He’s smart, he’s handsome—”
    “Didn’t you hear the things he said to me?”
    “Of course he said those things! He’s angry! You would be, too, if he’d humiliated you in front of three hundred people!”
    “I’m sorry about that,” Kari said. “I really am. But I just didn’t see another way out. If I had stayed, everybody would have talked me into getting married. But I can’t marry Greg. He doesn’t love me.”
    “Doesn’t love you? He gave you that big, beautiful diamond ring, didn’t he?”
    Kari was silent.
    “And you gave it back to him. I can’t believe you gave it back to him! And he bought that gorgeous condo for you, too. What does that tell you?”
    “He didn’t ask me how I felt about it. He just bought it.”
    “Well, I sure wouldn’t mind if a guy surprised me with an incredible place like that.”
    Kari winced. “I’m not really all that crazy about it.”
    “Not crazy about it?” Jill threw her hands up. “Have you completely lost your mind ?”
    “All that stuff…” Kari exhaled. “It just doesn’t matter to me.”
    “I know you think it doesn’t,” Jill said, her voice low and angry, “but that’s because you’ve always had money. You grew up in that huge house. You have a father who’s a gazillionaire. The whole time we were in college, I had to scrimp and work two jobs, while you had so much money to throw around you could barely carry it all!”
    Kari looked stunned. “Is that what you’ve thought all this time?”
    “I didn’t care so much back then, because that was just where you came from, you know? But now…God, Kari! I’d kill to have a man like Greg, and you just walked away from him!”
    “I know it seems crazy,” Kari said. “I know that. But I was sitting there in that wedding dress, thinking about marrying him, and it just seemed so…so wrong .”
    “But it’s not wrong. You were just nervous. A lot of brides get nervous!”
    Kari closed her eyes, shaking her head slowly.
    “You’re going to regret this,” Jill said. “If you don’t make up with him and go back to Houston—”
    “I can’t!”
    Jill’s expression hardened. “You can and you should.”
    Tears filled Kari’s eyes. “I can’t believe you’re talking to me like this. Haven’t we always stuck up for each other?”
    “Yes! But you’ve never done anything this stupid before!”
    Kari looked positively stricken by Jill’s words. “Do you really think it’s stupid for me to refuse to marry a man I don’t love?”
    “For God’s sake, Kari! Learn to love him!”
    “Should I have to do that? Learn to love the man I’m going to marry?”
    “Fine! Stay here. Ruin your whole life. I hope you never come back to Houston!”
    With that, Jill spun around and left the inn, her footsteps echoing against the hardwood floor of the entryway. Marc heard the door open, then slam behind her. Kari visibly shuddered at the noise, hugging that hairy beast even closer to her chest and looking