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“I wasn’t running,” I lied haughtily. “I just ... needed air.”
“There was a sufficient amount of air on the courthouse’s stairs.” He turned to point at the direction of the courthouse. “Same level of air as anywhere else in this city. What’s going on?”
“I f-f-freaked out,” I said, stuttering out the truth.
He blinked at me, looking confused. “Care to give me some more information that wasn’t evident from you taking the fuck off?”
Whoa.Hewaspissed. I’d never seen Riggs this livid. Annoyed? Yes. Disinterested? Plenty of times. Even when he had his headaches, he was mostly irritated. But never, ever angry.
“It just dawned on me that this is my wedding day. I imagined it very differently growing up. And ...” I gulped down a sob. “Well, there hasn’t been one day in my life when I haven’t thought about my wedding day. So it feels really sad that nothing about it is going to be as I planned.”
His frown collapsed.
“You wanted this,” he said quietly, after a pregnant silence.
“I know.” Tears filled my eyes. The first tear escaped before I could wipe it. It ran down my cheek. Riggs brushed it away with his thumb. “The pragmatic part of me—the one who wants to marry rich—thought it was a good idea.Stillthinks so. But I guess ... well, I guess there’s another part to me. One that lovesPride and Prejudicejust the way it is.”
I wasn’t making much sense, was I? And yet, it seemed as though my future husband knew exactly what I was getting at.
With a sigh, he pressed his forehead against mine, closing his eyes. I did the same and found that I soon lost my hold on gravity with him so near. It felt like I was drifting on clouds.
“You’ll still have that dream.” His thumb brushed across my cheek, back and forth, in a soothing, repetitive motion. “Just not with me.”
“I know.” My voice cracked.
“And if there is a God, not with Cocksucker either.”
I snorted out a laugh, burying my face in his shoulder. Not because I was devastated—even though I was—but because I didn’t trust myself not to kiss him when he was so close. That was a whole new problem I wasn’t eager to unpack.
It was just that sometimes, when my eyes were closed and my heart was open ... Riggs Bates felt like he was truly mine.
He stroked my hair, sweeping his hot lips across my temple. “There, Poppins. Everything’ll be fine. Take my word for it. I don’t throw promises around very often.”
I loathed that he called me Poppins. Was that all I was to him? An odd, eccentric character?
We stayed like this for a few minutes, wrapped in one another, breathing each other in, before Riggs’s front pocket danced with an incoming call. He pulled his phone out.
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to be late to your own wedding, lovebirds,” Christian’s voice announced on speaker. “And not fashionably so, if I may add.”
“We’re coming,” Riggs said shortly.
“Do you even have a bride anymore?” Arsène asked.
“Just barely,” Riggs gritted out, giving me a look. “You did a good job of almost scaring her away.”
“Not good enough, if the wedding’s still on,” Arsène said easily, not a hint of sorrow in his voice.
“Careful, Riggs, or I might suspect you actually want to marry me.” I tried to sound casual.
“I do want to marry you.” He killed the call and glanced at me. “Emmett’s going to have a really shitty time when I text him a copy of that marriage certificate.”
An hour later, Riggs and I stood in front of a court clerk and exchanged our vows. Riggs’s friends surrounded us in the simple, albeit offensively brown, room. Our backdrop consisted of wooden walls and a judge stand. The clerk was wearing a black robe. A fairy-tale wedding it was not.
The clerk introduced herself as Allison. Allison was extremely nice and seemed enthusiastic about her job marrying people, which deepened my guilt, since in our situation, the bride was in love with another man’s wallet and the groom was probably going to spend tonight with a different woman. Ortwo.
“Are you lovebirds ready to get hitched?” Allison shimmied her shoulders.
