“My point,” I rattled on, “is that you’re correct. Thisisweird, but maybe not the weirdest. Then again, we’re barely dressed, discussing Irish heritage instead of addressing the giant bridal elephant in the room. So, I’m coping with humor and genealogy and some of my greatest hits. You’re coping with… what? Panic? Existential dread? Maybe a smidgen of curiosity?”
One side of that pillowy mouth quirked. At least she thought I was sort of funny. “I think the elephant is a groom, actually.”
Huh. Smart and funny, too.
“You might be right.” I grinned.
She bit her lip and turned toward the windows as she pulled her sheet closer around her body. Bad move, since it wasn’t exactly the sturdiest material and only showed off the pertcurves and slight outline of nipples I would have sold my soul to see again.
Fuck, she really was gorgeous. Petite, but solid. Easy to toss around, but with enough muscle that she probably gave as good as she got. A vague memory of being climbed like a tree in the middle of a nightclub was proof.
Fuck. I needed to take a moment before I embarrassed myself. These boxer briefs left little to the imagination.
“Look.” Laney’s shoulders straightened as she turned back to me, full of resolve. “I?—”
“Hold that thought, sweetheart. I need a piss and a shower.”
Before she could continue, I rose from the couch, grabbed my phone, and headed for the bedroom. It wasn’t the most graceful exit in the world, but I knew what she was about to say. She wanted to go. Wanted to figure out whether we were actually married, plan her escape, and make the walk of shame back to whatever crappy hotel she and her hen party were staying in over the weekend.
I couldn’t have explained why, but I just wasn’t ready to let that happen.
Fully conscious of the way Laney’s eyes followed me into the bedroom, staying on me as I stripped off my underwear and continued to the bathroom in nothing but my skin, I wasn’t self-conscious. Half this city had probably seen me naked.
Besides, we were apparently legally bound, right? No point in false modesty now. Especially if my Ariadne liked what she saw.
“You’re welcome to join me.” As I reached the bathroom door, I looked over my shoulder and found her, as expected, staring right at my ass. I smirked and turned, but just before I faced her completely, she gasped and whirled, her back toward me.
I looked down. It was just as well. Someone else was waking up to say hello, and he could be a bit intimidating.
“Down, boy,” I told my half-hardened cock. “Laney, you sit tight, sweetheart. I’ll be back in a flash.”
I closed the bathroom door, turned on the shower, and finally let myself breathe as steam began to fog the room.
The first flash came back to me as my back met the cool glass wall. Laney in my arms, her legs twined around my waist as I pressedheragainst this very wall and bent my mouth to suck on her?—
And just like that, the memory dissipated into the vapor.
Fuck.Fuck.
But as I ducked under the hot water, other bits and pieces started to come back. Seeing her in Naxos, to start. The greatest kiss in the history of the universe, for another. And that had somehow led to…Christ Almighty, had Ireallyproposed outside the Fountain of the Gods with Pegasus photo bombing the moment? Had we really exchanged vows in front of ElvisandMarilyn Monroe?
I simply couldn’t discern between reality and fantasy. And while that was usually the goal on nights like that—nights where a combo of pills and alcohol helped me banish other memories like the ones I tried and failed to leave in the desert—this time I sincerely wanted to know how the fuck I had gone from sampling tequila and Laney Fisher’s delectable neck at a nightclub to united to the girl in holy fucking matrimony.
It was enough to swear off candy-flipping for life.
And then there was the little chat I’d been having with Liza just before Laney walked in. The one where she informed me that my eldest brother had just walked away from Blackguard for good.
Brendan signed away half his shares to Huntington during the hostage situation.
Ezra’s father took his seat on the board, and your father forced Brendan to resign yesterday.
He signed the papers. It’s done.
Brendan, the golden child, the heir apparent, and the eldest Black brother, had traded his crown forlove,of all pitiful things. And no one had stopped him. Not Shea or Owen. Not Liza or her son, Liam, and certainly not my father. Dad was still recovering from a recent heart surgery (it was a shock to everyone that he even had one), which meant that since Brendan, the former interim CEO, was out, there was no one running one of the largest investment firms in the world.
Our family’s lifeblood for sixty years.
Liza’s second announcement rang through my mind.
