Slade’s hand is warm at my waist. His other hand holds mine. His eyes gaze into mine, the green of his irises as deep and dark as a forest.
I’m dancing at my wedding with my husband. I never thought much about what it would feel like. Turns out, it feels like being held by someone who loves you, even when you know they don’t. It feels like the most beautiful lie I’ve ever been told.
When the song ends, there’s another round of applause and cheers. Jonah bounds onto the makeshift dance floor and looks up at us with puppy-dog eyes. “Uncle Slade. Auntie Lila. Can we have cake now?”
Auntie Lila.
I look at Jonah’s sweet face. Missing three teeth, glasses slightly askew, completely certain that I belong here. I feel something splinter inside my chest.
He’s eight years old. He doesn’t know about trust funds and estranged family and the twisted situations grown-ups get themselves into. He just knows I’m his uncle’s wife now. His auntie.
Except one day in the not-too-distant future I’m going to be a stranger to him.
I pick up a champagne glass from a nearby tray and down half in one go. Fools rush in, indeed.
Slade eyes me as I drink it, even as he says to Jonah, “We’re supposed to eat dinner first, bud.”
I touch Slade’s arm gently. “I don’t mind. Life’s short. Eat dessert first.” Glancing at Walker and Sadie, I add, “Um. If it’s okay with your mom and dad.”
They both smile at me. Sadie says, “You just became Jonah’s new favorite person.”
Slade gently leads me to the table where a three-tier vanilla buttercream cake rests. He positions my hand around the handle, then puts his own over it. After we cut a wedge together, he slides it onto a porcelain plate and cuts off a piece with a fork. He holds the fork out to me, hovering close to my lips.
Distantly aware that there are flashbulbs going off, documenting every moment of this, I close my lips around the cake and let him feed the piece to me. His eyes have that heated look again, almost black, and they flicker from my eyes to my lips.
The sweetness of the buttercream frosting explodes across my taste buds before I swallow. “Your turn,” I whisper.
He lets me feed him a piece too, eyes dark on mine.
Dessert before dinner—nontraditional, like everything else about this marriage, but I guess it’s working for us.
In between dinner courses, everyone makes surprisingly touching toasts. They know the crazy situation Slade and I are in, but they’re treating this like it’s a real wedding. If it were my family, the judgment and passive-aggressive comments would have been laced through every polite toast like cyanide in honeyed tea.
But every single last one of the Rhodes family is kind and lovely and complimentary. Sure, Slade endures his share of teasing from his brothers, but beneath the insults you can tell there’s genuine affection and trust there.
I look around the table. Tanner is mid-story, gesticulating wildly as Jonah listens with rapt attention and Daryl with affectionate tolerance. Walker’s arm is draped around Sadie’s shoulders as he gazes at her.
My eyes find Slade. He’s got one arm resting on the back of my chair, and he seems to be half-listening to Tanner’s story,but there’s a distant look in his eyes that tells me his mind is somewhere else entirely. The candlelight on the table flickers, throwing the sharp angles of his face into stark relief.
The videos I’ve watched of him playing hockey paint a picture of a cold, ruthless fighter. And yet there’s so much more to him than that. The way he rescued a stray dog off the side of the road. The ferocious and yet hilarious way he defended me from my family. The thoughtfulness and respect he’s treated me with from the moment I met him.
Clearly, there’s something wrong with me to wish he’d start getting a little bit disrespectful with me.
Because if that kiss was anything to go by, with those strong hands on my body, the way he bent me back over his arm, Slade Rhodes could absolutely manhandle me. Ruin me. In the bedroom. Against the wall. Bent over the kitchen counter?—
This is not a productive line of thought.
I drain my champagne glass.
“Lila,” Slade says softly, beneath everyone’s else’s earshot. “You all right?”
Yes, darling husband, except I must lock myself in horny jail, where I will remain for the duration of our regrettably sexless marriage.
“Everything’s fine,” I say brightly. “I just… everyone has been so lovely. And I feel guilty.”
He looks at me for a long moment, like he doesn’t entirely believe my claims of being fine. He frowns. “Guilty? Why?”
“Everyone’s been treating this like a real marriage, and, I mean… you know. I’m sorry for making things complicated. They’re clearly so happy for you, and…”
