Page 73 of No Headlines Please

I shrugged. "Due diligence."

She gave me an odd look. "What does that mean? You ran a credit report or something?"

She said it like she didn't approve, which begged the obvious question. "Is that a problem?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure. I guess it feels a little…sneaky?"

My mouth tightened. Sneaky was selling vacation photos to a travel blogger for three grand and then chewing out the resort for the breach of security. Or how about selling the location of a private family retreat and then spending an hour complaining about the paparazzi?

And then there were those photos of my niece's pool party. They'd appeared everywhere online in spite of no photographers being present.

That last one, I still couldn't prove was Sloane's doing, but I'd be a fool to believe it was anyone else. She'd spent no time in the water, but hours sitting nearby on her phone, which had an excellent camera.

On the sofa, Delaney said, "I don't mean to insult you or anything, but don't you think it's better to discuss things directly? I mean…I wouldn't like anyone running a credit report on me."

The words hit hard, because Cal had done just that – run Delaney's credit – and under my orders, too. But right now, we were talking Sloane, and I refused to sugar-coat it. "It wasn't just a credit report."

"So what was it?"

"Call it a basic background check."

Delaney frowned like this was even worse. "So let me get this straight. You trusted someone enough to marry them, but not enough to take their word?"

I gave her a look. "Are you forgetting I didn't marry them?"

"Yeah, but you called it off last-minute, right?"

I recalled the packed church, the photographers clustered outside, and Sloane in the classic white gown. And the fucked-up thing was, I'd told her it was over hours before she'd gotten dressed.

Before she'd walked down the aisle.

Before she'd stood there, waiting, like she still expected me to show up.

It didn't even make sense. The way we'd practiced it during the rehearsal, I would've been waiting for her – and not the other way around.

Apparently, she'd wanted the drama – as opposed to my plan, which was to issue a joint statement saying the whole thing had been called off.

She'd actually agreed – and then walked down the aisle, anyway – a fact I didn't know until I saw the footage on the internet.

Yeah, that was awkward.

And my fucking family – they'd been there, too, in spite of me telling them it was off. Of course, when the blushing bride tells them otherwise, things tend to get tricky.

By the end, the whole thing was a cluster of epic proportions.

To Delaney, I said, "Maybe not last-minute, but close enough."

"So what happened? A bad credit report came in by overnight mail? And on the day of the wedding?"

It was obviously a joke, but I wasn't laughing. "Forget the mail. Everything's digital."

Delaney wasn't laughing either. "Oh, so you got what? A text? An email? A singing telegram?"

A reluctant smile tugged at my mouth. "Singing telegrams aren't digital."

"Oh, come on. You know what I mean."

Actually, the night before the wedding, I'd gotten some news in person, courtesy of Ryder Vaughn. As a result, I'd had Cal do some emergency digging, which uncovered a whole plethora of side deals that looked perfectly innocent until you added them all together.