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He took another step toward me, leaned down, and down, and then a little further down given the height difference between us, until his lips gently brushed the very top of my forehead. It was brief, chaste, and smelled faintly of expensive cologne and coffee, and then it was over.

Without even looking at me, he straightened back up, turned toward Alex, and fixed him with a long, unblinking, fiercely intense stare that practically screamed, You owe me your life for this. For his part, Alex just smirked, unflinching even under that stare. Then he stood up from the conference room table like this was simply the end of another meeting.

Jane, on the other hand, looked a bit uncomfortable with the mounting tension in the air. Obviously unwilling to let it fester, she clapped her hands together brightly and beamed at us. “Wonderful. That was beautiful.”

No one else said a single word, but I saw Alex arch an eyebrow at her, pretty clearly amused by what she’d just said. She completely ignored him, taking a step toward Holden and me instead. “Well, now that it’s official, I made reservations for a celebratory dinner this evening. Who’s hungry?”

CHAPTER 11

HOLDEN

Nora Thayer was fuming.

Seriously, my mother was not happy.

An outsider might not be able to see it, but in our family, livid didn’t necessarily equate to screaming or loud arguments. What it looked like was her spending the last twenty minutes on the verge of tears while firing off a thousand questions a minute at my new bride.

At the cozy, ultra-exclusive penthouse restaurant where we had a standing reservation, she sat at our table with trembling shoulders and slightly watery eyes, laser-focused on interrogating Alicia. “Tell me, darling, what colors do you prefer? Oh, and satin or lace? We have a few gorgeous pieces left in the family vault. It’s not nearly what we used to have, but Holden simply must take you sometime.”

As I sat there and watched, I hoped this masterclass in the primary method of torture employed by high-society women would get all the rage out of her system. Although that was unlikely, seeing as Nora hadn’t even known about the wedding until two hours ago.

Alex had finally cracked and called her just before we’d walked into the conference room, and if my mother was good for anything in this life, it was buying extravagant gifts and relentlessly doting on her daughters-in-law. The fact she’d been deprived of this one until after the vows had been said was a betrayal she’d probably take years of therapy to work through.

It wouldn’t even matter that I hadn’t known who my bride would be until two minutes before we’d said those vows. Mom would’ve expected to be in the loop, which I guessed was fair.

“I just can’t believe you all kept this from me,” she repeated for at least the tenth time since we’d sat down, her voice trembling as she dabbed at the corner of her eye with a silk handkerchief.

Jane sighed behind the menu. She knew it by heart but was using the menu to shield herself from Mom’s theatrics. The corners of Alex’s lips tightened before he lifted his whiskey to his mouth and took a giant gulp. I just shrugged. None of this had been my doing.

If she was going to be upset with anyone, it couldn’t be me, but she still hadn’t turned her attention away from Alicia, even if she had been talking to us. Instead of even glancing at any of us for an explanation, she leaned across the candlelit table, her diamond bracelets clinking against the glassware as she reached for my bride’s hand.

Those bracelets, along with pretty much all of the jewelry left in the family vault she’d mentioned, had been passed down through generations of her own family, the Wyatts. It’d been years since she’d worn any of those old heirlooms until recently, probably too afraid the Feds would seize them, too.

I supposed it meant something she was wearing them again now. Perhaps a visual reminder to herself that the drama was over. As far as I was concerned, that was a little premature. I saw Alicia’s gaze drop to them as they clinked, and strangely, she didn’t seem to get dollar signs in her eyes at the sight. Instead, she looked a little apprehensive. Maybe even scared.

“Alicia, darling,” Mom said without a skipping a beat. “You must tell me what your mother said when you told her you were to be married. Is she okay with this, or was she terribly upset with Holden for skipping a proper engagement?”

“Maybe she would’ve been, but she’s dead, so I can’t ask her,” Alicia replied boldly.

In the wake of her response, Jane froze with her wine glass almost at her mouth and Alex tossed back the rest of his whiskey. Unfortunately, I’d been right in the middle of swallowing a generous gulp of Macallan and I nearly choked, sputtering as the burning liquid shot straight up my sinuses.

As I hacked up what felt like an entire lung, Colin finally smacked me on the back so hard that I nearly fell off my chair. Then he glared at me like forcing him into the line of fire he’d successfully been keeping out of until now had been a deliberate attempt to remind Mom he was here.

When my vision finally cleared and the burning subsided to a dull throb, I wiped my mouth and looked across the table at Alicia. She was beet red, staring right at me, and while I wasn’t sure what those hazel eyes were screaming, whether it was rage, humiliation, or a plea for help, I could practically see the gears turning in my mother’s head.

Now that the initial shock was wearing off, she was about to pivot into a highly invasive excavation of Alicia’s personal life, and she wouldn’t stop digging until she knew every detail of this girl’s family tragedy as well as whatever other trauma she could unearth under the guise of offering comfort.

Fuck. I need to create a distraction. Fast.

I might not know this girl, but apparently, she was my responsibility now, and besides, as someone who’d endured a fair amount of family-related trauma myself, I knew how painful it could be when strangers started digging. It didn’t make me some kind of white knight to protect her from that, especially when the person who was about to do the digging was my mother.

I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the crisp white tablecloth as I held her gaze. “Hey, I’ve actually been meaning to ask, who’s your favorite author?”

While I absolutely had not been meaning to ask that, and frankly, really didn’t care, this seemed like a good way to derail my mother. Since Tasha had mentioned that night at their place that Alicia worked in the library, it had to be a subject Alicia would be able to discuss at length. Hopefully long enough to dissuade my mother from bringing her parents back up.

Plus, it was literally one of the only things I knew about her. I fully expected her to mention some author who wrote the usual romantic fantasy trash or whatever the hell it was that Tasha and her friends raved about before every ethics lecture. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head when she went in the complete opposite direction.

She tilted her chin up, something akin to relief in her eyes as she held my gaze. “Actually, I’m reading the Odyssey again right now. It’s been a while since my last pass through Homer. I don’t know if it makes him my favorite author, but I’m certainly enjoying his work again at the moment.”