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Softfairylights,silver serving trays, and champagne flutes wink against the pearl-gray sky. Around the edge of the frosted lake, weeping willows shiver in the wind, and in the middle of it, a mini orchestra plucks strings and practices rifts on a floating platform.
The heart of the Devil’s Preserve has been transformed into the epilogue of a Gothic Romance novel, a picture-perfect Happy-Ever-After. But no amount of romanticism can take away from the fact that it’s freezing.
Matt presses a champagne flute into my hand. “You know; I think I’ll get married on the French Riviera.”
I drag my gaze from the rows of empty white chairs and regard my neighbor. He’s leaning against the trunk of an oak tree, drinking in the view over the rim of a beer bottle. The ceremony doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes, and he’s already loosened his bow tie.
“You can’t even spell French Riviera, idiot.”
He flashes me a sideways grin. “You gonna be this pissy all night? I already told you I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t going to stop my nipples from getting frostbite.”
Matt failed to tell me the wedding was al fresco when he invited me last night. Didn’t think to mention it when he saw me step out into our shared hallway in a backless blue dress, with my coat slung over my arm, either. Now, despite being hot and bothered himself, he won’t give me his jacket in case the girl he’s here for gets the wrong idea.
“You can have my socks?” he offered after I’d subjected him to a blistering glare. “They aren’t cashmere, but they sure feel like it.”
I passed on his charming offer, instead settling for burying my chin in the collar of my faux fur coat and dancing a constant two-step.
“And what about you?”
“Huh?”
“Where do you want to get married?”
“I don’t want to get married,” I grunt. My response is an involuntary reflex. A decision so steadfast it’s practically woven into my DNA.
“At all?”
“Nope.”
“What if you fall in love?”
I swig the remains of my champagne, put the empty glass on a passing tray, and pick up a fresh one. “I won’t.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“Women don’t fall in love, Matt. They fall into traps. They are lured in by sweet lies and smooth promises. Then years, maybe decades, down the line, they realize they’re tethered to a stranger, their chains made heavier by things like babies and mortgages and mothers-in-law with unhealthy obsessions with their sons. Some get divorced; some decide it’s easier just to stay shackled.”
Heavy silence whistles in the wind. I turn to Matt and smirk at his expression. “What? Too much?”
“Fuck, Pen. Who hurt you?”
I laugh this time, ignoring how my necklace tingles at the question. My theory doesn’t just stem from the man who hurt me, but also from my experience of swindling. I’d say eighty-percent of the men who have approached me at bars or casinos have been married. With every ring-clad hand that made its way to my thigh, another jaded scar formed on my heart. Sure, it made it easier to hit their pockets, but it also made me feel hollow inside. Because behind every married man is a woman who doesn’t realize he’s an asshole.
A lethargic symphony drifts from the lake and seeps through the gathering crowd like low-hanging fog. While Matt’s eyes work like rovers, scanning arriving guests for any sign of his crush, I lazily drink in our surroundings. The women at the bar sipping martinis and cooing over one of their designer bags like it’s a newborn baby. Men sipping whiskey in tight groups of three, muttering in a language I don’t understand.
A language I don’t understand.
My flute is halfway to my lips when icy unease freezes me to the spot. Gaze sharpening over the bubbles fizzing in my glass, I look back to the women at the bar and squint. The bag they’re passing around isn’t just designer, it’s a fucking Birkin. The one with a six-year waiting list.
I swallow and give a slight shake of my head. No. Surely not. I turn my attention back to the men closest to us and run a frantic eye over their attire. They are all wearing tuxedos punctuated with silk pocket squares. Standard for a wedding. But then I hone in one man in particular, picking apart his details. The gold chain disappearing underneath a shirt collar. The large cross tattoo on the back of a tanned hand and the Rolex Daytona that sits above it.
Then something shifts in my peripheral vision, and my heightened state makes my head snap up to catch it. Between two oak trees on the other side of the clearing, a man lurks in the shadows. He’s only detectable from his broad silhouette and flash of his eyes as they sweep the crowd. To the left, another shadow, another concentrated stare.
An iron-clad ring of security. And there’s only one family on this coastline that would need that.
“Matt,” I say steadily. “Who did you say Rory was marrying again?” I’m met by silence. “Matt?”
