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I get out of the car and head into work.
I check my mobile in the lift to the Webflix offices on the ninth floor. My messages don’t stop coming. My mum wants to take Nate and me to dinner. My sister in New York wants all the sordid details. And my mates—like Sarah, who’s here for the streaming coverage, and Trevor and his boyfriend, Liam, who live here in London, want to grab a pint or a coffee one night with Nate and me. I don’t have time to answer before the lift doors whoosh open, and I’m just about to close my text app when the phone pings with a note from my dad.
Dad: Chip off the old block, eh? I knew you had it in you.
I want to spit on his message.
Instead, I set my mobile to do not disturb and put on my producer face. When I walk into the conference room, I wave hello to Sarah. She smiles back with wide, curious eyes. Later, I mouth, then say hello to the rest of the crew—a dozen or so colleagues. I gird myself for pats on the back, winks, and atta-boys, planning to smile and give a bashful thanks as Vance asked. But no one says a word about my nuptials. Maybe no one cares, which is fantastic. We can get out of this marriage even sooner than we planned. That’d probably make Nate happy. I’d like to make him smile again.
During the meeting, Bernard presents his promo plans to Ilene and she approves them enthusiastically, then rolls through the rest of the agenda.
When Bernard pushes back his chair after the last item, though, Ilene lifts a wait-a-moment finger. “One more thing. This has been so hard to keep in, but…” She pauses for drama then bursts out, “I got a cake. Congrat-u-stinking-lations to the groom.”
Oh, bloody hell. She beams at me as a caterer whisks in on cue carrying a huge white sheet cake with two poorly-drawn grooms decorating the top.
I. Die.
“I take matchmaking credit,” Ilene says. “Hunter and Nate met on Thursday night, fell in love immediately and got married on Friday.” She sets her hand over her heart. “I am so happy for you.”
Sarah, Bernard, Harry, and the rest of my colleagues round things out with the expected: Wow, married, so fast, OMG, and That only happens in the movies.
This is exactly the kind of attention I wanted to avoid.
I feel like I swallowed a stone as I correct them. “Actually, we’ve been dating quietly for a few months. We just made it official in Vegas this weekend,” I lie.
Like father, like son.
A few hours later, I’m in a quiet edit room, knocking back a cup of English Breakfast and reviewing the graphics our art department added to the player promos. The editor stepped out to take a call, so I’m alone when the door jerks open and Sarah stares down at me.
Eyes wide, lips quirked up in a question, she makes a show of shutting the door dramatically. “So. You’ve been dating him for months, yet on Thursday night, you were hoping he was still single. How long a bike ride do we need for you to tell me what the hell is going on?”
I drop my head in my hand, groaning. “I had to make it look like I wasn’t an impetuous, inebriated idiot in Las Vegas.”
When I look up, Sarah’s blue eyes are etched with concern. “Practicing your Scrabble words?”
“I’m pretty sure those are rubbish tiles. Too many one-point letters,” I say with a sigh.
“What happened, hun?”
Where to even start? “We were having a great time,” I say, and a smile has the audacity to form on my lips as I tell her more about Friday night with Nate, ending with “…and then we went to a chapel and—”
A knock on the door interrupts, and Harry pokes his pale, freckled face in. “Ilene sent me to get you. She wants to see the promos.”
I stand, leave with Sarah, and whisper, “To be continued.”
I finally, mercifully, escape the office around eight-thirty, exhausted and ready to crash. But I don’t even know where Nate is staying. Also, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I haven’t showered since Friday night.
I’m a right mess.
Wheeling my luggage along the street, I head to the tube station and then to my tiny flat in a creaky building in Bloomsbury. I dump my suitcase onto the floor of the flat I pay for with my meager producer salary. But even if I could access the trust fund my father set up, I’m not sure I would.
I strip out of the clothes I’ve worn for twenty-four hours and stand under the stream of water in the shower, trying to wash off my bad decisions.
But my wedding ring still shines back at me.
