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But it had ended sometime. She was so much harder now, but he hadn’t seen it till the past twenty-four hours.
“You will need to be ready by six.”
“Okay,” she said, not looking back up at him.
“And you will need to not look like you’re contemplating putting my head on a pike.”
“No guarantees, darling,” she said, her words carrying a razor-sharp edge.
“We’re supposed to be newlyweds.”
“We are newlyweds. Marriage is hard. First twelve hours is the hardest.” She continued typing away, not looking at him.
“So it seems. But we must attempt to make this look real.”
“It is real. As you pointed out, I signed a license, I took vows. It’s all real, man.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Love,” she said, looking up at him. “You want it to look like love. You want me to gaze at you in adoration so no one doubts my happiness or your penis size—I got it.”
His throat tightened, a strange kind of heat prickling his face. “You do not normally talk this way.”
“Maybe I do, Ajax...how would you know? When was the last time we had a real conversation? Six years ago? We don’t know each other. I didn’t think you were as big of a jerk as you played it this morning, but hey, I learned something new. And you think I’m a child, but you’re wrong about that, too. We’re learning new things. What do you know about that?”
“I think you’re having a fit because you’re angry at me.”
She shot him a deadly glare. “Fits are what little girls have. I’m a woman, I’m in a mood.”
“Is that it, then? I’m not accustomed to dealing with women and their moods.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’m not accustomed to living with a woman. When a woman is in a mood, I am able to avoid her.”
“Oh, how charming. You only deal with them when they’re all sweet for you.”
“That is not it. I was not being insulting, I was making an observation.”
“Oh.” She looked down again. “Well, anyway... Look, I get that tonight is a big deal. I don’t want to screw it up, either. I’m already being called the backup bride by the press, and I’m not all that enamored with the title so it suits me just fine if everyone thinks we’ve fallen into a mad passionate affair.”
“That is part of the plan. My plan.”
“The new plan?”
“We did need one.”
“You know...everyone will think that we betrayed Rachel.”
“Will they?”
“With a bride switch two hours before the wedding? It’s either she betrayed you or you betrayed her.”
“Betrayal doesn’t need to come into it. What if we realized we really loved each other, while Rachel and I were merely marrying for convenience?”
Leah felt like she was being stabbed in the heart, slowly, each new inch he pushed the blade in burning fresh like a new cut. And she didn’t know why it hurt. Why, after managing as well as she had with every other slight, this went so deep.
It was nothing to do with Ajax specifically, but with coming in second to Rachel again. Every boy she’d ever dated had nearly got whiplash watching Rachel walk by. And Ajax...Ajax had preferred her, too.
Her mother and father had always loved them both, and treated them both well, but Rachel had an ease about her. An elegance that people responded to instantly. She was beautiful, poised, long and lean.
Leah had always been awkward by comparison. Her life had not been the social whirlwind Rachel’s had been, not ever. There had never been too many party invites, or lots of cute boys. She was the Other Holt. She was the incidental, the afterthought. And that realization always hurt, no matter how many layers of armor she put between herself and the world.
“Do you think people will buy it?”
“Why not?” he asked, shrugging.
“What about what Rachel might say?”
“It’s Christofides I worry about. What has she told him? And what might he entice her to say?”
“Oh. Yes. That’s right. The evil boyfriend of doom.”
“Perhaps one of us should...”
“Me,” she said. The idea of Ajax calling Rachel was a bit much to handle. “I’ll do it.” She closed the laptop and stood, tucking her computer under her arm, ignoring the slight awkwardness of the position. “And then I’ll...get ready for tonight.”
