Page 120 of Handsome Devil
“Congrats.” Shane slapped me on the back as Devi and Katie hugged. I turned to accept the hug he gave me. “You just married a woman who seems to hate you,” he said in my ear. “Maybe one day, you’ll tell me why.”
He let me go, smiled one of his dark, loaded smiles, and stepped out of the way as Lex came to give me a hug.
So… maybe it didn’t look real?
“Please tell me that looked real,” was all I said to my cousin.
His eyes caught mine as we pulled apart. He didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t look surprised or anything at all.
He glanced at Devi, who was now getting a hug from Shane.
“Yeah, cuz,” Lex told me. “Real enough.”
The venue had provided a photographer, so we posed for some photos on the beach. We kissed and held hands and smiled so much my face hurt. Then we ate dinner on the patio. The photographer was still hanging out, so when our friends clinked their glasses, we kissed dutifully. We fed each other cake. All that shit.
Then Devi spent the evening on the beach with Katie, until well after nightfall.
Which left me to hang out with Shane and Lex while the beautiful girls avoided us. As the sun went down, the three of us were lounging in the infinity pool, with the lanterns on the patio glowing and the ocean breeze rolling in. It was stupidly romantic and totally wasted on us.
“You seriously in love with her?” Shane asked me, pouring himself another rum cocktail from a pitcher of it. The stuff was made with local rum and fruit and tasted like liquid sugar, and I’d cut myself off after one.
Shane and Lex were on their third pitcher, though Shane was pretty much drinking it himself.
I glanced around the dark patio. Rolf had retired a while ago, I’d dismissed Wiley, and Corben had just scurried off to bed. Two late nights in a row was obviously too much for the old man, and I’d basically told him to fuck off tonight or I’d have him fired.
He didn’t believe me, at first, but then I reminded him that firing people was my specialty. I gave him a smile that was dredged up from somewhere deep in the darkest corners of my soul, and he relented.
Maybe I should’ve let him stay.
“Yes,” I said. “Why would I marry her if I wasn’t in love with her?”
“This isn’t an inheritance thing?” Shane pressed. “Like, you chose Tina because of the inheritance, right?”
“My mom chose Tina.”
Sad, but true.
I mean, I liked Tina. But it was my mom who pushed the marriage, and if she didn’t, the engagement never would’ve happened.
“Huh.” Shane eyed me, like maybe he was surprised I’d admit that. Why not? It was old news now anyway. “Does your mom know where you are right now?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know you got married today?”
“She does now. Her spy will be reporting back.”
“What, the old guy?”
“Yup.”
“And she’s okay with missing your wedding?”
“Don’t care.”
I seriously didn’t.
I’d made sure my mother and my grandmother had flown back to Toronto, the day after the gala, before I even mentioned to my mother that I was heading to the Caribbean for a couple of days off… and to marry Devi.
