Page 78 of The Marriage Clause

The word sits in the space between us like a third person in the room.

"Your room is upstairs," I tell her. "Third door on the left. Everly had it prepared."

She nods. "And yours?"

"First door. On the right."

Opposite ends of the hall.

"It's practical," I say.

"Very practical." She's watching me in the low light of the foyer, and whatever she's looking for in my face, I can't tell if she finds it.

She takes a step toward the stairs. Stops.

"Everett."

"Yeah."

"That vow." She turns enough that I can see her profile. The line of her jaw. The earring catching what's left of the light. "Did you mean it?"

I know what I'm looking at. And I'm not going to look away.

"Go to bed, Aria."

She waits. One heartbeat. Two.

Then she walks up the stairs, and the jacket slips down one shoulder. She doesn't fix it, and I watch her until she disappears at the top of the landing.

I stand in the foyer for a very long time and then head for my room,

First door on the right. I don't undress. I sit on the edge of the bed in my shirt and trousers with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, and I think about the way she said hi at the altar like we were meeting at a coffee shop instead of a wedding. Like the simplicity of the word could collapse the enormity of the moment into something survivable.

Hi.

I said it back.

And then I married her.

Chapter Fourteen

ARIA

The private jet looks exactly how I imagined a billionaire's jet would look.

Which is to say: ridiculous.

Cream leather seats. Glossy walnut trim. Champagne already chilling in a silver bucket I'm too intimidated to look at for too long. There's a bowl of fruit that looks hand-selected by someone who has never eaten a bruised banana in their life, and the cabin smells like expensive air and cedar and Everett's cologne.

I stop in the aisle for half a second and stare.

Everett, already inside and somehow making a private jet look like just another conference room he owns, glances up from his phone.

"You can sit," he says.

I shoot him a look. "Thank you. I was actually considering standing for the next eleven hours."

One corner of his mouth twitches.