Page 19 of Mating Theory
“This is the perfect one,” Steph says when she holds up a gold slinky thing.
It’s the same thing she says about every one I’ve tried on. Despite the glittery sheen, the fabric is soft against my heated skin. It’s like a caress. Instead of shouting no no no, Steph turns me gently to face away from Sutton—until I’m looking at a large set of mirrors.
The reflection takes my breath away. The gold dress falls perfectly on my body, highlighting curves in a way that feels elemental. My hair looks tousled from so many dresses going over it. The gold brings out natural champagne strands. I look like someone else entirely. A different species than the scared, hungry girl who lives in a sugar factory. I don’t look anything like me.
“I love it,” I breathe.
Triumph makes Steph look like a general having won a war.
In the mirror, Sutton’s expression is arrested—as if I’ve taken him by surprise. “Yes,” he mutters, almost to himself. “She looks incredible. Jesus. No one will recognize her like that.”
My heart sinks, because of course they won’t.
And of course he worried about that.
Chapter Ten
Sutton
St. Martins is the oldest church in Tanglewood. It’s been through a plague and a flood and a fire—all the Biblical threats. And here it stands in modern, hand-bricked glory. Light shines in every hue through the stained glass windows. Jesus drags his own cross in one of them. He rises from the dead in another.
I wouldn’t have expected Harper to get married in a church. It’s a little traditional for her. She could have gotten married knee-deep on an endangered coral reef or in zero gravity on a private space plane. Maybe she could have painted the church out of thin air. She eschews everything ordinary. Or at least it seemed that way. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought.
Hugo stands in a throng of bridesmaids with his usual charm, making the women blush. He even disarms the men with that grin, the one that invites you to share in some undefined secret, looking old-world debonair in a tailored tux, his black hair in artful disarray.
We have that in common, the ability to make friends in any room. The ability to charm our way through every woman and most of the men. While meaning none of it, feeling nothing.
The relief in his dark eyes, that’s real enough. “Thought you might not come.”
“I said I would.”
He gives a soft huff of laughter, looking away. “You left early last night.”
Lust. Anger. They merged into something ugly last night, something that had almost made a young woman the target of my revenge. I could have turned into my father. Maybe I did. “I made an appearance. Same as I’m doing now.”
He glances at my tux. “I suppose you visited Mrs. Cheung.”
Someone should alert the media. The next diet craze—alcoholism, thanks to the research by Sutton Mayfair. Six weeks of bingeing stripped away every spare centimeter of space, leaving my frame lean and hard. “She didn’t appreciate me showing up without an appointment.”
“I’m sure she didn’t,” Hugo says, his voice mild.
He’s the one who discovered Mrs. Cheung when we were broke as hell and trying not to look that way. The tailor shop squats between a dumpling house and a Chinese movie theater, mostly hidden by gnarled bamboo plants allowed to run wild.
We can afford Italian designers and bespoke suits now, but we like to remember where we came from.
“She charged me a ridiculous amount of money. And tried to set me up on a date with her niece.” She also gave me a rather colorful setdown in Cantonese while she tucked and trimmed my tux yesterday. A small price to pay to appear presentable today.
That’s the whole point of this, pretending nothing is wrong. Helping the happy couple get married without knowing they tore me apart.
“Her niece can do better. Did you tell her you’re one step away from liver failure?”
“Now, that’s a goddamn dirty lie. My father drank for forty years, and his liver was just fine. It was the tree that got in the way of his truck that did him in.”
“Your father was a drunk and a bastard. He should have been put down like a rabid animal.”
“Funny. Christopher said the same thing once.”
“Well, Christopher is my friend, too. Even if I’m very angry at him.”
“Because he had the fucking audacity to fall in love?”
“Non. He was in love with her for many years. He only decided to do anything about it when you expressed an interest in her. That’s why I’m angry at him.”
“Don’t be,” I say, my voice flat. “I asked her out first to get a reaction from him.”
“Then you’re both assholes.”
“Yes. Only, he’s better at it. But you know what? Even knowing that, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
