Page 52 of Sinful Bride

She raises her glass to him with a proud smile. “Anything for the two of you.”

“I’m feeling especially grateful for this beautiful woman right here.” Pasha hugs me closer to him and kisses the corner of my eye. “She ran into my life, literally, and shook up everything I thought I once knew. Like how I knew, for a fact, that I was never going to get married. Not in a million years.”

My stomach twists just a little.

“I also ‘knew’ I was never going to have kids. I was never going to settle down and have a family of my own. My life was my work. I didn’t…”

I glance at him when I hear his voice catch. I don’t know if anyone else notices, but I do.

“I didn’t deserve any of these things.” He clears his throat and takes a tiny sip of his wine. “I’d like to say I was just married to my work, but the truth is, I just didn’t think I’m the kind of person who deserves that kind of happiness.”

Arlo’s brow pinches a bit. Again, I’m not sure if anyone else notices. But it’s there—a flash of concern. Maybe even sympathy.

No. Empathy.

I don’t know how I know, but it’s there: this feeling that there’s far more between Arlo and Pasha than either of them is letting on.

“And then comes Daphne.” Pasha grins fondly. “Witty, beautiful, incredibly intelligent, with an eye for art and a heart of solid gold. I don’t know what I’d do without her in my life.”

“Suffer,” Makari says in a dramatic drawl. “Loudly.”

Everyone laughs, and so does Pasha, but he nods in agreement. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I know with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t be smiling half as much. Or enjoying life as I do now. Daphne is… well, she’s my everything. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure I deserve every second with her.”

The cheers, the congratulations, the “awws”... how could I not kiss him? Especially when Mak starts a “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” chant and they all clink their glasses until we do.

I should feel elated.

I should be choking up from Pasha’s kind and loving words.

I should be wanting to climb on his lap and ride him like a pony.

But I don’t feel any of that. I don’t really have words to describe how I feel, really. So I smile and pretend and put on my best show.

It’s what I’m good at, after all.

Mak claps his hands together and broadens his smile into a wicked grin. “Alright, enough with the mushy-mush. Time for games!”

“Oh, no,” groans Sofi.

“Oh, yes.” He hops up from the couch and grabs for a bag he’d brought in earlier. “And since these two are total prudes who don’t respect the honor and dignity of bachelor and bachelorette parties…”

Pasha rolls his eyes with a chuckle. “I hardly call getting drunk at a strip club ‘honorable’ or ‘dignified.’”

Mak spins around, holding a slim box in his hands. “Because you don’t know how to have fun, dear brother. Behold!” He lifts the box up like that one cartoon movie. “Pin the Dick on The dancer!”

“The Who on the What?!”

Asya nearly chokes on her wine. Hazel’s hand flies to her mouth, and Jameson doubles over with laughter.

Pasha just shakes his head in disgust. “Even you are better than that, Makari.”

“See? Total prude.” Mak marches over to the far wall of the living room and proceeds to set up the game. It’s a large poster of a muscular naked man with no genitalia, flexing hard enough to cause some cardiovascular concern.

“You know the game. Put the junk on the hunk. Tail on the whale. I could keep going if you want.”

“Please, for the love of God, don’t.” Sofi rolls her eyes, but laughs and rolls off the couch to join him. “I’ll go first!”

And that is basically how the rest of the party guests end up spinning around with their eyes closed and blindfolded, paper penises in hand and the whole lot of us cackling at the stumbling attempts to get anywhere close to the model’s groin.

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