Page 26 of One Wealthy Wedding

I block Miles’s next punch, but I take a glancing uppercut to the jaw. Miles pulls it at the last second. “Fucking punch me,” I say.

“No hits above the chin,” Jonah reminds us. We have rules about that now, after Jonah’s bruised face was splashed across the tabloids.

“I don’t care,” I say. I’m being an ass, but I can’t seem to stop. Miles and Jonah are so controlled. So settled. Confident. Jonah is a master of the universe. Miles is the puppeteer behind our success. What the fuck do I have to show for myself? I haven’t told them about my failures overseas yet, but it’s coming. They’ll be disappointed, but they’ll refuse to show it, which will make me feel worse.

I lunge toward Miles, and he blocks and pushes me back before snapping a cross that hits me square in the shoulder. I stumble back.

“What’s wrong with you?” Miles asks.

Everything. I snap a hook out, but Miles dances away.

“Stop trying to punch me and talk,” he says.

“I came for the fighting, not talking,” I bite out. “Jonah? You want to fight?” I cut a glance to my other friend, whose brow is creased with concern. He shrugs and swings into the ring. He lunges so fast I can’t track him and hammers a jab-cross to my chest, then a blow to my ribs and another to my shoulder. He dances away, and I barely have a second to breathe, to let the pain bloom into a throbbing ache, before he’s back. I’m ducking, stumbling onto my back leg, and then he’s in my face, glove under my jaw, his dark eyes hard and unyielding.

“What the fuck. Is wrong. With you?” He bites each word out.

“I failed.” I slump against the ropes, and Jonah steps back. “I didn’t get the building we wanted. We have very little interest from European investors, and I didn’t secure a joint venture. We need to make a splash. We need something big. We don’t have anything.” I tried. I fucking tried. But I was distracted, and maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I square my shoulders, lift my gaze, and wait for my partners’ inevitable disappointment.

Jonah raises his brows, not even winded after beating the crap out of me. “So what’s the plan?”

My brow furrows. “The plan?”

Miles glances between us, before striding to the fridge hidden in the wall and coming back with three beers.

“Yeah, what’s the plan? You always have one,” Jonah continues.

We sink down and lean against the ropes. Sweat cools under my shirt as I catch my breath. Miles is similarly winded, his button-down sticking to him.

“The plan is that a wife might get me an in with these investors.”

Miles’s mouth drops open. “Your marriage is for the business?”

“What better way to clean up my act than to have a wife? I certainly won’t seem like the same guy who was arrested for speedboat racing. Sorry about that, by the way.”

Miles looks like he’s about to argue, but Jonah is nodding.

“Yeah, these investors care about family,” Jonah says. “I remember a few years ago when we started looking at expansion. There was this sense that, I don’t know…Americans care about the wrong things? Capitalism and seventy-hour work weeks. And if you’re you, then it’s twenty-hours a week of partying too.”

“Not anymore,” I say.

“What’s this, then?” Miles asks, gesturing at the ring. “You’re six drinks deep, asking us to punch you in the face.”

I shrug. “My last night of freedom, I guess. Besides, it’s not like I’m dancing naked on the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Have you actually done that?” Miles asks.

“No, he hasn’t done that,” Jonah shoots back. “Focus. We can use this. But you need it to be believable.”

“I know. We’ll go to events. Get to know each other. Really do it up.”

“I can’t believe you’re entertaining this,” Miles mutters. “I want to go on record that I think this is a bad idea.”

Jonah stares at him incredulously. “You’re the one who fake dated your best friend’s sister for a week. For a fucking piece of real estate.”

“It wasn’t just a piece of real estate,” Miles says shortly. “Besides, I was in love with her.”

Jonah groans. “Yes, hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that. He’s not in love with his wife, though. He better hope he can pull this off.” Jonah’s black gaze cuts to me. “You’re not in love with your wife, right?”

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