Page 128 of One Wealthy Wedding

I take a glass of wine from a passing caterer. “What makes you say that?” I ask, looking back at my friend.

“Because there’s this look in your eye when you watch her. Like you’re desperate.”

“Fuck.”

“It’s okay—”

“No. It’s very much not.” I take a gulp of wine, barely tasting it. “I feel like I’m sliding deeper and deeper into a pit. Every time I try to claw myself out, I end up farther in.”

“What’s happening?” Jonah strolls up.

“I’m falling for my wife,” I say bleakly.

Miles’s brows go up. “Glad we’re being honest now.”

“She’s not falling for me,” I respond. We’re doing the list, and I’m helping her, and we’re faking it really well, because, for me, it’s not fucking fake. I drain the drink. A class act, that’s me. I look around for another waiter.

Jonah raises a single brow, a motion that comes more naturally to him than breathing. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I was wrong. There’s a good heart under all her prickliness. She wants to save her family company and do right by its employees. She gave her friend half the bar. And yet…” I swallow. “It would have to be a hell of a lot of change to overcome the past.”

“You knew this would happen,” Miles says quietly.

“Yeah,” I say roughly, watching Cat beyond the doors as she laughs with Lane, looking happier than I’ve seen her for a long time. Callie wanders out, and Lane gives her a kiss on the cheek that makes her squirm and push Lane away.

“So go after her,” Jonah says, shrugging. Miles cuts him a look.

“It’s not that simple,” I say. “Cat has never wanted me. Not the way I want her.”

“Maybe she’s changed,” Miles says.

“Or maybe she hasn’t, and she’s going to ruin me.”

I don’t repeat my words from last week. It never lasts with me. It started with Cat, the first woman to reject me, and it ended a week before Cat and I got married, with a woman whose name I never learned. Shame rises inside me, a tide of mortification I can’t shove down and I can’t drown with alcohol.

Even if Cat did want me, I’m not good enough for her.

“If you don’t pursue her, you might regret it forever,” Jonah says. He’s watching the women too. “Can you live with that?”

I’m saved from responding by a loud “Theo, darling.” The accent is posh and familiar.

I turn immediately.

Shit. Saved is the wrong word.

The voice belongs to Katrina Jasper, the wife of an investor we’re courting for a property development. Her husband hasn’t invested yet, and it’s Katrina’s opinion that matters most. I’ve been to plenty of dinners with her. Enough to know that her nails feel like daggers on my thigh and that after two martinis, she starts to make suggestions about getting out of here. She’s the last person I want to talk to.

She goes for a cheek kiss, and I respond a second too late. I should have shaken her hand and prevented this. She always lingers a little too long. Her perfume makes my eyes water as she pulls back. She’s standing too close, looking at me like I’m a piece of meat. My gaze darts. Her husband has pulled Miles and Jonah away.

“It’s so good to see you,” she purrs. “You’re looking well. You always did fill out a tux so nicely.”

“That’s what they say,” I tell her with a wink. This is my role. The devil-may-care playboy. The guy who responds with a laugh and a smile, even when I feel like I’m being suffocated.

“We never did have that drink in Paris,” she says. Her eyes flicker with avarice. For my money or my body, I’m not sure.

“You wanted to talk about the potential investment in SunTech, right?” I know damn well she didn’t, but for once, I’d like someone to take me seriously.

“Among other, more interesting things. Come on, Theo.” She laughs, a fake tinkling sound. “I know you’re not into all that.”

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