Page 136 of Some Like It Hot

“He said that we always knew they were engaged.”

“Fake engaged. Was this a fake wedding?” I wave off the concierge, who jumps up to open the door for me. I shove it open, angrily.

I’m jealous.

Furious.

And hurt.

“No. It was real. They went to the courthouse and got married. Legally.”

It’s a gut punch.

Elise is married to Blake and Aidan and I didn’t factor in it at all.

I thought we were a team, all four of us. I thought we were all together, on the same page.

“I’m fucking gobsmacked,” I tell Aidan. “I can see Wilder not bothering to tell us, but why didn’t Elise? Was she afraid we’d talk her out of it? Have you spoken to her?”

“No,” he says tightly. “Wilder says she can’t find her phone.”

“Of course she can’t find her phone.” I step onto the sidewalk and pace back and forth. “Bloody hell! Let me ring you back. I need to arrange my flight to Chicago.”

“You’re coming back? You just got there. Don’t you have important business?”

“Business can wait. I think the four of us need to sit down and talk about the horseshit that is two people in this relationship running off and getting married behind the other two’s backs.”

“Blake said Elise heard us the other night.”

My mind goes blank. “Heard us what? Having sex?”

I don’t see the relevance of that.

“Telling each other I love you.”

I pause in my pacing. “Oh. Well, that wasn’t really a shock to her, was it?” I ask, a little bewildered.

My relationship with Aidan has been progressing quickly.

Thinking about that moment when he confessed his feelings, even in the midst of this debacle, warms me from the inside out.

“I guess so. I don’t know. Wilder was just speculating.”

Then that means nothing.

I feel frustrated to be halfway around the world when I really just want to be face to face with Elise and ask her where her head was at. Where her heart is.

“Do you think she’s in love with him?” I demand. “Is she heading north to rusticate in the woods with him?”

“I don’t know, Simon. All I know is that I’m in love with her and I think you are, too.”

He’s right. I am in love with Elise.

What started out as just fun has deepened into friendship and much, much more.

“I do love her,” I say gruffly. “And I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

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