Page 130 of Prized Possession

Miles responds on his friends behalf. “He was worried you would say no, so I told him just to do it anyway. We saw how much they upset you at that first dinner, and we could only imagine what your text interactions were like. I have to say, we were completely correct. Your family treats you like shit.”

I give him a sad nod as confirmation. Marcus, on the other hand, looks furious on my behalf.

“What? How are they treating her like shit? I’m going to kill them.”

“Calm down, caveman,” Miles laughs. “I’ve been dealing with them.”

“I’m not a caveman, but I want to know what they’ve been saying to Chloe.”

He bangs his fist on the table, not at all helping his argument that he’snota caveman.

“As much as I appreciate you both protecting me, I can look after myself,” I state firmly, though I’m not entirely sure I believe it, and it’s clear neither man does either.

Miles seems to ignore us both, and continues with his rant.

“Your mother, who is a bitch, by the way, keeps harassing you about the wedding. She has asked a million questions that she claims the planner needs to know, but even when I’ve replied for you, she doesn't seem to care about your response.”

“You answered wedding planning questions for her?” Marcus asks, sounding a little amused.

“Look, there’s a good chance she’s not getting married anyway, so it doesn’tmatter. Besides, she asked whether you wanted a maroon or peach colour scheme, and since nobody looks good in peach, I thought it was the obvious answer,” Miles replies, shrugging his shoulders dismissively.

“Peach?” I squeal. “She wants the colour scheme to be peach? Has she lost her damn mind?”

Miles chuckles, while Marcus flicks his gaze between the two of us.

“That’s what I told her. She’s an idiot thinking peach is a good idea,” Miles laughs.

“What else?” Marcus grinds out, clearly trying to change the conversation.

I guess the idea of me getting married isn’t something he wants to hear about. I can’t help but wonder if it’s just because I’m supposed to marry Scott, or the idea of marriage in general.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, it’s a bit early in…whatever the hell this is…to be thinking about marriage,I remind myself, whilst in the other part of my brain, I’m definitely thinking about whether Marcus would ever want to get married.

Miles winces as he says, “Scott has texted several times, and he’s also tried calling a lot too.”

“What does that shit-stain want?” Marcus growls.

“Pretty much the same as Fiona. He wants to finalise things for the wedding, but he also wants to discuss the ‘rules for the marriage’.”

On hearing Miles say the wordrules, a shiver runs down my spine and I cringe.

“Him and those fucking rules.”

“What rules?” Marcus asks, his gaze locked on me, looking concerned by my reaction.

“He has a very long list of things that he expects from me, as his wife. He told me about a few of them the very first time we met, but I told him, if they were that important, he should put them into a document for me to look over before the wedding. A bit like a contract, I guess.

“Honestly, I just wanted him to stop talking to me about them, so I made it up to delay the conversation.”

I visibly shudder, thinking of the awful things I’m sure he’s added to the list.

Marcus turns to Miles, fixing him with a hard stare. “Is it as bad as I’m thinking?”

Miles winces, his face scrunching as he squirms in his seat.

“He only brought up a few that he wanted to clarify with Chloe, but I can imagine the whole document isn’t a great read.”

“Motherfucker,” Marcus snaps, hitting the table once more.

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