Page 18 of Seduced in Ink

“I don’t know. I only know I’m an idiot.”

“You just said I don’t know, and I know,” Ethan said. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking other than that I wanted to make Madison happy.” There was silence, and he threw his hands into the air. “Did you hear her mom?”

Lincoln scowled. “I always hear her mom. She’s a bitch. And you know I hate using that word.”

“We all hate using that word,” Liam said.

“I shouldn’t have gone in there without a plan, but I saw what her mother was doing, and I felt like I should do something. Even if it was idiotic.”

Ethan leaned forward. “It does sound pretty idiotic. To come up and lie about being her fiancé out of the blue?” Aaron looked at Ethan.

“I know. And I can’t go back and not lie about it now, because it’s already out there.”

“You’re right. The lie is already out there. So now you’re going to have to deal with it,” Ethan continued.

“Did her mom believe it?” Liam asked.

Aaron looked at Lincoln. “Did she?”

“I don’t know,” Lincoln said, rubbing his jaw.

“Well, that’s not very helpful,” Aaron said and then winched at Lincoln’s look.

“I think she wants to believe it because she wants herpreciousdaughter to be married to a Montgomery.”

“Really?” Liam asked. “Why?”

That made Aaron snort. “You’re a former model turned best-selling author. I can give you a few million reasons why.”

“Ouch,” Liam said.

“Excuse me, I should be the one saying ouch,” Ethan said. “Just because I don’t make the kind of money you two do, doesn’t mean I’m not a desirable catch.”

“Of course, you are, baby,” Lincoln said, and Aaron snorted.

Before he could say anything else, though, the doorbell rang. Aaron narrowed his eyes, looked around the room, and nodded. “It must be Marcus.”

“Probably. He was running late with a project, but that should be him.”

At Liam’s words, Aaron turned and opened the door to find his future brother-in-law standing there, a glower on his face. “I see they haven’t kicked your ass yet, so you must still be explaining what you were thinking doing what you’re doing with Lincoln’s precious baby cousin.” He stormed past, and Aaron let out a sigh.

It seemed today would be the day when Aaron finally got what was coming to him. They had been threatening it for years, and here it was.

“What did I miss?” Marcus asked, taking a seat next to Lincoln.

“Apparently, Madison’s mom, Maeve, was being her normal self, and Aaron stepped in to save the day.”

Aaron didn’t like Ethan’s tone and narrowed his eyes. “She was trying to marry her off to a random guy named Guy.”

“His name is Guy?” Liam asked.

Ethan held up his hands. “There are nice Guys out there. Guy Fieri constantly raises money for people in need and is always one of the first to help during the forest fires with food and other helpful stuff.”

“Okay, okay, Ethan,” Liam said. “Guy Fieri is amazing. But Madison’s mom wants her to marry a guy named Guy? A guy we don’t know. That seems a little too maniacal even for Maeve.”

“Tell me about it,” Aaron grumbled. “And it wasn’t just that, it was that she said horrible things I’m not going to repeat. Things that I wanted to slap the woman for even uttering. And I’ve never hit a woman.”

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