Page 13 of One Night Bride
Oakley frowned harder, Vee bounced over to lay an appreciative hand on my bicep, Izzy tilted her head as if deep in thought, and Amelia positively cackled.
“Here’s the thing,” Amelia started, clearly the spokesperson for the gaggle of girls. “Esme only got a quick one night with you and didn’t properly document a few things. Would you be inclined to letting us get out a tape measure?”
“Shut your mouth right now, Amelia Jackson, or I’ll shut it for you.” Esme’s voice snapped through the air behind me.
I turned to see her back in the living room, her hair slightly disheveled and her cheeks a bright red, but that same fire still burning in her eyes. Her hands jammed on her hips while her chest heaved. I wanted to stare at her while she battled her sisters, verbally or otherwise. I was here for it.
She was magnificent.
“I merely wanted to know how big his…biceps…are, darling sister,” Amelia said, all innocence in her wide eyes. “Titus has huge arms, but this guy might just have him beat.”
Oakley snorted. Izzy sighed. Vee stroked my arm, looking up at me with a big smile and stars in her eyes. Jesus. It was getting a little scary in here.
Esme didn’t move. She just leveled her death stare at her sisters and spoke as if I wasn’t in the room. “Remington swung by to hand off something I’d accidentally left in Tahoe. You all can leave now.”
None of the girls moved an inch.
Oakley scratched the side of her head. “It’s a long way from Tahoe to deliver something.”
“The postal service would have been a better option,” Izzy agreed, nodding.
Vee gave my arm a squeeze. “I think he’s perfect.”
“There’s the USPS, FedEx, UPS, and even hand-delivery services,” Amelia ticked off on her fingers. “You didn’t have to swing on by on your horse, cowboy.”
I looked at her in amusement. And a trickle of fear, I won’t lie. “I didn’t…that is, I don’t ride a horse. Actually, I do, but not here.”
I cleared my throat, and the ladies left the room in silence. They all looked at me like I was a brand-new species of animal at the zoo, there for them to peer at and observe. Esme finally walked forward, her heels echoing off the tiled floor, her arms shooing the girls back to the front door.
“Okay, that’s enough. Out.”
Amelia grumbled the loudest, while Oakley said something about pulling out her Taser. Esme had to physically pull Vee away from my bicep.
Izzy calmly stated, “But I live here.”
“Fine. You can stay. The rest of you, out!” Esme nearly shouted.
She finally got the door slammed behind three of the ladies. Then she glanced down, swooped to the floor to pick up a pair of shoes and threw them out the door before slamming it shut again and locking it.
“I’m going to head to my room,” Izzy said softly. “For now.”
She patted me on the forearm as she crossed the room to the stairs. “Nice to meet you, Remington.”
I smiled back and decided she was my favorite. When her door had closed upstairs and Esme and I were finally alone again, I sat back down on the couch and picked up my wineglass.
“Where were we?” I asked smoothly. “Oh yes, you were freaking out. By the way, my mother is not a bitch.”
Esme flopped onto the chair opposite the couch. “Oh, don’t act like you didn’t freak out too. I just wasn’t there to witness it.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “No. Because you snuck out of my room before we got to that part.”
She gave me a look I couldn’t quite interpret, but I could assume she wasn’t exactly happy with me. I studied her as we lapsed into silence, both of us, perhaps, trying to figure out what to do with this situation we’d gotten ourselves into.
Her dark eyebrows were perfect commas over her flashing eyes, making me wonder if they were fake. Could eyebrows be fake? I knew girls had fake nails, fake hair, and fake tans, but were fake eyebrows a thing now? Somehow I doubted anything was fake on Esme. She looked put together more than any woman I’d seen in a long time, but she looked that way due to sheer force of will. Not by any fake means.
I hadn’t known Esme long, probably not even a full twenty-four collective hours, but I already knew this marriage choice—though some would argue it wasn’t much of a choice when neither one of us remembered doing it—was going to be exactly what I needed.
“Look,” I said, breaking the silence, “I know neither of us intended on this marriage, but what’s done is done. We need to form a plan on what to do from here.”
