“Oh my god. You’re such a bad boy,” she teases. “Regular or Flamin’ Hot?”
“Either. I’m an equal opportunity Cheeto eater. What’s your guilty pleasure?”
“Cherry Starbursts.”
“Why just the cherry ones?”
Juliette shrugs. “Because they’re my favorite. I found a place online where you can order an entire bag of one flavor. Life is too short to eat lemon Starbursts.”
“Words to live by,” I say, lifting my glass of wine, and she does the same. We clink and each take a sip.
“Mmm, that’s good.” She sets down her glass and tilts her head. “So tell me how you ended up here accidentally.”
I take another fortifying drink of my wine before starting. “This was supposed to be my honeymoon trip.”
Juliette’s lips part, and she reaches for my hand, stroking her thumb across my knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Reno. What happened?”
Turning my hand over, I link our fingers together. It feels comforting, this simple act of hand holding.
“I’d been a happy bachelor for my entire adult life. I wasn’t looking for anything serious, but a few years ago, my grandfather started showing signs of dementia. One day, a couple policemen showed up on my doorstep, letting me know he’d been found at a park wearing only his underwear. It was almost freezing outside, but luckily a nice man saw him and gave him his coat before calling the authorities.”
“That’s so sad,” Juliette says, her mouth turning down at the corners. “But I’m glad someone found him.”
“It could have been so much worse. Gramps had been married to my grandmother for around fifty years when she died. He seemed to go downhill quickly after that, or maybe it had been going on for a while before she passed, but no one noticed because Grandma kept an eye on him.” I blink out at the ocean for a long moment before returning my gaze to my date. “I guess it made me rethink my life. They wereso in love, and I realized I wanted a partner and not just meaningless hookups.”
She nods. “That makes sense. Something like that can really change your perspective.”
I give her a small smile. “It’s not like I set out on a frantic wife search or anything, but my goals slowly began to shift. I actually began dating instead of just being…”
“A playboy?” she fills in with a smile.
“I was going to say man whore, but that sounds nicer,” I admit with a chuckle. “I dated a few women, but no one really clicked. And then I met Leia at a party, and she was really nice and flirty. I asked her out, and our first date was good, so I asked her out again.”
Juliette watches me in silence, but her thumb rubs a soothing line between my thumb and forefinger. She is so fucking beautiful, her makeup applied with a light hand. There’s something pink and shimmery on her eyelids, and her lips are a glossy rose color.
I have to force myself from my Juliette-induced haze so I can continue. “I decided to date her exclusively, and she was all in. Things went really well, and after a year, I proposed.”
We both take another drink of wine with our free hands, and I swirl my glass before setting it down. “That’s when Leia started to change. All kinds of red flags began popping up, but I ignored them.”
“What kinds of red flags?” the woman across from me asks in a soft voice.
“The wedding planning process became a nightmare. Despite coming from money, Leia had always seemed down to earth, but she became a bit of a Bridezilla. I convinced myself that after the wedding, things would go back to normal.” I shake my head at my own stupidity. “Then she quit her job at the marketing firm where she worked, and she couldn’t afford her apartment anymore.”
Juliette’s eyebrows pressed together. “Why did she quit?”
“She said she wanted to focus on making her special day the best it could be, and work was takingup too much time.”
“Herspecial day?”
One corner of my mouth creeps up into a humorless smile. “Red flags, remember?” A sigh escapes me. “So I told her she could move in with me. That’s when those flags started waving like crazy.”
“But you still ignored them,” Juliette says. There’s no judgment in her tone. It’s simply a statement.
“Yup. She became very critical of my work schedule.”
“Well, you can’t help that,” my beautiful date says a bit indignantly.
“Exactly.”The NHL doesn’t cancel games just because my fiancée wants to go to Aspen for the weekend,I think bitterly.“My busiest time of the year is October through April, but Leia insisted she just had to have a fall wedding for the aesthetics—something about the colors and leaves and stuff—so she planned it for last September. I reminded her of how busy I’d be, but she said it was fine, and we could just put off our honeymoon until May.”
