Page 29 of Hot Mess Wedding

I grab one for each of us and then meet them at my 4-seater kitchen table. It’s round and covered in chipped Formica because I got it at a yard sale, but the metal frame was in great condition. So I just keep a table cloth tossed over it.

“What happened, sweetie?” Paige asks, her voice gentle.

That’s all it takes for the tears to come, even though I would have sworn last night I had cried all the tears I had in my body. I blow out a breath and give them both a watery smile.

“I fell in love with the wrong man.”

“Oh, Cleary,” Cassia says. She reaches over and squeezes my hand.

So I tell them the whole story. My bad choices on the plane of mixing Xanax and alcohol. The honeymoon suite, the ring, me believing I was married, all of it.

“Okay, he didn’t actually lie,” Paige says, “he just didn’t take the time to explain everything fully.”

“More or less. And I didn’t even give him a chance to. It doesn’t matter though. It was all just a bunch of silly mistakes. Maybe someday I’ll get a good story out of it.”

“If he was just a silly mistake, why are you still wearing his ring, honey?” Cassia asks.

I look down at my hand to that gorgeous solitaire shining up at me. “He took me to a jewelry store and bought this for me. Let me pick it out. Why would he do that?”

“Maybe you should ask him that,” Paige says.

“I don’t even have his number. We didn’t exchange any information because everything happened fast and—”

“Sugar baby,” his voice comes from behind me.

I stand and whirl around. “You’re here. Why are you here?”

“Had to come after my wife.”

“Oh, you probably want this ring back too, huh?” I ask. My heart feels like it’s tearing in half, because just looking at him is hard. He’s so … everything. He’s so big and strong and handsome. So kind. So everything I’ve ever want in a man. So everything I know I don’t get to have.

“I said I had to come after myWIFE,” he repeats, emphasizing that last word.

I frown at him and it’s a miracle that I have enough restraint to not stomp my foot. “But we’re not really married.”

He nods to my hand. “You still wearing my ring?”

Shit.

I wish now I’d taken it off. And that I hadn’t cried myself to sleep. And that I didn’t have an ugly-cry hangover. Or at least that I’d gotten up in the night to hydrate and get cucumbers for my eyes or something so that I didn’t look like I’d been beaten.

“I forgot and now my hands are swollen and I can’t get it off,” I snap, because I don’t want him to know the real reason I haven’t taken it off.

He steps closer. “I have things I need to say. I want you to listen this time.” He nods at the women behind me who aren’t even pretending they’re going to get up and leave. “Ladies.”

“Don’t mind us,” Paige says.

Cassia nods, propping her chin in her palms like she’s settling in to watch a show.

Ian just nods. “Sit down lil’ darlin’ and listen to what I have to say.”

“You’re being awfully bossy,” I say.

“I’m gonna get even bossier if you don’t sit your sweet ass down.”

I lower myself into my chair, then cross my arms over my chest. “Talk. I’m listening.”

“I want to tell you about the Miller men.”

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