Page 70 of Fake Fae-Ancée

"Come on!" Claudio snarled. "You hate that guy! And he deserves it! And now you want to marry that bastard? Really?"

I frowned. "Don’t call him that."

I could do that. But apparently I had a problem if someone else did it.

"Is it so hard to believe that someone would want to marry me?"

Claudio glowered. "That’s not the point."

"Yes, my friend, this is exactly the point," I said in a low voice. "Did it ever cross your mind that it is none of your business who I’m going to marry or what I want out of life? Yuri and I are…" I hesitated, just for a beat, before the lie that felt more and more like something else, slid over my tongue. "… In love. Yeah. We are in totally in love and totally happy."

Claudio stared at me. Apparently I had successfully shut him up. I swallowed, my own words echoing in my ears.

"Are you sure?" he asked after a long moment. I nodded.

"You know, we all have to make our own damn mistakes," I muttered, casting my eyes down.

"Yeah, I know." Claudio scratched his neck. "I’m just worried, you know? We all are, actually. I mean, you just disappear from our wedding, and the next thing I hear you’re moving out and are engaged to your freaking nemesis. I would be a pretty shitty friend if I didn’t at least give you hell about it."

I couldn’t help but grin. And the hug he pulled me into was sincere and just the right amount of firm and it felt so much like home that I’d almost cried. Almost.

One thing, however, hit me right then and there, when he let me go again, and I called him a douchebag, and he told me what a pain in the ass I was.

There was no way I could return home. Even if our plan worked. Even if Yuri would be king and ride into the sunset to rule over his Happy Bear Kingdom and I finally got my divorce papers.

This wasn’t only about getting my friends out of the line of fire, getting Nox off their scent.

The home I’d had for the past few years was no longer my home. Things had changed. Claudio was building his own little family with Lily now. And Charly and Gabe surely didn’t need a roommate any longer.

However my story would unfold, I would no longer play a part in theirs.

This part of our lives was over.

Yuri

"And what thehell did you think you were doing there?" I roared.

Kai blinked at me. Our guests, aka the inquisitional squad had just gone, and I had been stewing in my own rage for about three hours now.

"What are you talking about?"

Oh, this was rich! Pretending she didn’t know. I clawed the doorframe, barely able to not shred it in my grip.

"I hope for your sake and mine that you don’t pull a stunt like that when we are out there, at the ball, pretending to be happily engaged."

"What the hell is this about?" Kai laughed.

I glared. "This is about your secret little meeting you and your so-called friend were having in the hallway, earlier."

She rolled her eyes at me. "Are you serious?"

Oh, and how serious I was. Of course I had noticed how they had sneaked away, had overheard their whispered discussion in the hallway. I wasn’t stupid. And okay, my paranormal hearing wasn’t great — Bears were more about smell — I hadn’t really been able to make out everything they had been talking about, but that didn’t matter.

"How do you think it makes me look when my fiancée prances around, talking to other men?"

She laughed, unbelieving. "I’m not allowed to talk to people?"

"Not alone, no." Bear gave a low mental growl in my mind, showing some fangs. The barrier between him and me growing paper thin. My mind went fuzzy, thinking became harder.

---