Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“Well, I was supposed to be at your wedding.”
I winced. “Yeah. Did you not get the memo? It’s not happening.”
“I was informed.” The bartender slid her a martini, and she made a satisfied sound after she took a sip. “Delicious.”
“And you’re here why?”
“Oh, because I’m the only one who can even remotely relate to what you’re going through.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “You and Locke got married.”
“Locke and I were an arranged marriage, as you well know.”
“Yeah.”
“And yours was fake.”
I winced at that word. Hearing it from Whitley had been one time too many.
“It wasn’t.”
Maggie took another sip of her martini. “No?”
“Well, yes. It started that way. It started because I needed a date to your wedding.”
“And so you brought a fake fiancée?”
I groaned. “I know how it sounds, but I liked her from the beginning. I thought I could make her see the same if we moved the roadblocks out of the way.”
“How’d that work for you?”
“Peachy,” I said with a pointed glare.
“We’re both stupid. We should have only agreed to get married for love. Not for any other reason. Not for an arrangement between our families. Not so Whitley’s dad could walk her down the aisle. Not for any of it.”
“And you don’t love Locke?” I inquired.
She scoffed. “Hardly. I mean … I wanted to. I tried to.” She looked far away, as if remembering a time when it had seemed possible. “We’re just too different. I saw it, but he didn’t. It’s never going to work the way we wanted it to. But it still could for you.”
“I don’t think so,” I grumbled as I finished off another glass.
I called for another round, but Maggie shook her head.
“No more alcohol, cousin. You need to go home and sleep this off. It’ll look better in the morning.”
“I can’t sleep at my place. It … it smells like her.”
Margaret’s expression cracked then. “You really love her, don’t you?”
“Completely.”
“And did you tell her?”
I frowned and looked into the bottom of my empty glass. “No.”
“Idiot,” she spat. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“I didn’t want to scare her off!”
Margaret sighed in exasperation. “Come on. You can stay at my place tonight. I have a guest room at Locke’s.”
“Yeah?” I asked, hope finally breaking through.
“Yeah. It’s not a problem. I know you don’t want to deal with anyone else right now. People who won’t understand.”
I really, really didn’t want to have to deal with anyone else. That was for sure.
Maggie finished her drink and then helped me out of the bar. A car was waiting at the entrance to Percy Tower. Camden must have planned this. That sounded like him.
I fell into the backseat, and Maggie slid in next to me. She was silent as we sped through the Upper East Side toward her place with Locke. I’d never been there before, and I wasn’t entirely sure where it was located. But none of that really mattered. All of it was a distraction from the reality of my fucked up life.
I wasn’t marrying Whitley. No matter what I wanted, we’d ruined this thing. And if I knew anything about Whit, it was that she blew up relationships on the way out. This wasn’t going to be any different.
Maggie slung an arm around my back as she helped me up the elevator to the top floor of her building. The living room looked out onto Central Park, and the enormous size of the place was dwarfed only by the Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool. I’d never seen anything like it before.
She rolled her eyes at it. “Locke is always working.”
“He’s an Olympic swimmer. It’s pretty badass.”
Margaret shrugged. “This way.”
She hustled me down the hall and deposited me into the guest bed. My head was swimming now as everything caught up with me.
“Thanks, Mags.”
“Anytime. But, Gavin … in the morning, we’re going to have to figure out how to fix this.”
I stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t think there’s any fixing this.”
“You know that’s not true. You’re a King! We can fix anything.”
“And what if I can’t?” I asked softly.
“Then, I guess you were right. It was fake all along, and … you earned this.”
The door pulled shut quietly behind her as I rolled her words around and around in my mind. Maybe I’d earned this after all.
34
GAVIN
I woke with clarity. We’d gone about this all wrong. I’d gone about this all wrong. I should have come clean to Whitley from the start about how I felt about her. Instead, I was so worried that she’d back out at the first sign of my affection. After all, it wasn’t unprecedented. I’d watched her do it to others over the years. I’d seen the relationships implode, and I’d crossed my fingers and hoped it wouldn’t happen to me.
Well, it had.
Now, what was I going to do?