The Art of Marrying Your Enemy (The Richmond Brothers #2)

8. Aaron

8

AARON

T he whole car reeked of sugar and jam.

The driver had laid down a tarp, which crinkled whenever the inbred cat that Daisy had brought with her tried to pad over to me to nibble on my frosting-caked pants.

Next to me, dripping in millions of dollars of diamonds, Daisy pouted. Poster girl for spoiled little princesses.

An hour into the ride, she finally huffed, “Where are we going on our honeymoon. Paris? Cabo? A private island? Could he be that basic?”

“Why would I take you on an expensive trip anywhere?” I sneered, staring at the dangling diamond earring that brushed her shoulder.

“You forced us to have a big wedding so you could humiliate me in front of all the people we went to high school with,” she said haughtily. “I’d assumed you wouldn’t pass up that chance to make fun of me in a swimsuit that I was so not prepared for.”

“The only purpose of the Victorian-era honeymoon is for the bride to say goodbye to far-flung family members and friends before the woman invariably dies a horrible death of childbirth,” I said shortly.

“What a romantic start to this marriage.”

“All your family made it to the wedding with the exception of your grandmother’s aunt’s second cousin, who’s not going to be able to leave the state of Virginia due to house arrest until the third week of the month. Therefore, we will return to the Hamptons at that time for her welcome-back-to-society party, which will count as the honeymoon.”

“I have friends, too, who weren’t invited,” she said petulantly.

“Are they local?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“Then pick a date, and we will meet them for drinks. Not happy hour,” I warned.

By the time the car pulled up in front of the Georgian Revival home, which was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence that occupied half a city block, I would have paid an ungodly amount of money for a shower and a tall tower in which to lock Daisy.

The house was perpetually in shadow. Though the building was a large four-story mansion, it was dwarfed by the glass-and-steel skyscrapers surrounding it.

Why would a billionaire live in a rambling stone house surrounded by wild gardens when he could have a state-of-the-art glass-enclosed penthouse? The biggest flex in the world was to live in a privately owned, detached single-family home with a lawn in lower Manhattan.

The gates creaked open, and the car rolled up the drive, darkened by the shadows of the neighboring buildings and the gathering storm that had followed us.

Other stately homes owned by the great families of New York—the Peabodys, the Astors, the Vanderbilts—had once surrounded mine. They had fallen one by one to neglect and mismanagement by functionally illiterate trust-fund kids.

I’d saved this one but just barely.

That was probably the only reason Bill and Michelle still asked me to come to Friday night dinner. As much as I dreaded the weekly emotional flogging, not going would be some sort of admission of guilt, and I was not ready to give them that.

“Ah, so we’re honeymooning in your own private underground torture chamber. Got it.” Daisy’s remarks were an ambush.

I didn’t have a hold on my temper and wasn’t ready when she tripped my anger.

I simply reacted, too furious to even form words.

My new bride screamed and her cat yowled when I slammed my fist into the car window, forming a spiderweb of cracks around my knuckles on the glass and making dried frosting rain down over the tarp.

“You want to repeat that?” Warning laced my words. I was so sick of her shit, and we had thirty-one days to go.

“No, I—”

Her eyes widened with apprehension. She struggled as I grabbed her by the front of the bodice, her cat’s claws latching onto the yards of white fabric as I dragged her forcibly out of the car.

I didn’t let her crash onto the pea gravel drive, however. Instead, I hoisted her in my arms and threw her over my shoulder.

“Let me go!”

“The contract states that the groom has to carry the bride over the threshold. It does not dictate how.”

Her hands scrabbled at my frosting-caked suit. My brothers had tried to clean it up, but I’d have to burn it.

“And you acted all offended when I called you out on having a torture dungeon. Ow!” she yelled as her shoulder banged into the sharp edge of the doorway, with its stone gargoyles carved around the frame.

“I bet you have a creepy butler and a room completely filled with desiccated insects. You’re such a weirdo. You’ve always been a weirdo, and you’re totally getting off on this.” Her knee jammed me in the ribs. “Put me down.”

“With pleasure.”

I shrugged my shoulder, and she yelped as I let her drop in a heap on the tiled floor.

“Get up.”

I was already walking to the wide staircase. Along the wall, gas lamps that I’d had restored flickered as Daisy, skirts bunched in her hands, trotted up the stairs behind me.

“Stay out of the kitchen,” I ordered. “Stay out of my study. Stay out of the back yard. You will sleep here.” I threw open the door to my bedroom.

I’d have to have the whole place cleaned when she finally left. It was inhumane, having to share a bed with someone for the first time since the cellar. I’d regressed. The few women I’d taken back here did not spend the night.

I bet she hogged half the bed.

The bride must reside in the quarters of the bridegroom.

I tried not to think about the contract’s next paragraph.

“Change out of that ridiculous dress. And where is the jewelry?” I held out my hand. “I need to put it back in the safe.”

Daisy reddened and took off the earrings, bracelet, and brooch, fingers barely brushing my palm as she handed them to me. They were still warm from her skin.

“I don’t have the tiara or,” she added, “the necklace.”

“You lost it.”

“I thought it was mine!” she protested.

“You’re my wife. All of your things are now my things . Hence,” I said, extending an arm grandly, “the wedding giving me complete control of Coleman Mining. Now take off my wedding dress. It’s filthy.”

“I don’t have any clothes,” she cried.

The cat jumped up and onto my pillow. Disgusting.

“Your lack of planning is not my emergency, Coleman. You’ve known about this wedding for a week.”

“Fine. I’ll ask your housekeeper.”

“Stay away from the servants.” I grabbed her roughly. “I’ve informed them that they are not to talk to you.”

“You can’t order people not to be friends.”

“There’s a pot of money worth a million dollars, and it will be split after our divorce between the people who were successfully able to ignore you and your cat. Yes, you’re in charge of that animal.”

Said animal was now licking itself. On my bed.

Revolting.

“I will not be hiring a pet sitter. And if that cat makes a mess in here, he’s gone.”

The Scottish fold cat gave me a reproachful meow.

“Dorian is house-trained.” Daisy sniffed. “Not that I can say the same about you.”