Chapter 17 – Aston
ASTON
“Were you able to get in touch with Micha?” Alden asks, handing me my suit jacket.
The rings I bought burn a hole in my pocket, and I think I might have gone too far with the ones I bought for Skylar.
“No. We’ve been playing phone tag. This isn’t exactly something I can text him.”
“Why don’t you have Skylar talk to him?”
I adjust my tie only to untie it and start again. “Because it has to come from me.”
“What are you even going to tell him?”
I catch Alden in the reflection of the mirror, annoyed that he’s asking me ten thousand stupid questions right now. At least we’re alone here, City Hall all but closed for the day.
“What do you mean? I’m going to tell him I married his sister and hope he doesn’t fly home from Sudan to kick my ass.”
“Why would he kick your ass? You’re helping Skylar, and you’re not the one who got her pregnant.”
“I know.” This fucking tie. I adjust it again, but it still looks like shit.
“Then you have nothing to worry about unless…”
“Unless what?” I bark. “And why can’t I get this fucking tie to work?”
“Oh shit, man. You like her,” he states, his voice climbing.
“What?” I almost laugh at that. Almost. “You’re high.”
He straightens, and I can feel him staring at my reflection from behind me. “You do. Why else would you be like this? You’re the most in control, always calm under pressure man I know. You’re a trauma surgeon for children. You never lose your cool or your shit, but that’s what you’re doing now.”
I work the tie, the silk feeling like it’s burning my hands with every flip and knot. “Do you have a point, or are you just being an asshole?”
“You told me yourself that you can fuck women on the side. That the marriage isn’t real. I know you’re worried about Zoey and how she’ll respond to all of this, but it’s more than that. You like Skylar. You’ve got a thing for her.”
I bristle. “I don’t.”
“You can’t.”
My hands fall to the sides of the sink, and I grip the porcelain as indignation crawls up my skin. “I know.”
“But you don’t since you’re a flustered mess.”
I grunt.
“Maybe it’s not a bad thing to marry the woman you’re falling for. You can convince her to fall in love with you, and you’ll both live happily ever after.”
I laugh bitterly. “Right. Because that worked out so well for me the first time I tried it. Are we in a romance novel now?”
“No? You also didn’t deny that you’re falling for her.”
I rip the tie from my neck and throw it in the trash with likely more force than necessary and turn on him. I’m getting ready in the bathroom at the courthouse for my wedding. What the fuck am I doing? On top of that, I have to listen to this shit?
I stare my asshole brother down. “I’m not falling for her. It’s not like that with us.”
“You don’t think she’s smart then. Or funny. Definitely not pretty. That must be it. I mean, she’s curvy in all the right places. Maybe you’re not into the curvy ones.”
“Shut up. Don’t talk about her like that.” I give him a meaningful glare and turn back to the sink, regripping it so I don’t strangle my brother to death in a federal building.
He’s undeterred as he folds his arms and picks at his nails like a douchebag. “So… you don’t think she’s pretty?”
I roll my eyes at him. “You know she’s pretty, so cut the shit. Stop baiting me about this.”
For a flicker of a moment, he turns serious. “Is it because the baby isn’t yours?”
“No. I don’t care about that.” The words slip past my lips without any conscious thought, and Alden is all over it.
“Holy fuck, dude.” He jumps up and down and points at me like a sixth grader. “You do like her.”
I spin back around, clenching my fists and growing more agitated by the second. “I don’t. We fight constantly. She’s a complete pain in my ass. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a civil or even friendly conversation. She drives me crazy.”
His eyebrows bounce. “She does all that with you, huh? Drives you crazy?”
“Yes!” I state emphatically.
“Oh. Well then. I hadn’t realized. In that case, marry her. You’re certainly in no danger of liking her if that’s how she makes you feel.”
I hate his sarcasm.
“You’re not helping anything. She’s Micha’s baby sister and pregnant with another man’s kid, and I’m a single dad with a little girl who has suffered unspeakable trauma. Not to mention I’ve been down that ugly road before, and it left me in ruin.”
His hands go up in surrender. “Fine. You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go get you married. I’ll give you a minute to yourself and make sure everything is ready with the judge.”
Alden leaves, and I wish I hadn’t thrown my tie out.
My palms are sweating, and my heart is racing.
The only thing missing right now is Eminem’s mom’s spaghetti splattered across my suit.
Why am I so nervous? It doesn’t make sense.
It’s like what Alden said, I’m always calm. Always in control. Nothing ruffles me.
This afternoon, I was ready to take Skylar into my arms right there in the middle of the floor when Josh had her cornered. I wanted to tell him that she was marrying me and watch his expression when he realized she was going to be mine and not his before I ripped him limb from fucking limb.
After all, that’s why we’re doing this. So Josh thinks all of that even if it’s not true.
I pull out the box from my pocket and open it.
Two rings sparkle up at me. One is a five-carat oval diamond bracketed by two diamonds on either side.
It cost me more than medical school did, but this is Skylar Fritz Davenport, and I’m Aston Hughes, and if we want it to look real, it’s the ring I would have bought her.
The other is the diamond eternity band that will fit perfectly beside her engagement ring.
I snap the lid closed, give myself one last fleeting look, and exit the bathroom, only to stop short when I spot Skylar at the end of the hall talking to Braelyn.
Skylar is wearing a pale pink long-sleeved dress that hugs her full tits, narrow waist, and curved hips, stopping just above her knees.
But from this angle, I can see there’s a slit in the back that goes up pretty high, and there’s a triangular cutout in the back that peaks between her shoulder blades.
Her shoes are the same pink with a mile-high heel that makes her short legs look like they go on forever.
She’s demure yet sexy. A teasing, tempting, delicious little siren.
And then there’s her hair. Silky, bouncy waves of pale gold pinned to one side that stop just below her shoulders, so you can see the detail of the back of her dress.
Her makeup is light and shimmery, and fuck.
Holy fuck. She is every bit the swan I’ve been calling her.
Beautiful and graceful and taking my goddamn breath away.
Christ. What have I agreed to?
In a minute, I’m going to have to hold her hands and look into her eyes and tell her that I’m going to love and honor her until death do us part. Then I’m going to have to kiss her. But it won’t be the sort of kiss I want from her. It’ll be perfunctory and polite. Indifferent.
It won’t be with my hands in her hair and my mouth devouring hers. I won’t be able to pull her body into mine and press against her the way I did the first time I kissed her. There will be no tasting her with a promise of more later.
I’m such a fool.
This is why I was such a mess when she left with that guy last weekend. It’s why I hated Josh on sight, before he ever challenged me in my OR. It’s why I’ve hardly looked at or thought about another woman since my lips were melded to hers two years ago.
One kiss two years ago. It was one fucking kiss, and it was two motherfucking years ago. I don’t even like Skylar. She’s young and bratty, and there isn’t anything about her that should hit me this way.
I don’t know what it is, and I can’t explain it.
I thought it was grief and loss and bitterness about my ex. I thought it was loneliness and possibly some depression and boredom and frustration. I didn’t know it was Skylar. Not really. Not in this hitting me over the head and slamming into my chest sort of gruesome detail.
Because when I look at her right now, like this, and then think about marrying her, like the actual logistics of it, my pulse speeds up and my skin tingles, and my stupid dick is getting hard.
I’m getting hard from looking at the woman I’m about to marry.
From the thought of kissing her and putting my ring on her finger and being able to call her my wife.
I’m getting. Fucking. Hard.
I don’t know how to do this because I can’t get hard over her. I can’t want to call her my wife with something akin to possessive pride. And I can’t be hungry for her lips on mine or that sexy body beneath me.
I drag a hand across my smooth, clenched jaw. Two years. It’ll be two years of nothing while being surrounded by her. It’s not my baby, and she doesn’t even like me, and both of those should be enough of a deterrent, but they’re not.
I don’t care that it’s not my baby. I like that she doesn’t like me.
I spot Alden coming out of the small ceremony room they have here, and he stops when he sees me, his eyes wide with worry before they slowly slide across the room to Skylar, who still hasn’t noticed us. She’s busy having her own mental crisis, so unlike the one I’m currently having.
Why did he have to say any of that to me?
Would I be feeling like this now if he hadn’t?
He turns back to me with a sympathetic expression and a flattening of his lips.
That’s it. It’s not gloating or cocky. It’s almost commiserative.
Like he gets it, and maybe he does. He was in love with Skylar’s cousin Keegan, and now Keegan is married to someone else.
But he was right. I have a thing for my best friend’s little sister. I’m about to marry her. And she wants nothing to do with me.