Chapter 30 – Skylar
SKYLAR
“Everyone’s going to know the moment I don’t have a glass of champagne at my own wedding party,” I murmur as I adjust my lavender dress and stare up at the massive estate of my grandparents’ compound.
“Yes,” Aston agrees absently, his gaze on his phone, a frown tugging down his lips and his eyebrows pinched in so tight there’s hardly any space between them.
“What’s wrong?” I question, coming closer to him and peering down at his phone.
He blusters out a heavy breath. “There’s a weird order on one of my patients. I just got a text from a floor nurse asking me about it.”
“But you’re off.”
He glances up at me. “I didn’t put the order in this way. I’m positive I didn’t.”
“Okaaaay,” I say, elongating the word as confusion takes over. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. This is like the second or third time some of my orders have been messed up.”
“That’s… weird. Are you sure you didn’t click the wrong button or put it in wrong?”
He shakes his head, but uncertainty flickers across his face. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. I’m always very careful with my orders, especially my medication orders. This dose is for a child more than twice the size of my patient.”
I blanch. “Yeesh. That’s not good. But the nurse caught it, right? The patient didn’t get that dose?”
“No. She caught it. But what if she hadn’t? What if she had given it to her?”
I go over to get an impatient Zoey out of the backseat while I reply to him. “I don’t know. I mean, that’s a scary thought, but she questioned it, and you fixed it, and no one was hurt.”
“I know. It’s just weird, and I’m edgy. Especially after yesterday when the needle driver failed to hold the suturing needle. I don’t make mistakes, Skylar. Not at work. This was the second time a piece of equipment didn’t do what it was supposed to, and I couldn’t manipulate it.”
I place my hand on his arm. “I know, and I get it. But everything’s okay. No one was hurt in either situation.”
He nods and puts his phone back into his pocket, but he’s still visibly unhappy.
Other than a few strange incidents at the hospital, everything else has been great.
My fake husband is officially my real boyfriend.
Not many people know about it. We’ve kind of been keeping it quiet while we see how it goes for us.
A lot of that is for Zoey. We don’t want to confuse her or put her in a greater position to get hurt if this doesn’t work out between us.
Some is also for my own mental sanity. Aston isn’t as worried about that as I am. But we’ve both been in positions where we thought everything was great, only to discover that it wasn’t. So, I’m being cautious and taking this slow.
I have my first ultrasound on Monday, and I’m excited and nervous for it.
It’s simply a lot on my plate, and right now I like having Aston like this.
I like our quiet moments and pillow talk.
I like him pressing me up against the walls in the house and stealing a kiss.
I like him sneaking up behind me at work and smelling the back of my neck when I wear my hair up.
I like all the hot, orgasm-inducing sex we’re having.
It feels like a dirty secret when it’s actually not.
Aston wants to tell Micha, but that’s not so easy to do right now, as Micha has gone to an interior part of the country that’s particularly struggling, and cell service isn’t happening. But telling Micha makes this serious, so I don’t mind waiting a bit longer.
But that brings us back to today. To our freaking wedding party à la Fritz and Hughes.
Everyone is expected to arrive in half an hour or so, but our moms wanted us to come early to survey all they’ve done. So here we are.
The front door opens, and both of our parents are there, my dad already with a drink in his hand. Yeah, he’s still not thrilled with all of this. His baby girl snuck off and got married. Oh, and she’s pregnant with an asshole’s kid.
“You all look beautiful,” Halle exclaims, a bright smile lighting up her face. Zoey does a spin for about the hundredth time in her dress, loving how it fans out around her. Naturally everyone claps for her, and she preens as she runs past us toward the front of the house.
“Can I see the cake?” she asks immediately.
“Yes. Absolutely,” my mother tells her. “Come with me. I’ll show you where it is.”
My mother takes Zoey’s hand and leads her inside, and Aston and I follow after her, heading into the warmth of the house.
My dad instantly pulls me in for a hug. “You look so pretty.”
I smile as I hug him back. “You can’t get choked up because then I’ll get choked up.”
He pulls back and meets my eyes. “I just didn’t expect all of this yet. You were supposed to give me another ten years at least before you decided to get married and have a baby.”
I snort a laugh. “You mean before I got pregnant and fake married?”
My dad rolls his eyes at me, and Aston makes a noise behind me. I turn and catch his eye, but I can’t read his expression.
“I still wish you had let me kick Josh’s ass,” my father quips, drawing my attention back to him.
“But then you’d likely break a hip or something, and it wouldn’t change the situation with him. That’s what you call a lose-lose.”
My dad scoffs indignantly. “Break a hip? I’m not that old yet.”
I give him a teasing if you say so shrug.
“Come on, Brecken,” Jonah Hughes, Aston’s father, says to my dad. “Let’s refill your drink. Something tells me you’re going to need it today.”
“Yes. I mean, I’m sure it’s five o’clock somewhere,” I tease.
“This pregnancy is making you more of a smart-ass with your old man than usual.”
I bow to my dad. “I learned from the master.”
He chuckles, but after hanging up our coats, we all head through the first floor, passing sitting rooms and parlors and music rooms and libraries to the back solarium that spans a good portion of the back of the mansion, where teams of staff are setting everything up.
There are cocktail tables dripping with ivory linens and topped with pale pink roses and tiny fake votives—we do have lots of small children running around—in the center of them.
There are long tables for the cocktail hour with a million different kinds of food, and the bartenders are setting up at the large bar in the back of the room, abutting a set of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the gardens and grounds.
It has a winter wonderland feel with fairy lights, pale flowers, and elegant crystal. “I see they didn’t take our suggestion for neon yellow and taupe,” I murmur to Aston, who’s been quiet since we entered the house.
“Shame. But this is…” He trails off, and all I can do is nod.
Because yeah. It’s magical. And it makes me feel guilty.
I have no clue what all of my uncles, aunts, and extended cousins know or don’t know about our marriage.
But looking at all of this, you’d never know it was fake. And it kind of hurts my heart.
“I don’t like pretending,” I murmur. “We’re playing at a marriage while trying to be a couple.”
“I know. I don’t like that either.” Aston’s fingers play with my rings before he gives my hand a tug, forcing me to face him. “But we are a couple. So the marriage stuff will just be a funny story we tell one day.”
I scrunch my nose. “You think—”
“I know. I’m crazy about you and you’re crazy about me—”
“I never said that,” I quip, and he smiles.
“You didn’t have to. I can tell.”
I roll my eyes, but there’s no heat to it. “Always so cocky, this one.”
“You make me that way.” He squeezes my hands. “I really am crazy about you.”
I step into him and stare up at his handsome face, my chest fluttering and my body just… happy. This guy makes me happy, and I’m desperately trying to shut off the part of my brain that is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Good. I like you that way. And even though it’ll feed your massive ego, I’m crazy about you too.”
“Then we’ll get through the fake part and focus on the real part.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Except…”
“Except what?” I ask, noting the sudden turbulent shift in his blue eyes.
He blows out a nervous breath, something I don’t see on him often, if ever. “I have no clue what today is going to be like for either of us,” he starts, looking as though he’s searching for the right words even as he says them. “But, sweetheart, I don’t want to keep saying it’s fa—”
“Ah, there you are,” my grandmother calls from across the room, cutting Aston off. “Come join me.”
Octavia Abbott-Fritz is wearing a deep red dress that accentuates her regal features.
Her blonde bob is as perfectly styled as it always is, and her makeup is flawless.
For a woman in her nineties, she looks fabulous and spry as she sits at one of the low tables with a glass of champagne in her hand.
Aston gives me a nervous look, but we join her at the table, taking a seat with her after we each kiss her cheek.
“You’re cheating,” I tell her. “You get to have a drink, and I can’t.”
She laughs. “How is my great-grandchild doing? Growing well?”
“I hope so. I’ll find out tomorrow at my ultrasound.”
“And naturally you’ll send your grandmother a picture of that,” she demands lightly.
“Naturally,” I agree.
“And you, Aston. I just had the pleasure of seeing your Zoey. She’s so lovely. It warms my heart that you’re officially part of the family and taking care of my granddaughter.”
He grins. “Differently, but yes. Though Skylar might disagree.”
“Not all the time,” I tease.
“But you care for her. I can see that all over you,” she says to him before a certain kind of smile lights her face.
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”