Chapter 22
DIANE
“Welcome back, madame.” Octave performs his signature head bow and takes a suitcase from Sebastian. “Monsieur, it’s good to see you smiling and tanned. I hope everything went as planned.”
“Better than planned,” Sebastian says, heading upstairs with the rest of our baggage. “It was a perfect wedding.”
And in many ways, it was.
Now that I’ve faked a marriage to the man, I find it hard to believe it’s been only a month since I moved in with him in mid-May.
This has been the speediest month of my life.
Almost every night, we’ve gone out or hosted a dinner at home.
Sebastian has been acting as a man utterly and completely smitten with his fiancée.
When I took him to N?mes, he charmed the bejesus out of Mom and all my childhood friends.
I didn’t dare to take him to Marseilles.
In fact, I didn’t even have the courage to tell Dad about him. Chloe did that for me.
As expected, first he was shocked. And then he was mad.
I hope he’ll forgive me one day after I’ve completed my mission and he’s put two and two together.
If that day ever comes, that is.
Because so far, the muddiest, stinkiest dirt I’ve found on my fiancé is a speeding ticket.
Our wedding was an “intimate” affair, held in the privacy and extreme luxury of a paradisiac Bahamian island.
My fiancé told everyone we couldn’t wait for the chateau wedding scheduled for next May, to which everyone and their cat will be invited.
This gave rise to rumors that I’m pregnant, which both of us denied so vehemently that a lot of people decided they were true.
The ceremony took place on a pristine sand beach with only the minister, Sebastian, a handful of guests, and me to stain its unspoiled purity.
I wore a bespoke wedding dress of hand-embroidered silk and exquisite Alencon lace.
It hugged my body like a glove, pushing my breasts up and flaring out at the hem.
Now that Sebastian and I are on shagging terms, wearing sacks is kind of pointless.
Our handpicked guest list included Raphael and his bestie Genevieve, Sebastian’s aunt and uncle, and a few of his closest friends including Laurent, who arrived alone, and Mat, who came with Jeanne.
Sebastian’s mother and his youngest brother Noah were “unable”—read “unwilling”—to attend.
My side consisted of Mom, Chloe and Hugo, two childhood friends from N?mes, and Elorie. Manon couldn’t make it.
Unsurprisingly, neither could Dad.
A couple of weeks before the wedding, Sebastian published the banns, which made me jittery.
“Are you sure our marriage is truly fake?” I asked him for the umpteenth time.
“Better than that,” he said. “It’s genuinely fake. Everything is real and legit, in case anyone wants to check.”
Color drained from my face.
“Don’t look so terrified!” He laughed. “I forgot to submit a crucial piece of paperwork to the closest French consulate in Miami. I’ll be sure to keep forgetting for three more months, after which our marriage will be null.”
I exhaled in relief.
“My dearest, Diane.” He patted my hand. “I have just as little desire to marry you for real as you do. So relax and enjoy your fake wedding and honeymoon.”
And so I did.
We both did, judging by my new husband’s insatiable appetite throughout the week. We fooled around at the hotel, on the beach, up against a palm tree, in the sea, in the pool, in the Jacuzzi, in the shower, on the bed, on the couch, on the floor, and against the wall in our palatial suite.
Against every wall in our suite.
The whole week was a nonstop sexfest, leaving certain parts of my body a little sore, but also pleasured beyond my wildest fantasies.
On the way home, I sat next to Chloe for a good part of the endless flight.
We talked about her physical and emotional recovery, and how she was beginning to see life in a different light.
She said it felt like putting on Technicolor lenses after years of gray scale.
Happiness still scares the shit out of her, but she’s learned to breathe through her fear and carry on.
“I’m grateful for every day with Hugo,” Chloe said, staring at the blue expanse above the clouds. “It took me a while to recognize that he’s the love of my life. But now that I have…” She paused, her expression dreamy.
“What has changed, now that you have?” I asked.
“I keep falling in love.” She smiled. “Every day, I tell myself it isn’t possible to love a man more than I love Hugo, and yet the next day I find myself loving him more.”
“Your fiancé is a wonderful man,” I said.
And I meant it.
“And you”—Chloe gave me a wink—“still haven’t told me how you went from hating Sebastian Darcy to marrying him six months later.”
“It’s a long story,” I said, borrowing his favorite excuse.
Fortunately, Chloe didn’t point out that we were stuck on a plane with nothing to do for a few more hours.
Good girl.