The Garter Toss Agreement (Bliss Bridal #2)

Prologue

TWENTY YEARS EARLIER

Billie

The best thing about a wedding when you’re sixteen was that nobody is really paying attention when you steal a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the open bar to sneak away somewhere private to lose your virginity to your best friend/childhood crush.

I’d managed to do both before the cake was cut, and, inexplicably, no one noticed or cared. Or maybe explicably.

My grandparents had already gone back home, which was not far, just next door, and they’d taken my little sisters, Bailey and Birdie, with them.

Adam’s father, the groom in question, was famous around the Bay Area for his generational wealth, revolving door of spouses, and total disinterest in being a parent.

The new Mrs. Knight—the eighth since Adam’s mother left her ring on the kitchen table and walked out on her family a week after his fifth birthday—seemed nice enough, if you liked the type of woman who wore white latex to her own nuptials and called everyone “babe.” I did not, but I admired her commitment to the bit.

Adam seemed entirely indifferent to his new stepmother.

On the inside, I knew it was killing him.

He’d commandeered a bottle of bourbon, and we were both drinking our respective stolen liquor in the pool house, which had housed the bridal party earlier in the day but was now the perfect setting for my mission to hand over my V-card.

The smell of roast beef and steam-table vegetables mingled with the sharper tang of cologne, perfume, and musky bodies from the two hundred plus guests mingling in the tent just outside.

As I stared at the man I’d loved since I was four, I knew the clock was ticking and time was running out.

Nobody looking at him would have guessed Adam was days away from eighteen, he already looked like a grown man.

He’d hit his growth spurt early and hard.

He was 6’2” going into his sophomore year of high school, and if he didn’t shave daily, he had stubble so sexy it made teachers swoon. I’d seen it. And I couldn’t blame them.

He took a swig from his bourbon, and I did the same with my champagne, hoping it would give me some liquid courage.

Tonight was it. My sweet spot legally and logistically. I turned sixteen two weeks ago, and Adam was seventeen. It was now or never. If I wanted him to be my first, which I did, it had to be now since he was turning eighteen in a few days and was leaving for college in a few weeks.

Was I expecting some epic romance out of this? No. I was nothing if not pragmatic. He cared about me, loved me even, but was he in love with me like I was him? No. That was okay.

Life taught me at a very early age to temper my expectations.

First, I lost my mother at the age of three, when she gave birth to my baby sister Birdie.

Then, my father abandoned us and moved across the country to New York, leaving us with his parents, who, despite being wonderful people, were not equipped to raise three girls under the age of four.

My grandparents were sweet, but I stepped into the role of raising myself and my two sisters, despite being only slightly older than them.

I learned very quickly if I didn’t make sure that my sisters’ homework was done, it didn’t get done.

If I didn’t set a strict bedtime of eight, we overslept.

If I didn’t pack our lunches and backpacks, set up our cereal bowls, and lay out our clothes the night before, we would run out of time in the morning.

Did I wish my dad would come back from New York and be a parent to us?

Sure. But every year that passed dimmed that dream just a little bit more, so I did what had to be done and was still doing it.

And when he died two years ago of a heart attack, any fantasy I had of him ever being a father to us died right along with him.

Life taught me to be a realist. So, was I going into this night having any notions that Adam was going to declare his undying love for me and we were going to be together forever? No. But we were best friends. Nothing would change that.

Adam knew me. He saw me. He cared about me. And he was attracted to me.

That wasn’t me being conceited. It was a fact.

Exhibit A: I’d caught Adam looking at me in my bikini when we were swimming for the past three summers.

Exhibit B: When we slow danced at homecoming this past year, his breath had grown shallow as his hands moved up and down my back. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. His girlfriend at the time, Elyse, cut in, and they got in a fight about him being “excited.”

Exhibit C: Earlier when I caught the bouquet and Adam caught the garter belt, the photographer had me sit on his lap to take the photo.

I squirmed a little to adjust the neckline of my dress, and I felt him growing hard.

When she was done taking the photos, he remained seated for a few moments, leaning forward on the chair, resting his forearms on his thighs and staring at the floor.

I knew I wouldn’t be asking him to do something he didn’t want to do already, at least his body wanted to do it.

I was sure the only thing holding him back was that he did not want to ruin our friendship.

What he didn’t know was that our friendship was ruined a long time ago.

In fact, we’d never had a true friendship.

I’d been head over heels in love with him since the day he sat next to me on the porch when I was four years old.

Just do it, I told myself. Make a move.

The only problem was, Adam was especially broody today.

He was always extra moody on his dad’s wedding days, but something else seemed wrong.

He’d barely spoken to me and hadn’t even made fun of the bride’s wedding party, which had glow sticks in their bouquets because she loved raves. The jokes practically wrote themselves.

I glanced over at him, trying to figure out what I should say or do to initiate the sex.

I wasn’t a shy person and had no problem taking charge of things, in fact that was sort of my wheelhouse, but this was so far out of my comfort zone.

I’d had two boyfriends, and both had only gotten to second base.

The problem was, when I was with them, all I thought about was Adam.

I liked them, they were fine, but they weren’t him.

Both relationships barely lasted three months.

The setting was perfect. All the lights were out in the guest house, and we were sitting against the wall in the dark.

Fairy lights hung from every tree on the property, illuminating Adam’s perfect features, his chiseled jaw covered in scruff, his large brown eyes, and thick wavy brown hair that I wanted so badly to run my fingers through.

He lifted the bottle, which had the garter belt he’d caught wrapped around it, and took a large swig. “You want to hear something completely fucked?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand then cradling the bourbon like it was the only thing holding him together.

“More fucked than your dad marrying a woman who started his Instagram and used her pet name for him as his handle?” I replied, trying to lighten the mood. His father was DaddyKnight79.

He let out a harsh laugh, one I’d only heard a handful of times in the twelve years we’d not only known each other but been neighbors and inseparable. “I found out yesterday morning that I don’t get my inheritance when I’m twenty-one, or twenty-five, or thirty, or thirty-five, or at all.”

“What?” That didn’t make any sense. “Why? What are you talking about?”

He fucked off in school and hadn’t worried about student loans, like I had to, because of that money.

He knew when he was twenty-one he’d have access to the trust fund his grandparents had set up for him when he was a baby, and then at twenty-five he was also supposed to receive the inheritance they left him when they passed away.

“I overheard my dad talking to his lawyer, Watkins, and he changed the conditions when he was going over his new prenup.” He took another swig. “I can’t get any of the money, not one dime until I am thirty and married.”

“And married?”

He nodded.

I let out a burst of laughter, thinking it had to be a joke. But Adam wasn’t laughing or smiling.

“He can’t do that!” I argued.

“Apparently, he can. He is the executor of both until I turn eighteen. My grandparents gave him total control and discretion.”

“But you don’t want to get married. You never want to get married.

” As far as our futures went, Adam and I had perfect clarity on two points.

Adam never wanted to get married, and I never wanted to have kids.

Chalk it up to Mr. Knight’s propensity for walks down the aisle and my having to be a mom from the time I was four.

It left a bad taste in both our mouths. “You’ve been saying that since you were eight. ”

“Yep.” Adam sighed a heavy exhale.

“So this is what, him blackmailing you? Holding your money hostage?”

He lifted the bottle to his lips and tilted it back, wincing as he swallowed a large gulp then set it back down.

“When Watkins challenged him on it, he claimed it would be highly motivating. He thinks I should have something to live for. To work for. He wants me to learn that love and family are the only important things.”

“This coming from the man whose ninth wife was a senior in high school when you were a freshman.” Adam’s mom was his first wife, but she left when Adam was five.

I looked at him for a long time. He was tall and athletically built, with the kind of dark hair that always looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, but there was something fragile about the way he hunched himself small, as if trying to fit into a box someone else had built for him.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Fuck the money, I guess.” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug.