Chapter 10
PEYTON
The door clicks shut behind Liam, leaving me alone with the echo of his absurd proposal. I pace the length of the suite. Back and forth. Window to door. Door to window. If I keep this up, I’m going to owe him a re-carpeting fee.
Why is it that the more I try not to get married, the more the universe seems determined that I do?
Is there a neon sign taped to my back that says Needs a Husband, Any Husband will Do? Or maybe I’m cursed. An ancient hex was placed on my bloodline that destines me to be a bride, to get married to men I despise.
I dodged one bullet with Matt, and now I’m supposed to catch another?
“Absolutely not,” I mutter to the empty room.
It’s insane. The plot of a cheap movie that goes straight to streaming and gets a 30 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Out the windows of my suite, cars drive by, people get on with their lives, with their normal problems. Burned toast. Traffic.
Whether to watch football or do laundry.
I envy them not having to weigh the merits of marrying a stranger versus watching their parents get sued into oblivion by a vindictive ex-fiancé.
Matt’s threat of bleeding us dry rings in my ears.
Followed by my mom’s voice, the tremor beneath her words on the phone, the way she was trying to sound calm while delivering news that clearly terrified her.
Mom doesn’t scare easily. She’s weathered job losses, health scares, starting over more than once—always cool under pressure. But this morning, she sounded scared.
Not for herself. For Dad. Money, for the past ten years, has meant him living a comfortable, pain-free life.
Take that away, and he’ll go back to being miserable like before they discovered the immense relief regular injections could bring him.
She couldn’t stand to see him suffer. And now she’s afraid he’ll go back to writhing in pain just to get out of bed. All because of me.
How can I drag them into a legal battle that would make chronic pain the center of both their lives again?
My phone pings from the unmade bed.
What now? More threats? More lawsuits? I can’t bear any more bad news.
I approach it, peering at the screen from a distance.
It’s my dad.
I sink onto the mattress and open the message with trembling fingers.
Dad
Hey, Bug. Just wanted to tell you we love you.
All that matters is that you’re safe and happy.
If you didn’t want to marry Matt, you did the right thing by running.
His behavior now proves that more than ever.
The rest we can solve together as a family.
Come home when you’re ready. We love you.
Always have. Always will. No matter what.
The words blur as tears flood my eyes.
He added a string of heart emojis at the end—the same ones he uses for everything from birthday wishes to grocery reminders because they’re “universal.” My dad, who taught me to ride a bike and drive a car and check my oil and never let anyone make me feel small, is telling me that my happiness matters more than theirs.
That he’d go back to being in pain for me and not for one second make me feel guilty about it.
A sob claws its way up my throat, caustic and jagged. I press my hand over my mouth to stifle it, but the tears keep coming, hot tracks scalding my cheeks.
My mom and dad are so loving. So impossibly, wonderfully accepting.
They raised me to be kind and strong and to follow my heart, and I’ve repaid them by running from a wedding because I couldn’t make up my mind in time, embarrassing a powerful family, and painting a target on their backs.
They could lose the house, their savings, their health, the peace they earned.
And I’m the reason why.
And despite all that, they’re offering to fight for me. To put everything on the line for my happiness.
“I can’t let them do it,” I whisper. Not when an out is being offered to me on a golden, monogrammed platter.
I stare bitterly at the remains of breakfast, at the upturned silver domes and crest-stamped porcelain.
Liam has lawyers. He has resources. He has a dysfunctional desire to prove himself to his father that aligns with my need for a shield.
I do the math. I’m twenty-eight. Liam said three to five years. In three years, I’ll be thirty-one. That’s not ancient. I’ll still have time to rebuild my life, find real love with someone who doesn’t threaten legal action if I break up with them.
But if my parents lose everything because of me? If my dad goes back to suffering even for one day? I will never recover from that. There is no timeline for that guilt to expire.
I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of the oversized hotel robe.
The fabric comes away streaked with mascara.
I thought I’d washed it all off last night, but apparently, waterproof means “survives several hours of crying, melting uglily, but clinging to your face indefinitely.” I stand up, sniffing loudly, and march into the bathroom.
“Okay.” I lean over the marble sink, giving myself a pep talk.
I was the lead in my high school production of Romeo and Juliet. Playing the Blushing Bride should be a walk in the park. At least this time, I don’t have to stab myself at the end.
I splash cold water on my face, scrubbing away the last of my wedding makeup.
“I can do this,” I tell my reflection.
The woman in the mirror looks skeptical.
Rightly so. Liam acted like a total jerk last night, sure.
He’s arrogant, reckless, entitled. But… he didn’t abandon me in the street like I thought.
He sent the car for me. Lila loves him. And Lila is cool.
She’s smart, she’s funny, and she didn’t hesitate to show up at two in the morning to sew him back together.
If a woman like her considers him her ride-or-die, he can’t be a complete sociopath. He has to be at least tolerable.
“My husband,” I practice saying and gag a little. Okay, I’ll have to work on the delivery.
I walk back into the main room just as the door buzzes. Then, as if whoever was on the other side had second thoughts about barging in, a knock sounds. I smooth the front of my robe, tighten the belt, and yell, “Come in!”
Liam walks in. And I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
The hotel boutique must cater to retirees who spend their winters in Florida. He’s wearing a pale-yellow V-neck and white slacks. Liam looks like he’s about to complain about the sand trap on the ninth hole.
He’s carrying four large shopping bags, his expression a cross between grim determination and the make-believe charm of a salesman about to deliver his pitch.
Even in the ridiculous outfit, with his dark hair windswept and that sharp jawline, he’s unfairly attractive.
It’s annoying. He should look like a dork, but he looks like the cover of a magazine for billionaires on vacation.
The kind of handsome that makes a woman forget why she’s mad at someone, a trap I need to avoid.
“I got the clothes,” he says, setting the bags down on a velvet armchair. “Listen, I—”
“Save it.” I cut him off before he delivers whatever speech he has rehearsed.
His determined enthusiasm drains away, replaced by crude disappointment. His shoulders drop. He looks totally… crestfallen.
But he doesn’t get angry or snap back with a cutting remark. He doesn’t make me feel stupid for pre-empting him.
That’s a good sign that, no matter our differences, it won’t be too unbearable to coexist in this insane arrangement.
“Well, as I said. These are your clothes,” Liam says, his voice carefully neutral. “I’ll have a car waiting for you downstairs whenever you’re ready to leave.”
“No need. I’m staying. I’ve decided to agree to your proposal.”
“For real?” He pierces me with those remarkable eyes.
I nod, too caught up in the intensity of his stare. It’s unnerving to be the center of his undivided attention.
The disappointment on his face melts away, replaced by a slow, spreading grin. Not the cocky smirk he wore yesterday. It’s a full-wattage, eye-crinkling smile that transforms his features from handsome to unbearable. It hits me right in the solar plexus.
“That’s great.” Relief softens his voice. “The timeline has shifted. My mom is flying in this evening. She wants to meet my wife. We’re kicking off the farce big time with dinner at my parents’ tonight.”
Nausea churns in my stomach.
“Tonight?” My voice goes up an octave. “Liam, I look like a swamp witch, and I know zero facts about you other than you drive like a maniac and have daddy issues.”
He assesses me as if he’s evaluating my presentability. “Nah, you’re fine,” he concludes. “And we have about six hours to get our facts straight. How we met. How we fell in love. How we got married. We need a story that—”
“We’re not actually married,” I interrupt.
“That’s an easy fix.”
He waves a hand dismissively, like we’re discussing rescheduling a dentist appointment rather than legally binding ourselves to each other. “My guy can sort it. We just have to survive dinner.”
His guy? He has a fixer? Am I being stupid getting in bed—so to speak—with a man I know nothing about? Lila is cool, I repeat to myself. An almost doctor. She wouldn’t be friends with Liam if he were too shady.
Even the mob has doctors, a voice retorts in my head.
Liam starts pacing, still limping, rattling off a to-do list.
“I’ll have my lawyer reach out to your parents within the hour. We’ll countersue your ex before he finishes his lunch.”
“Countersue for what?”
“For causing you enough distress to flee your wedding. You must’ve had a good reason, I assume?”
The way he keeps pinning me down with his gaze as if he can see straight into my soul is unnerving. I look away as I reply, “I did.”
“Great. Well, not great, obviously. But we can use it. We’ll paint him as the villain. We don’t have to win a court case; we only need to make it so expensive and humiliating for him that he drops the lawsuit against you and your family.”