Chapter 3
Benedict
It’s batshit crazy how quickly all the things we know to be true can change.
Take my family, for example: Xav as the heir to the Dukedom of Oxford—a title that’s very bloody imminent given Pa’s current state—and me as the spare. The spare son, that is. The spare heir. You’d better believe we’ve leaned the hell into those clichés, the two of us, over the years.
And then: boom. All change, please. In a move more badass than I would ever have believed him capable of, Xav fell in love (with a former sex worker, no less), reneged on his lifelong, parentally arranged engagement to poor, smoking-hot Selena—a.k.a.
Slinky—Wentworth five days before his wedding, and got basically disinherited by Pa in his most badass move, a move that was ridiculously harsh and honestly quite melodramatic and put two whole families in total and utter uproar.
If that wasn’t enough, yours truly decided what the hell last night, told Ma and Pa he’d marry Selena, agreed to assume the position of heir to the title—and the billions it comes with—and delivered the good news to my broken brother at the arse-crack of dawn this morning.
Whew.
It’s a flawless plan. Flawless. If you discount two minor issues:
One: I am what polite society would consider a raging manwhore who does not like to dip his nib in the same inkpot twice, if you catch my drift.
And two: Slinks hasn’t actually said yes to my borderline insane plan yet.
Xav pointed out earlier that she would not take kindly to my stepping in at the last minute. That it would double her humiliation in the eyes of the press: cast aside by one brother only to be saved by the other. To that, I answered that I had an absolute belter of a plan, and it’s the truth.
I have to convince Slinky to marry me. I really do.
I need to cement my future position as the head of the de Vere family so I can carry out my first and most important act once Pa pops his clogs: bringing Xav back into the fold, along with his various stragglers—his girlfriend Ivy, her younger twin sisters, and her poor stepmother, whose dementia care he’s—we’ve—been paying for.
Told you he had stragglers.
But if this is the woman Xav wants to hitch his wagon to, and she is, then it’s my promise to him that we’ll look after her and her family. She’ll be a de Vere soon enough, after all.
I just need to persuade the lovely Selena to get on board. Need to persuade her that I can not only help her save face but spin the narrative of the century. More importantly, I need to persuade her we can be happy together.
It’ll be the performance of a lifetime, that’s for sure, because I wouldn’t wish myself as a husband on my worst enemy.
I turn up at Millbrook at what could be considered an ungodly hour, especially over Christmas. I didn’t call ahead—didn’t want to give her a chance to tell me not to come. I imagine the de Veres aren’t her favourite family right now.
It’s the housekeeper rather than Selena’s parents who answers the door, thank fuck, and shows me through to the study, where a fire is lit.
I pace about a little as I wait for both my esteemed host and the coffee the housekeeper has promised me.
The strong cup of tea I had with my brother at—what, five a.m.?
—is a distant memory. I wanted to get here early, because Xav tells me the Wentworths will be in full-on Wedding Cancellation Mode this morning.
They couldn’t do much yesterday, it being Boxing Day.
Selena, somehow, looks immaculate. Does nothing faze this woman?
She’s just in jeans and a cashmere sweater, but they both hug her fan-fucking-tastic figure in a truly excellent way.
Her hair and makeup are flawless. I don’t know where she gets the energy to keep these standards up, especially given the twenty-four hours she’s had, but they fucking work.
‘Hi, Slinky.’ I shoot her a smile that’s probably more sheepish than anything else.
She rolls her eyes at me. ‘Look at that. It’s Groundhog Day. Your brother dumped me right in this spot yesterday.’ Her voice is flat.
‘Well, I’m not here to dump you, clearly.’ I open my arms wide. ‘Get in here. Come on. You know you want to.’
Another eye roll, but she traipses dully across the room and allows me to fold her into my body.
My brother, I know, has always been vaguely mystified at the nature of my relationship with his longtime fiancée.
He doesn’t understand how she and I can be so much more comfortable around each other than they are.
I might add that the base they’ve set has been very, very low.
And, obviously, the stakes have been lower for me—until today, anyway.
But the truth is, they were always an atrocious match. So fucking awkward around each other. Selena may have a stick up her arse, but I absolutely don’t, so I can do a much better job of relaxing her than Xav has ever done.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask as I wind my arms around her.
She’s tall and svelte, but she feels even more slight than usual.
One of those dreadful bridal diets, probably.
I couldn’t help but notice on Christmas Day that she stuck to meat and greens and declined any of Cook’s legendary Christmas pudding. Poor little duck.
‘Not great,’ she mumbles against my chest, and I hug her more tightly.
‘I can only imagine.’
Xav said she had let rip at him yesterday, said he’d never seen that side of her.
And quite right, too. I’m one hundred percent sure my brother made the right decision, but poor old Slinks is the shittiest kind of collateral damage.
It has to be said: she smells incredible.
As I hold her, I marvel at the fact that, if my dastardly plan goes well, this woman will be my wife.
We’ll share everything: not just the spotlight, where I know we’ll excel, but a million private, unseen moments, too.
We’ll share our entire lives.
Now that is a head-fuck of such epic proportions that my only real option is to shove it firmly away and focus on the novelty factor of all this—the fact that it’ll be a seriously grand adventure.
There’s no other way to deal with it, really.
I have never had concrete plans to marry, but then I’ve never had plans to inherit a title, either.
I’ve always assumed that, sometime in my thirties, I’d either fall in love or submit to familial pressure (or both) and marry some poor girl.
That said, I could see myself not marrying either.
Being the fun uncle, the unencumbered bachelor, and, further down the line, the silver fox partying in St Tropez with a string of models half his age.
A British Leo, if you like.
Whether I’ve thought this through sufficiently is not a question.
I categorically haven’t. I’m basically offering Selena a lifetime contract without having read a single word of the fine print myself.
Or maybe this analogy is more on point: I’m letting some random hook me up to a bungee harness without knowing if they even have health and safety regulations.
They should probably put a giant health and safety warning on the entire institution of marriage, come to think of it.
But it’s the only way I can imagine doing this.
Act first, think later.
My father needs a successor.
My brother needs my help.
His new dependents need it even more.
Slinky needs to be saved from the unthinkable public humiliation she will suffer at my family’s hands.
And every one of those problems has the same solution. Marry her. Ergo, I just need to do what I need to do and work through the consequences when the job is done.
Besides, she’s unspeakably hot. Like, smoking.
Just how bad can it be?
‘Your bloody brother,’ Selena is saying against my pec. ‘I could kill him with my bare hands.’
‘I bet you could.’ The first rule of marriage, I’m assuming, is not to get caught zoning out on your wife. I rub her back in circles. ‘I’m so sorry this has happened to you.’
She pulls back, her face flushed. Now that she’s up close, I can see the dark shadows beneath her immaculate eye makeup, the reddened rims of her eyes. ‘Do you know her?’
‘Who, Ivy?’
A terse nod.
‘Yeah.’ Now is probably not the time for me to admit that I introduced them. More than introduced them: I bussed a load of sex workers from Alchemy up to Xav’s thirtieth birthday party and offered Ivy a five-grand bonus if she’d fuck the birthday boy.
Nope.
That’s definitely unnecessary context at this particular moment.
And I very definitely won’t allow myself to consider that I’ll have to give up my Alchemy membership if Slinky accepts my proposal.
‘She’s a good girl,’ I say instead. ‘I know that’s not what you want to hear, but she is, and she’s been through a seriously rough time.’
The housekeeper announces herself with a knock and sets down a tray with various paraphernalia on the coffee table in front of the fire.
‘That’s not exactly my problem,’ Selena says when she’s gone, shutting the door behind her.
‘No, it’s not, but it is your problem that you and Xav would have been an utter fucking disaster together. Lord, I dread to think how awkward the two of you would have been.’
Her mouth sets in a thin line before she turns to the tray. I think I’ve hurt her.
‘Come on, Slinks. It’s no disparagement to either one of you. You guys looked great on paper, but you just… wouldn’t have been happy together. I’m not condoning the way he’s handled all this—he should have called it off years ago—but I do think you’re better off without him.’
She scoffs as she perches on the edge of an armchair so she can serve the coffee.
‘Yes, well, that’s easy for you to say as an onlooker, and it’s easy for him, because he gets to waltz off into the sunset with his little girlfriend.
But here I am, with an entire wedding to cancel and looking like a total laughingstock.
’ She looks up at me. ‘National humiliation. International. As soon as word gets out that we’ve cancelled, everyone will jump to conclusions, and we all know they’ll be the right ones.
Xavier dumped me. He may as well have jilted me at the altar.
I’ve committed to this match for my entire life, and when push came to shove, I wasn’t good enough.
’ Her beautiful light brown eyes shine with emotion, and when she speaks again, her voice is shaky.
‘And everyone hates me. The entire country thinks I’m a smug, stuck-up bitch, so they’ll be so happy to watch me fall.
They’ll come for me with their pitchforks.
’ She drops her head. ‘Oh my God, I want to die.’
I stand there, frozen, for a moment. I’m aghast at her devastation, horrified to see she’s hurting so deeply that she’s let me see behind the mask.
Selena never lets anyone see behind the mask.
And, if I’ve had any doubts as to the wisdom of this stunt I’m about to pull, they all fade to nothing in the face of her abject misery.
‘Yeah, well, I have a much better plan,’ I say.
She doesn’t look up at me but stays hiding behind that curtain of hair. ‘What’s that?’ she asks flatly.
From my jacket pocket, I pull the ring she’s worn for the last decade.
The ring my brother gave her; the one she threw back in his face yesterday.
It’s heavy in my shaking hand. I sink to one knee in front of her so I can tip her chin up with my fingertips.
Her sweet little mouth is quivering, those hazel eyes huge and pained as she gazes up at me.
This is it.
God help me.
I hold up the ring. ‘Marry me instead.’