Chapter 4 #2
‘Well, not all of it. Never complain, never explain, remember? But that was the context I came up with. All they need to know is that Xav and I fought over you. I came out on top, et voilà. And you, my dear, will be Helen of fucking Troy. The face that launched a thousand ships.’ He glances down at his lap.
‘Or one very impressive trouser submarine, in any case.’
‘Oh my dear God.’ I’m trying very hard to keep a level head here, but it’s pretty bloody hard with Ben alluding to his dick while I’m sitting practically on top of it and also, much as it kills me to admit it, solving the optics-related part of this conundrum.
‘Tell me it’s brilliant,’ he says.
I huff out a put-upon sigh. ‘It has a certain flavour of evil genius, yes.’ In truth, it’s not half bad. I need to wrap my head around it, but it’s definitely a reframe of the current narrative on an epic level. ‘What about Xavier?’ I ask. ‘If the media gets wind of him and Ivy, the jig is up.’
‘It’s a non-event, really,’ he says with his trademark insouciance.
I swear, everything is a game to this guy.
‘I’d keep him away from the wedding, tell him and Ivy to stay under the radar for a bit.
By the time they start quietly dating in public, you and he are old news.
No one will care, because the shock value of the wedding going ahead with a different groom is far, far higher than anyone Xav may step out with after the fact. ’
Once again, he’s right. This man may actually be a public relations mastermind.
But I’m still reeling from Xavier’s actions yesterday.
The hurt, the terror, still lives in my body today, a visceral thing.
I’m physically spent after a shitty night’s sleep.
What does Ben expect me to do—shrug and say okay, then and limber up to marry a totally different guy in four days’ time?
I hum my noncommittal agreement, then say, ‘Still, I can’t decide this now. It’s crazy! I mean—it’s such an about-face.’
‘I get that,’ he says. ‘Believe me, for me too. But either way, you’ve got to take drastic action this morning, love. So the question is, are you going to tell the world the wedding’s off, or will you go ahead and let the world think I risked everything to get you for myself?’
The way he’s looking at me is too ardent. He’s far too good at this. I wrench his hand off my legs and clamber to my feet.
‘Jesus,’ I say. I blow out a huge breath. This is far too high-stakes and far too short-notice, but he’s right. I was on the brink of sitting down for a Zoom with the wedding planner just now, wasn’t I?
I have to make a call either way. I can’t choose inaction, no matter how much I want to crawl back to bed and hide under my duvet for the foreseeable future.
He gets to his feet too and rubs my upper arms. ‘Hey. It’s a lot, I know.
And I’m not saying you should say yes to me just so you don’t have to cancel the wedding.
That’s not the right call at all. If you don’t want this, I’ll help you deal with the fallout, you know I will, and you’ll survive. You’re made of stern stuff, Slinks.’
I exhale again. My chest is tight, my stomach doing cartwheel after cartwheel, as if I’m a gymnast doing her floor routine in the Olympics.
‘When would we release it?’ I ask, playing for time. ‘The press release, I mean. Today?’
He shoots me a wicked smile. ‘I was thinking, if we went ahead, we shouldn’t release anything in advance. It’ll cause so much grief from all the guests.’
I frown. ‘So we…’
‘We tell the bare minimum of people. The bishop, I suppose, and the wedding planner, obviously, and the families. That’s it.
Then everyone rocks up expecting Xav, we get the bishop to make an announcement before you walk down the aisle, and we don’t let the rest of the world know until everyone is safely in that church.
Otherwise you’re asking for carnage, no-shows, freak-outs, distractions.
And neither of us needs distractions right now.
This is a big enough head-fuck for both of us already without mass hysteria all around us. ’
I stare at him. I truly think he’s insane. This is like the plot of some farcical soap opera. ‘We don’t tell them. Everyone turns up for the wedding, but it’s you instead of Xavier.’
‘Got it.’
‘So they’re… a captive audience, basically.’
He shrugs. ‘Basically. What’re they going to do—walk out?’
‘I suppose not,’ I say lamely.
I’m trying to process this. Trying to imagine how I’d feel if I turned up to a huge, overly hyped society wedding to find the groom had been switched out for his brother.
Then I try to imagine how I’d feel as the bride, walking up the aisle to Benedict instead of Xavier.
I’ve visualised our wedding for years and years.
It’s the strangest thing, growing up with a fiancée.
It’s like having a brother or a sister: you don’t question it.
You just take it as a given. Believe me, I’ve had many concerns about marrying Xavier, many doubts.
I’ve wondered over and over if I’m doing the right thing, and I’ve always come back to the conclusion that the end justifies the means.
That the alliance, and the title, are worth the sacrifice.
Not once have I visualised Benedict at the top of the aisle, no matter what other, um, visualisations I may have had of him in the past. Those mainly concern, shall we say, less ‘formal’ circumstances—and fewer clothes.
What would it be like to walk up the aisle towards Benedict? To know that he’s waiting for me, waiting to say his vows and pledge himself to me for the rest of his life?
I cannot get my head on straight. This is the most unhinged thing I have ever come face to face with—and this coming from someone who agreed to marry a guy her parents chose for her.
I have no idea how I’m meant to make a decision, yet I keep coming back to the fact that I have to, one way or another.
That Zoom with Marie, the wedding planner, awaits me either way.
I have to decide now.
Ben slides the ring off his pinkie and holds it up to me again. God, how I love that ring. He steps closer and slides his other hand around my neck, his fingers closing warmly over my skin. I tilt my head up until our eyes meet.
‘Before you decide,’ he says in a low, gruff voice, ‘I want to make one thing very clear. You’ve said it yourself, I have a reputation.
I get around. If you and I do this, if we walk down that aisle on New Year’s Eve, that reputation ends there and then.
I would never disrespect you or humiliate you, and I don’t want some sham relationship.
I know I can take the piss, but this is serious stuff.
I’d expect a real marriage. In every way.
You understand?’ He caresses the back of my neck, his fingertips brushing lightly over the baby hairs hanging loose from my ponytail, and I shiver at his touch.
A real marriage.
With Benedict de Vere: breaker of hearts, destroyer of virtue, and patron saint of fuckboys everywhere, his skills between the sheets the stuff of legend.
And I’m supposed to decide right now: total social annihilation or the risk of laying bare my every vulnerability to the most dangerous man I know.
Oh my fucking God.
I watch his lovely mouth, because I can’t look him in the eye.
‘So, tell me, Slinks,’ he says, his fingers moving over my skin, ‘what’s it going to be?’