28
I’m still thinking about Emme’s text a few hours later.
Miles and I arrived a little late to his family’s dinner plans, but we weren’t exactly missed. Mostly because there are about a thousand people here. When Miles said that we were having dinner with his family, I assumed he meant a sit-down meal, but it’s more like an event hosted by a big corporation.
Like the engagement party, there is an open bar. So, pretty much everyone is at least tipsy by the time we get downstairs. The lights are off already and there is a huge dance floor. I look up at the six chandeliers hanging over the vast space and consider what it must be like to have the money for this.
“This is insane,” I say as a waiter dressed in white tails walks past us with a tray of what looks like mini burgers but probably has some fancy French name and is definitely not just a posh miniature Big Mac.
Miles snorts, “My family never misses a chance to show off,”
He looks like he’s about to continue but is interrupted by his mother and Carrie. They’re calling our names and beaming.
“Delaney, darling,” his mum says, “I’m so glad you came,”
She’s stunning in a black cap-sleeved dress and matching heels. Carrie looks just as fantastic as she did at the engagement party, in wide-leg tailored trousers and a black bodice. She has an oversized matching blazer on with her hair slicked back. She’s literally the coolest human on the planet. Maybe even cooler than Miles. What did they feed these kids???
“Yeah, glad we didn’t scare you off,” Carrie adds with a wink at Miles.
“Come meet everyone,” Jennifer adds, taking my hand and pulling me along. I grab onto Miles’s hand, making sure he follows me. He grips my hand back, his big hand engulfing my own.
What ensues is close to speed-dating except I am meeting (and re-meeting) every member of Miles’s family tree. Most are nice. Some are surprised to see him with someone. Or someone else they keep saying, which has me suspecting that Miles has some major ex-girlfriend he hasn’t spoken about. This is confirmed when one of his relatives says he’s glad he finally moved on…
I feel hurt for a moment and then I remember that as fake dates, we really don’t need to go into each other’s relationship history. The only reason he got a full tour of mine is because he had to endure it for a full weekend… and it’s pretty short.
On top of his family, there are also family friends. And much like my mum’s middle-aged friends, they seem pretty judgy. They ask me wildly inappropriate questions, like whether or not I want kids, when Miles and I are going to settle down, and if I own a house. Like, chill.
The anxious lady in my brain has to hold her hands over my mouth to stop me from telling them that only people with generational wealth can buy a house under 30.
I start to feel slightly overwhelmed and am thinking of running to the toilet just to hide out when Miles tugs on my hand. One of his mum’s friends is in the middle of telling me how different I am to Miles’s other girlfriends and I am seriously considering scream-crying when Miles leans over.
“Sorry Trudy,” he says to the woman, cutting her off mid-sentence, “I’m going to have to steal Del,” and without another word, he pulls me away and toward the dance floor.
“Thank you,” I mutter as he pulls me against him and begins to twirl me around the dancefloor. There is a slow jazz song playing because of course there is, and I fall into the rhythm quickly. His hand is resting softly on my back and I’m doing that thing where I forget how to breathe when he touches me. His other hand is holding mine and I’m holding myself back from stroking the soft skin there .
“Sorry about them,” he mutters, pulling me closer still. If I think about it too hard, I can imagine what it would be like if we weren’t separated by layers of clothing, but all my energy is going into not thinking that hard.
“It’s okay,” I say, smiling up at him. He matches my smile and holds my gaze for a moment longer than I can handle. I break the stare and look back over to where Trudy is watching us with another middle-aged woman and a younger woman too now. “What’s up with them comparing me to your exes?” I ask, really wanting him to tell me he doesn’t have any exes apart from Jas, which is obviously completely ridiculous. I mean, have you seen him?
He snorts, twirling me under his hand and then pulling me back in, “I don’t know,” he says, and then he sighs, “We haven’t really talked about it, I guess, but I had kind of a serious ex-girlfriend before,” he adds.
My heart sinks so hard that I check the floor around me to make sure it didn’t fall out.
Ouch.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I say, partly because we don’t and mostly because I don’t want to, “It’s not like we’re actually dating, you know,”
He furrows his brow a little but then shakes his head, “No, I probably should have mentioned Adriana,” he says, “She was definitely a bigger deal than Jas,”
Bigger deal ?
I snort, keeping the mask of total calm and slight amusement in place, “You mean, bigger than the girl who broke your heart and is going to marry your cousin tomorrow?” I ask, my voice dripping with sarcasm that hopefully conceals the loud noise of my heart breaking.
His face breaks into that wolfish grin that I love so much, “Even bigger,” he says.
I laugh, “Oh, do tell,” I say, even though I am not certain I want to know at all.
He chuckles, shaking his head, “Naw, Adriana is the daughter of my mum’s friend,” he explains.
“Not Trudy?” I ask quickly.
He laughs, “No,” he says, “I haven’t seen Kate and Ray yet, actually. They must not be coming in til later,” he adds, looking around quickly.
He must see the terror on my face as I realise that if Adriana is a friend of the family, then she is going to be here and I don’t think I can keep up appearances for another of his perfect exes. I mean, it’s not like I don’t look totally in love with him because I’m pretty sure I’m majorly crushing on him at this point. It’s more that I don’t think I can handle another perfect ex without my own self-esteem burning a hole through rock bottom.
“She won’t be here,” he adds with a smile.
I nod and then ask “How long were you guys together?”
The need to avoid this subject has passed. Now the anxious lady in my head needs to know every single thing she can so that she can pass judgement and catastrophize about the entire thing.
“Uh, four years,” he says, looking a little sheepish.
Oh. Oh good.
My eyes must widen because he looks away for a second and when he looks back he looks all serious.
“She was probably my first really serious girlfriend,” he says, “We lived together for a bit actually,”
“Oh wow,” I say, trying really hard not to puke at the thought of him living with another woman, “Why did you guys split?”
And because I’m a total psycho, I’m hoping he says she cheated or realised she was gay or is in prison, but instead, he says the worst thing he could ever say.
“She moved to Paris for work last year and we just decided to call it,”
I take a deep breath because that is a very non-final reason for breaking up. Choosing to break up because one of you is moving means neither of you actually want to, you just don’t want to date with an ocean between you.
And last year???
That’s so close. Does he still have feelings for her? Of course, he must. Given his track record, she’s probably absolutely gorgeous and she works in Paris which makes her the coolest person on the planet .
Everyone knows that French women are the coolest and by working there, she is French adjacent. That’s like six levels better than me at least.
“You look like you’re deep in thought,” Miles says after a moment.
I shake my head, plastering a fake smile on my face, “Nope,”
He raises an eyebrow, “That is the fakest smile I’ve ever seen,”
I sigh because he can see right through me. I am momentarily freaked out that if he can see through me then he also probably knows I have a crush on him and keep thinking about how hard his body is pushed up against mine.
“What’s actually going through your mind?” he asks, putting his fingers under my chin and brushing his thumb across my jawline.
I smile softly, all worries literally disappearing from my mind with one touch, “Just wondering how people believe we’re dating when all your exes seem so perfect,”
Miles laughs so hard he actually has to step backward and I watch him as if he’s lost his damn mind.
“What?” I ask.
He puts his hands on either side of my cheeks and presses his forehead to mine, “I promise you, not a single one of my exes has been perfect,”
I roll my eyes at him as he pulls back, setting his hands on my waist again and pulling my body against his.
*
About an hour or so later, I am so much drunker than I intended to be. Carrie kept ordering shots and it was funny, to begin with, but now I’m trying to manoeuvre across the carpeted floor to the toilets in the very tall heels that Emme made me wear.
I make it to the toilet and am peeing, resting my feet on the toilet door, and scrolling my feed when I hear a gaggle of girls come in. There’s a noticeable lack of Jas’s friends here tonight. Honestly, the bride looked slightly lost when I last saw her, sitting between Jennifer and Julian’s mum. I wonder why Jas’s family aren’t here tonight?
In the vacuum of Jas’s friends and family, there are Miles’s cousins and family friends. There seems to be a group of them hanging around the bar, all wearing heels with red soles so that you know they’re expensive. They’re all holding champagne glasses but barely drinking them and staring at everyone who walks past. They’re the epitome of terrifying but I am trying to ignore them.
I assume that it’s them when I hear what they’re talking about. One of them is calling Jas tacky and saying Julian is marrying a gold digger which is a pretty atrocious thing to say when she’s literally just outside, but also because, you know, feminism. And then they bring up Miles and I tune in a little harder. I am breathing as quietly as possible to make sure I don’t draw attention to myself. I am far too nosey for my own good.
“He dated her, right Mills?” girl one says.
“Yes, in school,” replies girl two. She must be Mills. Middle-class nickname, of course.
“Wait, how did I not know that?” girl three asks.
There is laughter, “Probably because Miles has got better taste than that,” girl one says.
“Yeah, Julian must have inherited his tacky taste from his mum’s side. Have you seen them all with their new money and Louis Vuitton monochromes?”
There is another round of laughter and I strain an eyeball rolling my eyes. Imagine disliking people because they have just as much money as you, but they got it more recently. Fucking rich people, man.
And the politics of it all. So Julian’s mum’s family has the wrong kind of money but Julian and Miles's family have the right kind of money? How about I set all their money on fire and see how they like that?
“Well, Miles used to have better taste,” girl four says, entering the conversation, “I mean, Adriana Milton is gorgeous and earns loads working for Conde Nast, but I’m not sure what he’s doing with the ginger girl,”
At this I mentally curse myself. I mean, since I am living my life in a romance novel right now, it was bound to happen. I was always going to get stuck in a cubicle with a bunch of girls saying mean things about me, but really…
“Oh, Jem thinks he just brought her to annoy Jas,” girl one says.
I make a mental note to trip Jem at the next available opportunity. What a shitty thing to say about your brother.
“Yeah,” girl two says, “Carrie said she didn’t even know he was dating when she turned up at the engagement party,”
“That makes sense,” girl three says, “She looks like she’d jump on a free weekend at the Ritz. Maybe he’s paying her,”
With that, they all cackle like the coven they are and leave. I take a few deep breaths and then leave the cubicle. I touch up my red lipstick, add a little more highlighter and leave the toilet trying not to look like someone who wants a free weekend at the Ritz. Not that I know what that looks like. Does that mean I look cheap? Or like a grifter? Or maybe they think I’m Dermot Mulroney in this situation. The Wedding Date has come to life except I’m the escort. Hm. What a weird turn of events.
I see Miles standing at the bar facing a group of guys I vaguely recognise. He looks up suddenly and catches my eye, breaking into a grin and heading over to me. The horrible girls are in my peripheral vision and are smirking at us as we head toward each other and something wild takes over me.
I reach Miles, grinning, “Just go with it, yeah?” I say, and then I plant my hands on his chest, push up a little on my toes and press my lips to his.
His hands immediately pull me closer, resting on my waist as he deepens the kiss. I pull my hands up around his neck, twirling the ends of his curls around my fingers. He parts my lips with his tongue, pushing into my mouth and moaning ever so slightly.
The kiss lasts for so much longer than I meant it to, and when we eventually pull back, I am actually panting. Something is stirring inside of me and that crazy girl in my head who is usually telling me to overthink every single one of my actions is just standing, gaping at me like ‘You go get it, girl.’
“Fuck Del,” Miles mutters, looking like he’s in a daze and running his hands up my ribs.
I grin, “Sorry, I got meangirled in the toilet,”
He frowns, the dreamy look from his eyes immediately vanishing, “What happened?”
I recount the conversation in the loo and he shakes his head, “Sorry about them,” he says, peeking over his shoulder, “They’ve always been like that,”
“I figured,” I say, “I’ll make sure I do my best to not look like I’m enjoying myself too much, though. Just in case they actually think I’m a grifter,”
He chuckles, pulling me into his side and planting a kiss on my head. I suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy .
“That was one hell of a kiss, Del,” he mutters into my hair.
“Like many things in life, Miles, I am one hell of a kisser,” I retort, leaning into him and trying to absorb his body through osmosis.
He smiles down at me, “That you are,” he says, gazing into my eyes and for a moment the dreaminess is back again.
I am snapped out of my reveries by someone calling Miles’s name. It takes him a little longer to snap out of it and by the time he looks around, we’re face to face with his dad, an older couple, and a petite girl with a blunt blonde bob, a white jumpsuit, and the foulest scowl I have ever seen in my life.
Adriana.
I don’t know how I know it’s her, but I do. I imagine the frown has got something to do with the fact she probably just walked into a room where her hot-as-sin ex-boyfriend was actually necking on with his fake-girlfriend in the middle of the room, right in front of everyone.
So, when Art introduces his friends Kate and Ray, and their daughter Adriana, to me, I am not even shocked by the way her gaze rakes over me. I honest-to-god feel her eyes as they drag up from my heeled sandals to my shimmery silver midi dress to my hair piled on top of my head.
“Nice to meet you, Delaney,” Kate says, reaching out and shaking my hand. She gives Adriana a little nudge as Ray reaches over to shake my hand too.
“Yes, so nice to meet you,” Adriana says and it’s so fake that you literally wouldn’t need to know the English language to know she fucking hates me.
“Miles,” Kate says, clearly at least marginally embarrassed by her daughter’s behaviour, “Your mum tells me the shop is going well,”
“Yeah,” he says, grinning, “It is,”
He looks like he always does when he talks about the shop; like he’s living his literal dream. I grin up at him because it’s one of my favourite expressions of his.
“I’ll have to stop by while we’re in London,” Kate says.
“You should,” Miles says, pulling his arm slightly tighter around my waist, and grinning down at me, “We’ve just got some incredible dahlias in, haven’t we, Del?”
I grin, remembering the gorgeous flowers he sent home with me the other day.
“It fascinates me that you chose to spend your inheritance on a florist shop,” Ray says.
My eyes snap to him and I narrow them, wondering why everyone at this party just says exactly what they think, out loud, to people’s faces, as if that’s appropriate now.
“It fascinates us all,” Art says, sighing up at Miles and then adding a furtive look at me as if I had something to do with it. With the way Art looks at Adriana with such pride in his eyes when he looks away from me, I’m assuming he is an Adriana stan.
“He’s always been flower-obsessed. He always used to make me daisy chains when we were kids,” Adriana says, her eyes raking over Miles appreciatively now, “Remember?”
“Yeah,” Miles says with a small smile, meeting her eyes for the first time since she arrived, “You used to turn them into crowns,”
They hold each other’s gaze for a moment and I suddenly feel cold. Like, this is a couple who don’t want to be apart, right? They wanted to be together but her job stopped them. That’s got to be it. I feel like I’m in the middle of it but I can’t really go anywhere without making it incredibly obvious that I’ve just seen what everyone else has. That makes me the sad pathetic girlfriend again. The one who doesn’t know he’s in love with someone else.
Thankfully, they break the stare as Julian calls over, “Miles, you fucker,” he says, then glances at the adulter adults with us, “Sorry,” he says, then turns back to us, “The young people are heading out in fifteen,”
“Oh,” Miles says, “I didn’t realise this was just the beginning,”
“Fanciest predrinks I’ve ever been to,” I mutter without thinking. Honestly, I’m in such a daze. It feels like my life just imploded in front of me and then I have to remind myself that it’s actually okay. Miles isn’t my real boyfriend so he is perfectly at liberty to be in love with his ex. I just wish I didn’t feel so humiliated again.
Julian snorts, “Delaney, I like you,” he says, and then he turns to Adriana, “You are, of course, invited too, princess,”
I enjoy the way Julian looks at her, as if she’s a bit of a princess like he said. However, I do immediately hate myself for hating a girl simply because she dated my fake boyfriend before I met him.
Adriana sticks her middle finger up at Julian but nods all the same.
“Want to run up to the room before we go?” Miles asks me, grinning and making my heart flutter again.
I nod and he grabs my hand pulling me from the group where my life is still lying around the floor in tatters.
We’re in the lift when Miles finally speaks, “I can’t believe she’s here,” he says. He sounds kind of dazed and the crazy, anxious lady gathers her pals in my brain to work out whether he’s happy she’s here or not based solely on the way he said those five words.
“I can’t believe you gave me shit about Tommy,” I mutter, looking at the door as we lean against the back wall, and he snorts. “Is it going to make things weird that I’m here?” I ask a little quieter.
He frowns at me, “Why would it?”
I shrug, not actually looking at him, but looking at the floor. “Maybe now that she’s back, you might want to give things another go,” I say, feeling stupid but also knowing I want to give him the option.
His frown deepens, “She’s not back,” he says, “She’s probably just here for the wedding,”
My heart sinks because I know what he’s saying. If she were back, they would be trying again.
Right?
“For the record,” he says, “We would never have worked,”
It’s like he can hear inside my brain. I raise an eyebrow, looking at him now. He’s looking at the door now.
“You might have,” I mutter.
He looks at me then, “We wouldn’t,” he says, “I know that now,”
The doors open then and we head down the corridor to our humongous room. Like seriously, you could fit my entire flat in here like four times. It has a fucking fireplace, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even want to think about what the bridal suite looks like.
I change quickly, ditching the fancy silver dress and pulling on a corset top and my jeans. Thankfully, I overpacked like I always do.
I am touching up my makeup when I properly look at myself. I am trying not to have a meltdown. I mean, he wants to be with his ex right? Or am I overthinking? I’m overthinking. He’s literally just said it wouldn’t have worked. Why am I like this?
After a minute of arguing with myself, I unlock my phone and recount the past half an hour to Emme. Adding that I am worried I am now in Miles’s way. She replies immediately.
Emme : How perfect can this girl be? She left him behind to go to Paris. Paris sucks. Remember when we were there and everyone was really rude to us? I don’t think he would openly tell you that it would never have worked with her if he didn’t think so. He’s a good guy, Delaney. And I saw the way he looked at you. That girl is his past. I think he might see you as his future.
I read the text, thinking that Emme might be a bit delusional. I mean, I’ve now met two of his exes and he ain’t gonna choose me, even if I’m not a grifter. But maybe he’s not interested in Adriana? Oh, who am I kidding, no guy would ever not be interested in someone like that.
Fuck.
I look myself over, mentally preparing to pretend like it doesn’t bother me that Miles’s Girl Boss ex is here, on top of the stunningly beautiful bride I was originally here to be a buffer for.
I steel myself, say one of those dumb mantras that Emme sometimes listens to a few times, and then take a deep breath.
I step out of the bathroom and Miles grins, “You look amazing,”
I raise an eyebrow, “On a scale from one to grifter?” I say, hoping he realises that I am getting over our lift conversation and being his fake girlfriend like I’m supposed to and not the love-sick puppy I was five seconds ago.
He snorts, “Best grifter I ever dated,”