Chapter 16
The Bride on Payroll
Elusive as always. It will help him keep up with his web of lies.
Mom smiles. “Well, I’m surprised she gave you a chance. I’ve been trying to set her up with one of the teachers at my school but she always declines—”
“Because I wasn’t interested, obviously.” I nod my head in Adrian’s direction.
He doesn’t so much as look at me. We will need to practice more of these interactions later because his delivery could use some work.
“Amara leaves a trail of broken hearts wherever she goes.” Nana raises her glass toward me like I unlocked some achievement.
“No, I don’t.” I grind my teeth together.
Nana feeds off my embarrassment. “Did you know her last boyfriend proposed to her and she rejected him?”
“Nana!”
“What? I just find it interesting that you are finally willing to settle down. What happened to swearing off men for the rest of your life?”
“Your ex proposed?” Adrian’s eyes are lighter than usual.
I never admitted to him why I broke up with my ex a year ago. Adrian probably thought we parted ways amicably, but the truth is Richard asked me to marry him.
I declined.
He cried.
I thought we were on the same page with everything. It was my fault for not noticing the signs soon enough. The key to his place. A spare toothbrush he left at my apartment. The way he seemed too enthusiastic to offer me an entire half of his dresser and closet—valuable space currency in Chicago.
After I broke his heart, I stopped dating. It wasn’t fair to lead men on if I wasn’t ready for commitment.
Yet you’re getting married to your boss, the small voice in my head whispers.
This is different. There are no preconceived notions or expectations. I’m simply doing this to help Adrian achieve his goal, and once he does, I can move onto mine.
That’s what you’ve said for years.
“Poor man rented out a nice restaurant and everything for the occasion,” Mom adds.
“Ring in a glass of champagne?” Adrian asks.
Mom nods. “Oh, yes. Amara nearly choked on it.”
I shoot her a withering glare.
“Rose petals on the table?”
“Yes!” Nana shouts. “Red. Her favorite.”
I hate cut flowers because I find them a waste of a perfectly good plant.
“Sounds like everything you love.” Adrian’s gaze captures mine. What an asshole. “I wonder what went wrong.” His eyes shift back to my mom and grandma.
I despise the way he knows about everything I hate.
“I guess it wasn’t good enough because Amara over here flat-out rejected him,” Nana replies.
“How unfortunate.” Adrian’s dry tone says everything words can’t.
He enjoys every single second of this.
This is not how dinner was supposed to go. My family was supposed to make Adrian feel uncomfortable, not me.
“Unfortunate indeed.” Nana raises her glass in Adrian’s direction. “Imagine if she had said yes.”
“With that kind of generic proposal, it’s a shocker that she didn’t.” He takes a sip of his water.
He doesn’t so much as flinch when I stomp on his loafer. I change warfare tactics by dragging my heel up his muscular calf, and I’m rewarded with his sharp inhale of breath. Heat pools in my belly, only to turn molten when Adrian clutches onto my thigh.
Stop, his grip says.
Not until you drop the topic, my demure smile replies.
He gives my thigh one last squeeze before abandoning it altogether. The memory of his palm remains pressed into my skin, and I’m hit with a slight chill in his absence.
“Is now a good moment to tell you about the time Amara set a church on fire?” Mom grins.
“I can’t wait to hear about this one.” Adrian doesn’t even try to hide the amusement in his voice.
I swear with the way my mom and Nana are acting, it’s as if they have never spoken to another human being before.
I sigh. It’s going to be a long night.
“I approve.” Mom grabs my coat out of the closet. Thankfully she kept that comment to herself until Adrian went to use the bathroom before we left.
“You better after all the emotional trauma you put me through.”
She chuckles. “I hope he can forgive me for the chicken. He was only supposed to eat a few bites, but the man cleared his entire plate. I’m pretty sure I used a whole bottle of cayenne pepper this time.”
“I’m still bitter he beat your grandpa’s record. That man lost half of his taste buds after I made the chicken for him.”
“Do you think he knew it was a test?” I ask.
“He does now.” Adrian walks toward me with a dark gaze.
Mom presses her lips together to hide her smile.
“To be fair, it really is a family tradition.” I hold up both my hands in submission.
“Any other traditions I should be aware of?”
“No,” the three of us reply at the same time.
Adrian’s eyes narrow. “I’m having a hard time believing you three.”
“At least nothing too dangerous,” Nana offers.
His glare makes Nana and Mom break out into a fit of laughter.
“We’re leaving.” He tugs my coat out of my mother’s grasp. “Thank you for an interesting meal. I would say it was a pleasure, but I can’t feel half of my tongue.”
Nana cackles while Mom rocks back on her heels with a smile. She practically swoons as Adrian helps me into my jacket before tugging my hair out from underneath the collar.
I nearly topple over in disbelief as Adrian takes his time fixing each button for me. The smell of his cologne permeates my lungs, embedding itself into my memory. A strange temptation to lean in and take another sniff consumes me.
He’s doing such a good job convincing everyone around us that he cares, even I believe it for a second. He steps away, and the warmth of his body is replaced by a cold reality.
I liked him taking care of me.
The spices from the chicken must have destroyed part of my frontal lobe because there’s no way I could like that.
Right?
“So, was it as bad as you thought it would be?” It takes me a whole five minutes since we entered his car to muster up the courage to break the silence.
“The food was awful.”
I look out the window to avoid showing him my smile. “And?”
“And the company wasn’t too terrible. Although I could have done without being ambushed near the bathroom.”
I bite down on my cheek. “What did Nana say to you in private?” She all but bolted from the table once Adrian got up to use the restroom.
“She threatened me.”
“No.” I muffle my laugh with my hand.
“In graphic detail.”
“What did you say?”
“What exactly is an appropriate reply for being told my intestines would make a nice winter scarf?”
“She’s been on a mafia kick lately.”
“That explains how she knew a lot about sulfuric acid and the different ways to dispose of a body.”
“I did try to warn you about my family. They’re a bit…”
“Overbearing?”
I nod. “They worry about me.”
“They have a good reason to.”
“Why?”
“You got engaged out of the blue to someone who isn’t exactly known to be the nicest man in Chicago.”
“Now, now. At least you’re not the worst.”
“I’m sure that really helps them sleep at night.”
The self-deprecating way he speaks of himself makes me sad.
“Does the great Adrian Sterling care about my family’s opinion of him?”
His eyes roll. “No. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Maybe just a little bit?” I hold my two fingers up to his face, leaving a small gap of space.
He swats my hand away. “I stopped caring about people’s opinions of me a long time ago.”
I want to ask him why. Heck, I want to ask him a hundred questions after tonight, starting with what made him stop caring about what other people think of him in the first place. But asking personal questions seems like I’m giving him unspoken permission to do the same to me.
I hold back my tongue and stay silent for the rest of the ride. Being curious about Adrian would only complicate things, so I’m better off keeping some distance. Living with each other is one thing, but sharing intimate details about one another is a completely different animal. Not that he wants me to know him on a personal level anyway. He has made his stance pretty clear on the matter, and I would be stupid to think this marriage was anything but a convenience for him.