But the minute that the lowlifes down in the Gulch realized she was in that house all by herself, Zaya would be a sitting duck. Bringing her to the manor is the only option that makes sense, doesn’t mean I was looking forward to having her invade my space.
I woke up curled around her as dawn sent pink streaks of light through the curtains, only realizing then that it had still been dark when I closed my eyes. Usually, I can manage fifteen or twenty minutes at a time before something startles me awake.
But last night I slept like a baby, at least for a few hours.
Zaya seems oblivious to my thoughts as she fidgets in the passenger seat of my Maserati, pulling at the hem of her dress. Her gazes shifts to the display every so often to check the time, obvious impatience written into every line of her body.
She runs for the double doors as soon as I pull into the parking lot, the tardy bell clanging over the loudspeakers. The girl cares a hell of a lot more than I do about being late.
My phone rings, and I lean back in the seat as I answer it, so I can watch her ass as she races up the stairs.
It is a very nice ass.
My father’s voice comes over my phone’s tinny speaker. “How is it going with the Milbourne girl?”
Oh, just a little bit of dry humping before school while my godmother waited in the other room.
“Fine.”
“I didn’t bring up the pregnancy codicil at dinner, because I wasn’t sure what you had already discussed. Is she agreeable?”
I’m surprised he’s asking, because I sincerely doubt he wants the unvarnished truth. “We just need to work out some of the details.”
My father lets out a relieved sigh. “Giselle tells me that the Shore Club had a cancellation, so we can hold the reception there, but that means the ceremony will need to be moved up to three weeks from now. Hopefully, enough of our friends can make it that the turnout will be appropriate. A few of my business partners and their wives already have the date penciled in.”
Penciled in? He makes my wedding sound like a round of golf. If it wasn’t fake, I might be offended.
“We really don’t have to go through with this,” I hedge. “Everything is already legal as it is.”
“Someday you’ll understand the sacrifices required to be who we are. You are a Cortland.”
I’m already marrying a girl that I’m pretty sure tried to kill me when we were kids. And after compelling her into a fake marriage, I’m going to trick her into carrying my child. There isn’t anything more Cortland™ than that.
“Like I give a shit.”
“Watch your language.”
The phone dangles from my fingers as I see Principal Friedman coming out the main doors, on the lookout for people smoking or playing hooky. I wonder if Zaya got to class on time, if she felt good walking down the halls in an outfit that highlights her beauty instead of hiding it.
I wonder if anybody has said anything about the giant rock on her finger.
“Dad, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this later.”
I hang up before he can respond.
My relationship with my father has always been…interesting. I hate to call it complex, because that implies there are multiple layers when it has always been aggressively superficial. But it’s not precisely distant. He cares in an absent way, spending most of his time working or living the life on public display that is expected of the Cortland patriarch.
To hear him tell it, my father married Giselle because he wanted me to have a mother. But my earliest memories are of nannies and frigidly cold rooms in a deserted mansion. Giselle is smart enough not to act like a stereotypical evil stepmother, but I never got the impression that she married my father out of a desperation to play the nurturing mother. The glitz of constant parties and events seems to have been a much greater allure.
Along with all the money, of course.
I used to take it personally until I saw her dealing with Emma in pretty much the same way. If she treats her own biological kid like little more than a fashionable accessory, what chance did I have?
My father’s words echo in my head. You are a Cortland.
I don’t give a fuck about 99% of the people in this town. But I also don’t want to set my little sister up for ridicule. Especially when she’s in those tender middle school years where everything is oh my God, so embarrassing!
The thought of some big to-do in front of the entire town, only to get a quickie divorce a year later, just seems tortuous. An actual wedding ceremony means inviting a whole bunch of people who won’t be the least little bit happy to see me walking down the aisle.
Like sharks scenting blood in the water.
My asshole friends are waiting for me with grins on their faces when I get to the cafeteria at lunch. Cal is holding a snack cake from the vending machines with an unlit candle stuck into the center of it. Elliot is holding up a sad sheet of notebook paper with CONGRATULATIONS? written on it in block letters.
I glare at Iain. “You fuck.”
He just shrugs, not looking the least bit repentant. “You know I don’t keep secrets.”
Elliot claps me on the back hard enough that I have to catch myself on the edge of the table as I sit down. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“You haven’t seen shit,” I reply, slouching in the chair. “The ceremony is in a few weeks. I’m sure Giselle will have someone get in touch about your matching cummerbunds.”
“This is actually happening.” Cal is incredulous. He runs through girls like there’s a Guinness record for screwing he hopes to beat before he dies.
