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“What...now?”
“On the way to the airport.”
“Fine,” she sighed. She glanced at her father and two of her brothers, now smiling at the married couple from the edge of the dance floor. “What did you do to them? I think they now love you more than me.”
He said coolly, “You told me you wanted your family taken care of financially, did you not?”
Her eyes focused on him. “Yes?”
“I told them I’d pay for any upgrades the plumbing business needed, and housing for your brothers, as well as for college or trade school for the ones who preferred to branch out on their own.”
“You did what?” Her lips parted. “What did my father say?”
“He demanded that I promise to always take care of you and make you happy,” he said shortly. Another promise he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep. All these promises he’d spread around. His heart started to pound again.
“We’ll both try to be good partners,” Emmie said stiffly, and she looked away, a little wistfully he thought, at Honora and Nico clinging to each other passionately on the dance floor.
Theo looked down at her. In the moonlight, his new wife looked breathtakingly beautiful. The white bloom in her hair gave her the look of a medieval maiden in a pre-Raphaelite painting. The soft white silk dress fit like water running over the swollen curves of her pregnant body.
Turning beneath his gaze, Emmie furrowed her brow, her pretty face turning uncertain. “What is it?” She licked her lips. “Is something wrong?”
The music ended, and he thankfully didn’t have to answer. Taking her hand, he led her off the dance floor.
Theo endured the next hour by watching the clock, smiling when required, sayingThank you for comingwhen he was congratulated, speaking directly into his own camera in Greek, sending a video message to Sofia in Paris, telling her he’d see her soon. It was the least he could do, after he’d all but forbidden her to attend his wedding today. She’d cried on the phone when he told her.
But it was better for her to keep her distance. Her life was better without Theo in it. Why couldn’t she see that? Hadn’t he ruined enough for her?
Pushing thoughts of Sofia away, he focused on listening to Emmie’s carefully written, if somewhat stilted, wedding toast. As she teased him about his workaholic ways, causing a ruffle of laughter through the crowd, she also made her deep respect for him clear. By the end of her toast, as she held up her sparkling San Pellegrino, and everyone else held up their Dom Pérignon, Theo felt surprised, touched, but most of all deeply uncomfortable. He knew he didn’t deserve praise.
His own toast, spoken off the cuff, certainly made that clear. He’d simply held up his glass and looked at his bride. “To you!”
Even Nico, normally his most loyal friend, looked a little startled at Theo’s obvious lack of preparation or his plain ineptitude.
But for the last few days, Theo had been unable to think of writing his wedding toast to his bride without breaking into a sweat. A pity he couldn’t ask Emmie to write it for him, but even he could see that wouldn’t be appropriate. As it was, he’d been forced to delegate the task to Edna, the elderly secretary sent to him by an agency after Emmie left—Edna with the dyed black hair who distrusted computers, smelled vaguely of mothballs, and repeatedly called Theohon. Sadly, her attempt at a wedding toast, fusty witticisms cobbled together from some long-dead humorist’s book of maxims, was unintelligible.
So he’d had to wing it. If brevity was the soul of wit,To you!should have been a wedding toast for the ages.
Unfortunately, his bride didn’t seem to see it that way. Her lovely face had fallen.
Not the first time Theo had disappointed her. Definitely wouldn’t be the last.
“We should go,” he said in a low voice while everyone was still gulping their drinks. “I need to pick something up at the office.”
She looked bewildered. “You said we could do it later.”
“And now it’s later.”
Her brow furrowed. “Can’t we just send someone for it?”
“I need to do it myself.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“But we haven’t even cut the cake. It came from the best baker in the city...” Then she looked at his face more closely. “All right. Let’s go.”
Theo blinked, feeling a sense of vertigo at her sudden change. He wondered what she’d seen in his face. He didn’t like to think of anyone being able to see into his soul. He told himself it didn’t matter, as long as he got what he wanted. Which was getting the hell out of here.
