4. Four

4

FOUR

“ D on’t be stupid,” I chided her. I was familiar with the obstinate look in her eyes and knew that she wasn’t about to back down. I had to finesse this situation. Rex and I had talked through all the parameters of what the agreement would entail. He was on board—if only for his sister’s sake—and we’d already established boundaries.

I just needed his stubborn-ass sister to get with the program.

“Did you just call me stupid?” Olivia’s eyes went so wide I momentarily worried she was having a stroke. “You can’t call me stupid. You want a favor from me. I’m not going to grant a favor to somebody who insults me.”

“Actually, I happen to believe that I’m offering you more than you’re offering me.”

“I’m not offering you anything.”

“I just need to be able to breathe, Livvie.” I didn’t want to beg, but the more time I spent thinking about Rex’s suggestion, the more I started to believe it was my best shot at not suffocating under the weight of what my father wanted from me. “I don’t expect sex from you or anything.”

She made a squeaking sound. “You’d better not!”

I had to bite back a laugh at the horrified look on her face. “You’re Rex’s sister. He would kill me if I made a move on you. Give me a break.”

“And yet he’s not going to kill you for marrying me?” Olivia looked genuinely befuddled now.

“It was actually his idea.”

She raised her hand before I continued. “Are you being serious right now?”

I nodded. “He’s worried about you, Livvie. Personally, I think you’re going to be just fine, but he’s always believed it’s his job to take care of you.”

“I don’t need anybody to take care of me,” she muttered.

“It’s not a love match,” I insisted. “It’s a marriage of convenience. I’ll take you to a few parties and dinners. My father will see that you’re serious and have never gotten into any trouble. He’ll chalk up our marriage—and dating under the radar—as maturity he didn’t see from me until now.”

“Except it’s not true.”

“Yes, well, I don’t care about that part. I just need time to figure things out.”

“And I get my dental work taken care of out of the deal.” She cocked her head. “It’s expensive dental work.”

“I already checked and you’re covered as my wife. No co-pay.”

Her mouth dropped open. “No co-pay?” She almost looked reverent. “That means the money I saved…” She trailed off.

“Can go to whatever you need it to go to,” I finished. “It’s a win-win situation for both of us. Plus, because you’re Rex’s sister, I don’t have to worry about you developing feelings for me. You already hate me.”

For a moment, I saw a flash of something in her eyes that I couldn’t quite identify. She ruthlessly shoved it away before I could say something else, though.

“What about my parents?” she asked. “Don’t you think they’re going to have questions about why we’re suddenly married?”

“I asked Rex if we should tell them the truth, and he said no. He says that they already worry about you. If they find out why you’re willing to marry me, they’ll cancel their retirement and spend all the money they have saved on your teeth.”

Guilt flooded her features. “They will do that.”

“I know it’s not ideal, but in a year, we’ll just tell them that it didn’t work out and we’re better off as friends. It will be an easy divorce. We’ll both have gotten something out of the deal. Can you really argue that this isn’t the best thing for both of us?”

“Oh, it’s as if you don’t know me at all,” Olivia complained. “I can argue anything.”

I smirked, enjoying the way her freckle-bridged nose wrinkled. “We can get married today. No muss. No fuss. Then we’ll just tell people we eloped. I have a dentist on standby. As soon as we’re married, I can get your insurance pushed through within the hour.”

“You have a dentist on standby?”

“Yeah. Your brother thinks you’re in pain. It seemed prudent to get your mouth taken care of before we have to spend time with my parents.”

“So, our honeymoon will be spent at the dentist,” she mused.

I laughed at the picture she was conjuring. “You’ll be high on life.”

Her smile disappeared. “You don’t think this is dishonest and something we’re going to regret?”

“I think it’s dishonest, but for all the right reasons. You need this. So do I. I really don’t think we’ll regret helping each other out.”

She tugged on her bottom lip. “I can’t decide if I would’ve been better off if a serial killer showed up.”

I smirked. “Take a chance, Livvie. Life will be better for both of us if you do.”

She must have agreed, because before I realized it, she was nodding and cradling her jaw. “Let’s do it.”

“Awesome.” I took another sip of my daiquiri, which was disgusting. “Any preference on where you want to get married?”

The spark in her eye told me she did indeed have a preference. “You’re going to hate it,” she started.

“I really don’t care.”

“No, you’re going to hate it.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, but you asked for it.”

I DID INDEED HATE IT. IN FACT, I LOATHED IT.

“Not here.” I shook my head as I took in the Little Vegas Chapel, one of the most iconic—and tacky—chapels in the city.

“Come on.” Olivia’s gaze was pleading. “It will be fun.”

“Why can’t we just go to City Hall?”

“We’re in Vegas. It’s sacrilegious to go to City Hall.”

“But…” All I could do was look around at the ridiculous setup. The way Olivia’s eyes lit with delight gave me pause, though. “Tell me the truth,” I prodded. “Why here?”

“Do you really need a reason?”

“I really do.”

On a sigh, she nodded. “Well, the truth is, when I was a teenager, I used to dream about getting married in this place.”

I waited. She clearly wasn’t done.

“Isn’t that enough?” she demanded after several seconds of silence.

“Not even close.” I shook my head and folded my arms over my chest. “This place is a tourist trap.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Why would you want to get married in a tourist trap?” I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“I don’t really, but you’re the one who said that it’s not real. I had this dream when I was a kid about getting married here, and I thought it was the height of sophistication because I saw it on an episode of television.”

“What show?”

“I think it was that show Las Vegas . I was obsessed with that show.”

“You know that show isn’t real, right?”

“So?” She made a scoffing noise. “No show is real. I liked seeing the external shots of places I recognized. I liked imagining all of that stuff happening in a real casino. Back then, I was convinced I was going to become a famous card counter and be rich.”

I was taken aback. “Can you count cards?”

“I’ve never tried, but probably not. Counting into a six-deck chute takes a lot of brain power. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“Huh.” I was impressed despite myself. “And you really want to get married here?”

“It’s not a real marriage, right?” she pressed. “We’re doing it so it will be mutually beneficial, and in a year, we’ll get divorced. Why not have the dream fake wedding? I’ll always be able to say I got married here, even if I know the marriage isn’t destined to last forever.”

She made a very good point. “Fine.” I gave in. I honestly didn’t care where we got married. Would it have been more dignified to go to City Hall? Absolutely. This was going to be quick, though. “Do you have any preference on rings?”

“Oh.” Olivia’s forehead creased in concentration. “Well, I don’t want anything too expensive.”

“I’m covering it.”

“Yeah, but … you shouldn’t have to go into debt for it.”

My laugh was dry. “I think I can cover anything they’ve got here. Just tell me what you like.”

“I’m not a fan of yellow gold.” She cringed when looking up at me.

Did she think I would be offended by that? Or was she worried I believed she was being too picky? “So … white gold or titanium?”

“Is that too much?” She looked genuinely worried.

“Livvie, it’s fine. You’re doing me a huge favor. I can cover the ring.”

“Yeah, but you’re covering my dental surgery.” She gripped my wrist so suddenly I almost yelped. “You don’t think I’ll die when I’m under, do you?”

The question seemed so absurd I didn’t know what to say. The look on her face told me she was deadly serious, though. “You won’t die. I’ll be there with you the whole time.” I didn’t know why I offered it—I had zero interest in watching somebody poke around inside of her mouth—but the mere thought of her being afraid because she was alone when they put her under was too much. “I’ll be sitting right by your side.”

She looked dubious. “Why?”

“Because that’s what a husband does.” I pointed toward the rings. “Pick two.”

She sighed before taking in the options. “There.” She pointed toward two white gold bands. They were somehow simple and strangely elegant at the same time. Basically, they were massively understated given where we were getting married.

“Sold.” I pointed toward the rings as the clerk grabbed them. “Okay, it says here we can get married by Miss Elvis.” I frowned, convinced I’d misread that. “There’s a Miss Elvis?”

The clerk bobbed her head. “She has character.”

I shook my head. “No way. Oh, hey, we can get married by Batman!” I don’t know why that appealed to me so much, but I was suddenly excited. When I risked a glance at Olivia, I found her grinning. “You probably don’t want to get married by Batman, do you?”

She shrugged. “Quite frankly, I want to make this as surreal as possible so I’ll always have a funny story. What are our other options? I just want to have the whole picture before we decide on one.”

“Dolly Parton?”

She cocked her head. “I would prefer Batman to her.”

“Me, too. Elvis?”

“He is the standard.”

“Yeah, but come on, it’s Batman.”

“I’m fine with Batman.” Her smile did something strange to my heart. Here we were planning a wedding—one she hadn’t even known was a possibility two hours before—and she was smiling and giggling as if we were about to have a pillow fight at a sleepover. She was so beautiful it momentarily took my breath away.

“Batman it is,” I said finally, handing the clerk my credit card.

“You’ll want a video, right?” the clerk asked.

I froze. That was an interesting question.

“That’s the norm,” she said.

“Um … can we just get photos?” I asked once I’d worked my mind around it. “I think photos will be good enough.”

“Definitely,” Olivia agreed. “There’s too much potential for a video to come back and bite us.”

“That’s just what I was thinking.”

She smiled at me and warmth suffused my very being. The smile disappeared in an instant. “What about a witness?”

“I have that handled,” I assured her, inclining my head toward the door as Rex barreled through it. He was dressed in his security suit and looked a little flustered.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married here,” Rex said on a laugh as he glanced between us. His arm went protectively around his sister. “I told you I’d figure out a way to help you. Are you happy?”

Olivia gave him an odd look. “I know you think you genuinely swooped in wearing a cape and all—and I’m weirdly grateful—but this was a very strange idea.”

Rex shrugged. “You both need help. This works. We’ll keep it between the three of us, and it will be fine.”

For a split second, I was flooded with panic. What if this wasn’t fine? Then I saw Rex say something to Olivia, and she burst out laughing. Whatever had clutched inside me relaxed. For better or for worse, they were my family. Yes, even Olivia, who had irritated me like no other when I was a teenager.

Family was there for one another. Olivia needed the surgery, and she wouldn’t allow me to just pay for it as a gift. She was definitely an appropriate love interest in my father’s eyes. This really was a win-win for all concerned.

“Let’s do this,” I said, tearing my gaze from Olivia and smiling at her brother. “We’re going to get married by Batman.”

“Of course you are,” Rex said, not missing a beat. “Who else would you get married by?”

“THIS IS SAFE, RIGHT?” I ASKED THE DENTAL technician at my father’s high-falutin dental practice. I knew they were the best because my father wouldn’t go anywhere else. Despite that, when they’d prodded Olivia into a surgical gown and forced her to get comfortable in the chair, I’d been seized by a completely different sort of panic.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Tess the technician assured me. “Just try to relax. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I watched her go, annoyance bubbling up. Then I remembered Olivia was watching me, and the last thing she needed was my anxiety to spike her anxiety.

“So, the wedding,” I prodded when I turned back to her. “Was it all you dreamed it would be?”

She smiled. The dental sedation was already taking effect.

“I think my favorite part was when the guy dressed like Robin raced in and claimed Batman was stealing his thunder,” she said on an adorable giggle. “Holy thunder stealer, Batman!”

“That was actually my favorite part too,” I conceded. Then I thought better of it. “Actually, my favorite part was when they dusted off the old Prince music from the 1990s Batman movie and everybody did the choreography for Batdance .”

“Ooh.” Olivia solemnly bobbed her head. She was high as a kite. “I liked that too.”

“Lean back,” I ordered when she struggled to sit up straight. “You need to be relaxed. It will be better for you if you allow yourself to drift.”

“Oh, I’m drifting.” She giggled as she closed her eyes. “I can’t believe we’re married.”

“Weird, right?” I agreed.

“So weird. I never thought, when I decided I hated you in high school, that we would ever get here.”

I was interested despite myself, and since she was so close to slipping under, I figured now was as good a time as any to get the information I’d desperately wanted for fourteen years now. “Why did you decide to hate me?”

There had been a time when Olivia had followed me around her house like a lovesick puppy. It drove me crazy … and maybe it puffed me out a bit. She was too young, though. On top of that, she was Rex’s sister. He was the one person in my life who didn’t kiss my ass because I was a Stone or expect me to be something I wasn’t simply because I had an important last name. He was fine with me being me, so I couldn’t lose him. Olivia’s attention, however flattering, was a danger to my relationship with Rex. Somehow, I recognized that at a young age and held Olivia at a distance because of it.

Still, even knowing it was the right move, I’d hated it when she stopped talking to me. She’d shut me out of everything. She didn’t even try to hang around us in the basement when we played pool. She just decided I didn’t exist … and that somehow hurt almost as much as I imagined Rex ending our friendship would hurt.

“I had to,” she said in a sleepy voice. She was essentially slurring, and it made her look vulnerable, which in turn had me gripping her hand, my fingers tracing over her wedding ring.

“Why did you have to?”

“Because it hurt too much when you were mean to me.”

I made a protesting sound with my tongue. “I wasn’t mean to you.” Saying it made me feel icky. Actually, I remembered being mean to her a few times. It was a self-defense technique, though. Rex did not want the three of us hanging around together. I had to make a choice, and I did.

“You took Sara Lipscomb to the homecoming dance your senior year,” she noted, her eyes still closed. “Do you remember that?”

“Vaguely,” I replied. “Why was that such a big deal?”

“Because Sara used tomato juice to stain my pants during gym class, and she told everybody I started my period and was too afraid to use a tampon to contain it, and I was the laughingstock of the school because everyone thought I was starting my period for the first time at a really late age.”

I cocked my head. This felt out of my realm of expertise. My sisters were all older. I’d heard period talk when growing up, but I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it. “That sounds … stressful,” I said finally. “That still doesn’t explain why you hated me. I didn’t do it to you.”

“Sara knew I had a crush on you.”

It wasn’t a surprise, but I still jolted when she said it.

“She knew I had a crush on you and she taunted me with the things you said about me,” she continued.

“What things?”

“How I was a baby … and not pretty … and the only reason you even knew who I was is because of Rex.”

Anger toward a girl I hadn’t thought about in more than a decade flared to life. “That’s not true, Olivia. I never said those things.”

She let loose a wistful sigh, barely hanging on. “It doesn’t matter. We still got married. I’m totally sending Sara a wedding announcement just to be spiteful.”

I smirked and nodded as the dentist came into the room. “I think that sounds like a fabulous idea. The dentist is here now. He knows what to do. When you wake up, you’re going to have the teeth you always wanted.”

“Finally. Maybe then I won’t feel ugly any longer.”

I wanted to shake her. How could she feel ugly when she was gorgeous? Instead, I just brushed her hair away from her face. “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

She didn’t respond. She was already gone.

“Take care of my wife,” I said to the dental team, marveling that the words didn’t feel odd on my lips. “She’s got a big few months in front of her. Make everything perfect.”

“We’ve got it, Mr. Stone,” the technician assured me. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace?