Hmm. That's interesting. On our disaster of a date, she described her parents asa lot. Not very descriptive, but hearing she thinks of her dad as cold and unyielding? I can't help but cling to that little nugget. It explains more about Cecily's sharp tongue, her willingness to fight.
We turn left, onto what looks like a driveway. It slopes up, and we climb the gentle rise of the mountain. The higher we go, the more confused I become. I know this neighborhood, but only from afar. As a kid, it amazed me that mountains could sit in the center of a city. When we'd drive on the roads that parallel the mountains, I'd point up from our hot, frequently broken-down car that lacked working air conditioning, and sayRichie Rich lives up there.
I never expected Cecily's grandmother to be Richie Rich.
Without tearing my gaze from the stunning homes we're passing on our crawl up the mountain, I say, "I'm prepared for your dad to read me the riot act for marrying you."
Can a personhearan eye roll? No, they cannot. But with Cecily, I swear I can. She injects the sentiment into her tone ofvoice. "Cool your jets, Rambo. You aren't walking into the lion's den. My dad isn't the protective type."
That's…sad. I have a protective streak a mile wide. I plan to be a terror if I'm lucky enough to have a daughter. Klein's dad left the family when he and his sister were in elementary school, and I watched the way Eden floundered when she was a teenager. I didn't know it at the time because I was a kid myself, but looking back, I see how Eden would've benefited from an involved, loving dad.
Which is how I know that Cecily, despite sounding nonplussed about her dad's lack of interest in taking up a sword for his daughter, wouldn't mind having someone go to war for her.
I won't be telling her though. She's likely to rip off my arm and beat me with it. "Noted," is all I say.
There's only one house in front of us now, and it looms large. The exterior is tan to match its surroundings, as if the mountain yawned and the home sprang forth, settling on a divot of space. A waist-high glass wall porch stretches the length of the home, supported by metal beams that plunge into the packed earth below.
The Jeep clears the last stretch of road, and Cecily pulls up to a brown metal gate. She reaches out, punching in a code on the box. The gate clangs open slowly, revealing more of the house. No, not a house. A mansion. A compound. A place where many people could live for a solid week and never see one another. I hadn't thought about what Cecily's grandmother's house would be like, but if I'd used my imagination, I wouldn't have come up with this.Richie Rich.
"Um." It's all I can manage.
Cecily parks her Jeep beside a shiny luxury SUV. On the other side of it sits a blue-green Bentley convertible. I'm not a car person, but even I know that car is unique.
"I know," Cecily says, peering at the home through the windshield. "She won the lottery before I was born."
"Like, the actual lottery?" People don't really win the lottery, do they? I guess someone somewhere does, but it never feels like it, because I've never met someone who knows someone who won.
Cecily nods. "Savage Grandma is loaded."
'Loaded' is a relative term. When I was a kid, I thought it was fancy if someone had a box of tissues. To this day, my parents blow their noses with a couple squares of toilet paper they've torn from the roll. I mentioned it once to my dad, when I was fifteen, and he'd saidIt's the same thing, but I can put some toilet paper in a box if it'll make you feel like you're using tissues.
So, yeah. Savage Grandma is a whole lot more than loaded.
We climb from the Jeep, feet quickly hitting the pavement since therearen't any doors. Death trap. I follow Cecily toward the house, cutting behind the Bentley. That's when I notice the personalized license plate. SVGGRMA
"Your grandma likes the nickname," I point out.
"She does," Cecily agrees. She turns to face me when we arrive at the massive front door. "Here's the deal. We're married, but it was a drunken mistake. We're getting it annulled after we leave here. We're here together because my grandma asked us to be."
"Right." I nod slowly, waiting for her to say something I don't already know. "None of this is new information."
Cecily rolls her eyes.
"Careful," I warn, "those might get stuck looking at the back of your head."
She ignores me. "I'm rehashing the details so we're on the same page. Don't go in there and think we're in a Klein and Paisley situation. We are not in a fake marriage."
"Correct. This is arealmarriage. And I'd like to point out that everything ended well for Paisley and Klein."
"One in a billion chance of it working out the way it did for them." Cecily adjusts her top. "Now, do not, I repeat, DO NOT"—her stiff finger hovers dangerously close to the tip of my nose—"get some wild hair and tell my family you love me and I'm your wife or some other utter baloney. Do you hear me?"
I bristle at her tone, grip her finger, and lower it. "No problem,wife. We'll make sure everyone knows it was a stupid Vegas mistake. I only chose you because I was drunk."
Hurt flares in her eyes for the shortest second, but she covers it nearly as quickly, and now I'm not sure I read the emotion correctly. She's good at regaining control, whereas I feel like a flailing man overboard in a stormy sea when I'm around her.
"Right." She nods decisively. "I need to be drunk to like you."
She's punching back. Hoping to hurt me, because I hurt her. And the only way I could hurt her is if she cares what I think.
