One Year Later
Hawthorne Cay
Millie Mercer posted a new story
The notification pops up on my screen while I’m sneaking in some work emails while she’s supposed to be asleep. Tossing a quick look across the bungalow’s deck, I can see the faint, shadowy outline of the bed through the open sliders. Tapping the notification, I see a picture of me, sitting exactly where I am now—on a chaise by the pool—working on my phone. The caption reads:
roomwith a view.
#honeymoon #neglected wife #divorce
She posted it less than five minutes ago and it already has ten thousand views and over five hundred comments.
Lord, I’ve seen what you’ve done for others…
Not me, kicking my feet in the air, every time one of you posts.
You guys are so in love it’s disgusting.
Shhh, everyone—my show is on!
That’s a helluva upgrade!
This booktok girlie is STILL waiting for one of you to write this book!
I cried at their wedding and I wasn’t even there.
Smirking at my phone, I toss another look through the sliders without raising my head because I know she’s watching me, just like I know she added#divorce, just to get a rise out of me. A lot’s changed over the last year, but not that. Millie and I still love to push each other’s buttons. We still love to drive each other crazy, and I love every fucking second of it, almost as much as I love her. Tapping the screen, I type out a reply to her post.
I’d like to see you try—I’m not above kidnapping my own wife.
Millie and I have been married for five days. Before I proposed, I reached out to Conner Gilroy and asked him to draft the most sadistically punitive prenuptial agreement possible and he was all too happy to oblige. So happy he did it for free. I signed it without even looking at it and took it to Millie’s father.
I’m going to ask Millie to marry me. I’m not asking for your permission or even your blessing—I just want you to have some piece of mind that this is real. That all I want is Millie and that there is nothing you could offer to give me or threaten to take away that will ever change my mind.
Things between Millie and her father are still a bit rocky but they’re getting better every day—the fact that he backed her move to remove her Aunt Renee from the board of directors at Blackwell Investment and publicly denounced Paige before revoking her trust fund, went a long way toward mending their relationship.
I pressed charges on Paige at both Millie and her father’s insistence, which resulted in her taking a plea deal—500 hours of community service and six months probation. Everyone insisted it wasn’t enough. It was a hot topic on social media for months but I just wanted it to be over. I was ready to move on with my life with Millie. That’s all I really cared about.
Last I heard, Paige was living in LA and trying desperately to become a beauty influencer but every few months or so, the video of what happened in the hotel bar, the night of the gala, resurfaces and she loses traction. I asked Conner about it but all he did was shrug his shoulders and say,welp,that’s what happens when you touch someone’s no no square, uninvited.
The ceremony was held at St. Patrick’s because that’s where this whole crazy ride started and there was no way in hell I was going to let Allister and Paige take ownership of something they had no right to. Gwen was Millie’s maid-of-honor and Henley Gilroy was her bridesmaid. Conner and Dalton stood up for me and when poor Father Flanagan finally said,you may kiss the bride, the cheer that went up from the pews was so loud, people posted that they heard it in Time Square.
After the ceremony, we had the reception at the Hawthorne. Millie and I didn’t even make it to the cake cutting before we were in our honeymoon suite, getting each other naked—and the disappearing act wasn’t my idea.
My Millie is insatiable.
Closing the IG app on my phone, I open up my texts.
Me: What the fuck, Minolta? People are going to think you’re serious.
Millie: I am serious.
Her text is followed by a picture she must have just taken. It’s a selfie of her, wearing one of my T-shirts, her legs spread in invitation, her fingers, one of them wearing her engagement ring—a three-carat cushion cut emerald, surrounded by a halo of pavé diamonds—buried in her perfect pussy.
See what I mean?
Me: Come here.
