I forced my stare just past her so I wouldn’t see whatever suggestive look or mouthed words she’d offer Gray this time. Or, rather, so I wouldn’t be tempted to study Gray’s reaction to her...
Wren was just as much of a flirt as Gray, if not worse. Whenever we found ourselves somewhere with her, I was forced to witness their nauseating and heartbreaking back-and-forth. I’d already witnessed it more times than I wanted to think abouton this trip alone. But today? I wasn’t sure I could handle it today.
I wonder how he would’ve reacted if it’d been—nope. No, not going there.
I forced my hands to relax when I realized they were clenching just as Beau Evans, the last member of our team, fell into a seat beside Wren. His newfound, perpetually angry stare skipped past me curiously.
“So,” Rush began, looking at us with an excited glint to his eye that brought his text back to mind and made me wary, “let’s find out who’s leaving a little richer.”
A laugh that was bright and knowing left Thatch’s fiancée as she shared a look with him, as if they knew exactly what was going on.
That makes three.
“We already know who it’s gonna be,” Wren said in an overly confident tone that had my glare shifting her way in time to see her point proudly at herself.
Four, I mentally corrected.
Evans—the only one who hadn’t been a SEAL with us—made an irritated sound before nodding at Thatch. “Let’s see.”
Wait . . .
My heart skipped uncomfortably when I realized everyone—except for Gray and me—knew what was going on. Considering what’d happened last night, I was terrified to find out what that knowledge was.
I’d rather go through BUD/S all over again than deal with this group of people knowing about my drunken wedding.
They’d never let us live it down. The last thing I needed from the guys who had become my family over the past decade were reminders of why I wasn’t marriage material. And I wasn’t sure I’d be able to survive Hudson Gray saying all the reasons whybeing married to me was probably the worst thing that could ever happen to him—next to taking a bullet for me...again.
But then Chloe lifted her left hand toward her face, showing off the engagement ring Thatch had given her a couple weeks before. And in the second it took me to read her playfully innocent expression, I knew exactly what was happening. I knew what we were waiting to see. I knew why we were here.
I remembered the bet.
I’m going to be sick.
A smothered gasp left me, and my hand shot out on its own accord, hitting Gray’s side at the same moment Thatch lifted his left hand. Fingers bare, other than the tattoos on his skin.
Even though I’d avoided looking at him ever since he’d sat down, I couldn’t stop from searching out Gray now as panic surged through me. Because we’d all taken bets on if Thatch and Chloe would end up eloping while here in Aruba.
They obviously hadn’t.
But Gray and I had.
Those clear green eyes shifted to me, void of emotion, when he was usually bursting with it. And for some reason, that was what broke me.
I shoved my chair back. “I won. I’m going back to bed.” The words were strangled as they scraped past the shards of glass in my throat, but, thankfully, it just sounded like I was hungover instead of choking back tears.
I didn’t look at any of them as I stood and left. I didn’t glance over my shoulder to see if Wren claimed my seat, because I already knew she would. I didn’t let my tears start falling until I was back in my room.
And when Gray came knocking hours later, I didn’t answer.
We were still married.
I would’ve thought waking up in Aruba, married to Mallory Monroe, would’ve been the most unbelievable thing to ever happen in my life. I could now say it was the fact that she hadn’t annulled our marriage in the past three months.
Then again, her world had been rocked in that time.
Not that we’d talked about that or our relationship status. Unless it was work related, we hadn’t talked at all since I’d walked out of her hotel room that morning, and even those conversations were different...
Stiff. Formal. Withdrawn.
