With a sympathetic sigh, she said, “I wouldn’t be going in there alone. We’d be together. I’ll be fine.”
“We wouldn’t betogether,” I reminded her. “Something could easily happen to you.”
“You wouldn’t let anything,” she said confidently.
My jaw tensed as every argument and plea rushed to the surface, but all that left me was her name. “Mallory...”
“This is what I do,” she nearly whispered, begging me to understand. “This is whatwedo.”
After a few seconds, my head dipped in acceptance.
I watched her sit back on an exhale before her body tensed and eyes widened when she glanced to the side, realizing at the same moment as me that we weren’t alone, the way we had been for every other argument this past weekend.
Looking in the same direction, I noted Thatch’s veiled amusement and Briggs’ outright shock as he stared at Mallory.
But it was Rush who asked, “Sorry . . . did you saywife?”
My attention snapped back to the woman across from me, gauging her reaction, but she was staring blankly at the table. Not giving me a single hint as to what was going on in that mind of hers.
“You were serious?” Briggs asked, voice low and cautious.
I spared a quick enough look his way to see he was watching me, to know he’dspokento me, before focusing on Mallory again. Remembering that I’d confessed about our elopement, only to have Briggs throw it back in my face, thinking it was a joke.
“Yes,” I answered thickly.
Seconds passed before Briggs released a heavy exhale and pulled out the chair he never used in meetings to sink into it.
“Y’all are married,” Rush stated dully. “Married, married.”
I waited to see if Mallory would respond in any way—cut in and saytechnically, flinch, panic,something—but she just sat there. Still as stone. Expression worryingly blank after everything we’d finally gotten through just an hour before.
With a fortifying breath, I laid the truth out there for her and the rest of our team. “Not in the way I wish we were.”
Blue eyes shot to mine and widened with a surprise I wouldn’t have expected after our conversation earlier. But it was there all the same. Surprise and a longing that made me want to do this all over again. The right way. Rightthen.
A bemused sounding scoff bled from Rush. “Since when?”
“Aruba,” Evans mumbled in that rough tone, stunning me.
My head whipped to the side to see Evans sitting back in his chair, lazily playing with his stylus. Before I could ask how he knew, Mallory beat me to it.
“And how would you know that?”
He shifted the stylus in a gesture like he wasn’t sure how we didn’t know. “I was your witness.”
Another stylus smacked into my chest. “Evans?” Thatch demanded, tone dripping with offense. “You hadEvansas your witness? You weremybest man.”
I held up a hand to placate Thatch because the last thing I would’ve expected was choosing Evans as a witness to a drunken elopement, but Evans said, “To Gray’s credit, I think the only reason they asked was because I was passing by while on Wren Watch.”
A huff forced from my lungs.“And all these months, you never said anything?”
Evans’ brow furrowed irritably as he glanced between Mallory and me. “Well, y’all didn’t exactly look likethe happy couplethe next morning,” he reminded us. “Then Monroe took off without you, and when you left, Wren went with you.”
Frustration bled from me on a laugh. “That,” I said through a tense smile. “Thathas been one of the things keeping Monroe and me apart these past months—y’all being so sure I was with Wren Pearson in Aruba, when I’ve neverdone anything with her.” I tossed a hand in Evans’ direction. “She was either trying to make you mad or ditch you, but she wasn’t with me.”
Evans’ hand stilled for a few seconds before he resumed his lazy movements. “Regardless. With how things were between y’all when Monroe came back from California, I figured it’d been annulled as fast as it’d happened.” One of his shoulders moved in a ghost of a shrug. “Didn’t see a point in bringing it up.”
Rush slowly looked at me, surprise coating his expression before he tipped his head back and laughed. But that laughter faded into something exhausted and worried as he dragged a hand over his face and beard.
