“It was my grandmother’s,” he says.
“Jesus,” I let out. “Are you sure it’s okay if I–”
“Of course. She would have loved you,” he says, and my heart comes to a screeching halt in my chest. Why does it matterwhat his grandmother would have thought of me? This isn’t real. “Besides, I trust you to give it back to me after the wedding,” he says.
“The wedding,” I say with almost no voice.
“Yes,” he says, then looks over at me. “Daniel’s wedding, which we are going to in about three minutes.”
“Oh. Oh!” I laugh, and my cheeks flush cherry red. “Of course. Sorry. The tequila was just…I’m fine.”
Jesus.
“So we are recently engaged,” he says.
“Recently married,” I correct him as I continue to stare down at the ring on my finger. The thing is seriously massive. It probably has its own gravitational pull. If I look closer, I bet it even has a couple of moons orbiting it.
“Recently married. Right,” he agrees. “You’ve always had a thing for me, but never had the guts to tell me.” He adds, and I squawk.
“What? I had a thing for you?!”
“Yeah,” he says, glancing away from the road to look at me again. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I thought it was the other way around,” I say. “You’re the one that said the reason you kidnapped me was because you are in love with me.”
Asher’s face turns red. Not as red as mine gets, but it’s still a blush. I relish the fact that I made it happen.
“I admitted that was an exaggeration, and the real reason was because Daniel was a cheating slimeball. Plus, I couldn’t stand around and watch you ruin your life,” he says.
“An exaggeration…right,” I repeat the words while nodding my head. Lordy, tequila really does remove my filter.
“Yeah,” he says, biting back a smile. I can feel the tension between us start to grow. It feels like the Costa Rican humidityin the car. With subzero temperatures outside, it’s enough to fog up the windows.
We leave it at that and go back to our story.
“So, I confessed my undying love to you?” I ask, and he spits out a laugh.
“No, first I came and stole you away from the altar,” he corrects me.
“Because of your undying love for me,” I say, and he laughs.
“Yes. We both had all these pent-up feelings, but neither of us could act on them,” he says.
“Because it was far too scandalous,” I say.
“But then when I found out you were betrothed to another,” he says. I laugh, and so does he. Then he says, “I simply couldn’t stand for it, and I flew to Costa Rica to steal you away and marry you myself.”
“Which we did. That night,” I add.
“Then we stayed in Costa Rica for nearly a week, enjoying our honeymoon.”
“Yes. Where we had lots of sex,” I say. He looks at me. “What? That’s part of the kicker,” I say. I know my cheeks are red; I can feel them burning.
“Of course,” he says. Luckily for both of us, we are pulling up to the venue now. Asher puts the car in park, and I take a deep breath.
“We really are doing this,” I say. Suddenly, I’m nervous.
“We are,” he says. “Look at me. It’s no big deal. Daniel is a piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you and never will. You dodged a bullet.”
