She pointed toward an over-the-top white and gold balloon arch in the far corner of the backyard with anEngagedsign hanging from it in neon lights.
Nora was technically born and raised in Ireland, but she remained Vegas through and through.
Sunny and I walked toward the balloon arch with the enthusiasm of casino customers signing over their car deeds to cover the gambling debts they'd incurred overnight.
And I wished...
I wished this party held even a modicum of truth.
I wished Sunny was planning a bachelorduetto party for us.
“Where have you been sleeping the last few days?" I asked, barely managing to keep my tone detached. "At Tony and Cherenity's place?"
Sunny gave me a sharp warning look."Why are you asking?"
"I'm just..." I pushed a hand through the hair I hadn't bothered to gel before coming here. "I'm just making sure you're safe. You didn't let Agnes arrange a room for you at the hotel."
Silence. And it felt intentional—like Sunny was using my preferred conversational tactic against me.
Eventually, she replied, "We're just here to play nice for Nora's sake.We don't have to pretend like we actually care about each other." In a voice so cold, they could have called her Quadruple Ice.
Was this what it felt like for her when I purposefully switched off my emotions?
An apology rose in my throat. "I'm sorry."
"About what?" She turned her head to blink at me. "Not loving me back or expecting me to jump for joy because you offered me a 'foreseeable future' of not loving me back?"
That I let it catch me so off guard when you said you loved me,I answered silently.
I'd known on a surface level that Sunny had a different relationship with that word. She didn't see love as a toxic red flag or prefer the superiority of carefully worded agreements that clearly spelled out what each of us wanted out of a partner deal.
But I’d been unprepared for the shock of her words—and the way they made me feel. Honored, at first. Like having her fall in love with me was the best thing that had ever happened to me, even better than getting named CEO of Benton Worldwide.
Then, fucking terrified.
Sunny was a pawn. A beautiful, funny, sexy pawn, who I couldn’t imagine ever getting sick of, as she’d insinuated I would, but a pawn, nonetheless.
But I didn’t want to end up like my grandfather, so besotted I’d give a woman who knew nothing about business a position of control in my company. Or my heart.
Because this relationship—this undefinable, all-too-fragilethingI'd developed with Sunny—was how people got hurt. Love was what made my father leave. Love was what made my mother abandon me by killing herself. How could I make Sunny understand?
"You know what? We don't have to do this." Sunny abruptly stopped walking before I could come up with a reply to her question. "Nora's not even out here yet. I'll find you and we'll finish playing happy couple when she joins the party."
"Sunny, hold on," I started to say, reaching out to take her hand. "Just let me..."
"What? Cole, what?" Sunny balled her hand in a fist and pressed it into her shoulder, keeping it away from me like I was the rat in her apartment, trying to touch her. "What do you want to say?"
“Trouble in paradise?” Max swooped in from out of nowhere before I could answer and snatched the bottle of Glendaver from my hand.
"Let me guess," he said, pouring the bourbon into an empty tumbler he just so happened to be carrying in his other hand. "Sunny just told you she's headed to New York as soon as this fake engagement of yours is over."
"Why would you say that?" I asked him at the same time Sunny asked, "How did you know?"
CHAPTER34
Cole
Hold on.
