“This is Duke.” His voice was scratchy with sleep.
“Hey,” Zander hissed. “Don’t answer the phone that way. You’re not Duke right now because Duke is on his honeymoon, remember?”
Silence.
“Where are you?”
“Home,” Duke mumbled.
“What?” It took effort to keep his volume down. “I thought you were already on your way.”
“Negative. None of us think it’s a good idea to swap during the honeymoon.”
Zander’s blood went volcano hot. “None of who?”
“The family. Who do you think?”
“Why?” Zander envisioned taking his tightly clenched fist and thrusting it through the floor beneath him.
“It’s too risky,” Duke said. “Someone could spot the two of us in the same place, you know?”
“I doubt that would happen.”
“And we’d have to switch off so quick you wouldn’t even have time to fill me in. I’d be walking in blind.”
He had a point there, but Zander wasn’t willing to admit it. “We’d work it out.”
“Listen, Grandma Lo had your hair dresser, Zuko, meet me on the jet so I wouldn’t be spotted anywhere with my long hair. I’ll stay under cover here. You’ve gone this far, just…you’re going to have to hold out through the honeymoon.”
An odd dose of excitement flittered through him at the sound of those words. And it wasn’t hard to guess why. Zander had done his part—asked, twice now, for Duke to come and take his rightful place, and he’d refused. His brother, his family for that matter, couldn’t blame Zander for what might come of it.
Sure, Zander could argue. In fact, he was quite confident that he’d get his way if he insisted Duke come, but why do that when he could enjoy an entire week with a very fascinating, not to mention beautiful, woman at his side?
“Fine.”
“Fine?” The single word came through the line in a squeak. And there it was—an admission on Duke’s part that he’d expected Zander to argue.
“Yep. If you’re not worried about it, why should I be?”
All sorts of warmth stirred low in his belly as Zander considered spending the entire honeymoon with Kat.
Duke didn’t reply.
“I’ll keep it going,” Zander said, “but we can’t have anymore contact. I’ll head straight to your place once we get back, since I’m supposed to be you anyway. We’ll figure things out from there.”
“Hey,” Duke blurted. “You haven’t…done anything with her, have you?”
“What do you mean?” Of course, Zander knew exactly what he meant.
“I know that you had to kiss her at the altar—I watched that live from the jet. But that’s it, right?” Duke’s voice was tight.
“No, that’s not it.” Zander paused, letting that simmer for a beat. “The guests were chanting out of front the chapel, urging us to kiss before we drove off in the limo. So we did.”
“What about wedding night?” Duke asked.
Zander rolled his eyes. “We didn’t have a wedding night. It took thirty hours to get here. We were either on flights or in the airport the whole time. What do you think?”
“I think that if it were me, I would have found a way,” Duke said.
