“Come on,” I said after giving her a quick but tight hug. “Say goodbye to your friend. We’re leaving.”
She let out a dramatic sigh but turned to the guy and wiggled her fingers at him in a wave. “Cheers, mate. See you.”
After God only knew what they’d done together last night, that was all the guy got from her. She followed us out into the hallway and didn’t say another word until we’d reached Jesse’s car. I climbed into the backseat with her, immediately turning to admonish her again as he started the engine.
“What were you thinking?” I asked. “We’re here on business with Daddy and?—”
“No. I’m here because I’m being married off,” she retorted, arching an eyebrow as she folded her arms over her chest. “You didn’t know that, did you? Well, it’s true, so what does it matter if I have a little fun before I become the wealthiest woman in our family?”
A sense of dread spread through me as I looked into her eyes. Watery and red-rimmed, absolutely hungover but also entirely serious. “I’m sorry. You’re what?”
“Being married off,” she said, snippy. “Like in the colonial times? You know what I’m talking about.”
She turned her back on me then, silently steaming all the way back to the hotel while I tried to process what she’d said. When Jesse finally pulled up outside, Winnie didn’t even thank him for the ride before she darted out of the car, slamming the door behind her.
I just sat there, aware that I should stop wasting this poor man’s time and go after her, but I just couldn’t seem to move. A moment later, he twisted to face me, those blue eyes surprisingly soft. “You really didn’t know?”
I shook my head. “Did you? Do you… do you know who, exactly, my idiot little sister is marrying, per chance?”
He bit his lip, suddenly looking supremely uncomfortable, but he answered my question anyway. “It’s me. I’m supposed to be marrying her.”
A harsh, extremely unladylike laugh of incredulity erupted from me, but then I realized he wasn’t kidding.
Someone honked behind us before I could ask how on earth this had happened and I climbed out of the car after muttering a quick goodbye and thank you. Honestly, it suddenly felt like I was living in a nightmare.
This can’t be real, can it?
CHAPTER 5
WILL
When I got back to W&S, I went straight from my car to Alex’s office without stopping. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. It gave me absolutely zero time to calm down.
Still riding the tail end of what had been a nightmarish morning, I barely acknowledged the receptionist on my way through, not stopping at my desk or even taking off my jacket before I was pushing open his door. Without knocking.
At the sudden intrusion, he looked up from behind his desk but smiled when he saw it was me, and he pushed his laptop away. “Good morning. Have you got an update for me yet?”
“What the hell are you and Dad thinking?” I asked instead, storming to the chair across from his desk and gripping the back of it so hard, my knuckles went white. “I’m serious, Alex. What the actual fuck are you thinking?”
He didn’t even skip a beat. “I’m thinking you should probably calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
I shoved my hands into my hair and scoffed. “Winnie disappeared last night. That’s what’s going on.”
Clearly alarmed, he sat up a little straighter, his eyes widening. “What do you mean,shedisappeared?”
“Eliza woke up alone in the hotel room, halfway across the fucking world from her home, and had no idea where her sister was. That’s what I mean. Winnie didn’t leave a message, a note. Nothing. She wasn’t answering her phone either. She was just gone. We had to track her down through social media videos, for God’s sake.”
Alex’s brow twitched slightly, but I wasn’t done yet. “Thank God, it turned out that she was okay. We finally found her, maybe still drunk, in a different hotel with some shirtless dude, who she barely even bothered to say goodbye to.”
My brother steepled his fingers, but at least he wasn’t smiling anymore. I pushed away from the chair and shook my head, pacing over to his windows overlooking the city and the lake. “Do you have any idea what position you’re putting Jesse in? He already doesn’t even live here anymore. He barely shows up to family dinners even when he’s in town. Do you honestly think forcing him into a marriage with a woman likethatis going to fix things?”
Alex let out a low, slow sigh, his own gaze drifting over to the windows. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit,” I snapped. “That girl isn’t going to settle down, Alex. She’s not going to become some kind of model wife overnight.”
“You never know,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he was as confident as he had been just a minute ago. “She might adjust.”
I snorted, trying to hold back a humorless laugh. “No, she won’t. She’ll implode and Jesse will implode right along with her. You should’ve seen the way Eliza handled her this morning, Alex. It was expert. Like this is something that happens often.”
