“I feel like that is a passive-aggressive comment directed at me,” Gunnar complained.
“Do you have a venue picked out?” Dana asked. “We’ll want to start test shots.”
“Maybe we could have it on the back lawn at the Svenssons’ estate?” Avery looked at me anxiously. I smiled at her reassuringly. “It’s supposed to be low-key yet tasteful,” Avery added. I felt oddly happy that the two of us were on the same page.
Penny, Gunnar, and Dana looked at us in horror. “Low-key? I can’t sell a low-key wedding,” Dana scoffed.
“Besides,” Penny added, “half the town is going to be there.”
“We’ve hosted town events at the Svensson estate before,” I protested.
“This is a formal wedding,” Dana said.
“I don’t think it needs to be that formal,” Avery said. “It’s not the eighties.”
“People expect over the top from a billionaire’s wedding!” Gunnar said emphatically. “We have to put on a show. We’ll have the ceremony at City Hall. The atrium is big enough to hold two thousand people.”
“Two thousand!” Avery exclaimed. “I don’t know that many people.”
“Our brothers have been inviting a number of their business contacts, and Avery’s grandmother extended an invitation to everyone in attendance at the last town hall meeting,” Garrett said from the doorway. “This wedding is turning into quite the political event.” He was looking at his phone. The unmistakable sounds of yelling from that morning when I had shot the drone blared around the conference room.
“See, we have a perfectly kosher relationship,” I told him.
“Hmm.”
I forced myself to relax my clenched fist. “I need to get back to the office,” I said, turning to leave.
“You aren’t going to say goodbye to your soon-to-be fiancée?” Garrett asked, raising an eyebrow.
I leaned over Avery, and she smiled up at me brightly. “See you later,” I said and kissed her. “I’ll leave Avery in charge of the wedding planning. I’m in charge of the proposal and the honeymoon.”
“And the rehearsal dinner,” Garrett added. “That is traditionally provided by the groom’s family.”
“That too,” I said, feeling my older brother’s eyes boring into me as I left.
My phone vibrated in my pocket as I walked out of the tower where theVanity Rag’s offices were located.
Weston:The Frost brothers want to do lunch. You free?
Blade:Sure.
I liked the Frost brothers. Jack and Owen Frost both ran companies they had cofounded with various half brothers of mine. The youngest Frost brothers were also in the process of starting their own companies with several of my college-aged brothers. It was amusing to think that the gawky little teenagers who used to follow me around were now starting their own firms. It sort of made me want a family of my own, just to see the kids grow up.
When I walked into the restaurant and saw my grim-faced brothers and the Frost brothers standing awkwardly off to the side, I decided that actually, the world could do with a few fewer Svenssons.
“What in the hell?” I growled.
“This is an intervention, my wayward little half brother,” Liam stated.
“We are planning a wedding. I am marrying Avery in less than six weeks,” I told them firmly. “I can’t believe Garrett put you up to this. Where is he? I’m going to kill him!”
“This isn’t Garrett,” my half brother Beck said. “We’re just concerned about you. Maybe all the stress is screwing with your brain.”
“Sometimes, when people get older,” Archer added, “they have a quarter-life crisis. I myself experienced it, but I went out and bought millions of dollars’ worth of art. I didn’t marry some girl I barely knew.”
“It’s so out of character for you,” Mace put in. “You didn’t even tell Weston. You guys are so close!”
I looked at Weston. “He said it was fine.”
