Especially from his own sister.
“So,” Vivian said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “Athena. Tell me everything. And I meaneverything. Starting with how you managed to get my brother drunk enough to marry you.”
I grinned.
This was going to be fun.
Chapter Twelve
Julien
The hotel was called The Meridian, which sounded expensive because itwasexpensive. $347 a night, not including taxes, which my credit card had processed with what I could only assume was digital judgment.
But I paid it anyway.
Because despite everything, despite the cosmic nightmare my life had become, despite the wedding ring that wouldn’t come off my finger, despite the fact that I was legally married to a woman who believed crystals had healing properties, I wasn’t a complete asshole.
I couldn’t just... abandon her.
Even if every fiber of my being wanted to.
“This is beautiful!” Athena had said when we pulled up to the entrance, her face pressed against the car window like a child at an aquarium. “The energy here is so welcoming. Very grounded. Earth tones. I can already feel my chakras aligning.”
“It’s a Marriott,” I’d replied.
“It’s asanctuary.”
Vivian had caught my eye in the rearview mirror and grinned.
Benedict Arnold.
That was what she was.
A traitor of the highest order.
Because the entire drive from the airport, forty-three minutes of what should have been blessed silence, had been nothing but Athena talking and Vivianencouragingher.
“So then what happened?” Vivian had asked, leaning forward slightly, her eyes bright with barely contained glee.
“Well,” Athena had said, “after the ceremony—which wasbeautiful, by the way, very intimate, very cosmic—we went back to the hotel room and—”
“We’re not discussing the hotel room,” I’d interjected.
“—and Julien was so sweet,” Athena had continued, completely ignoring me. “He kept saying these really profound things about the nature of consciousness and whether souls exist independently of neural pathways, and I told him that of course they do, that the universe is made of energy and we’re all just different frequencies of the same cosmic vibration...”
“I was drunk,” I’d said. “Very, very drunk.”
“You werephilosophical,” Athena had corrected. “And then you kissed me, and it was like the universe just...clickedinto place. Like everything that had ever happened in both our lives had been leading to that exact moment.”
Vivian had made a sound that was half-laugh, half-squeal.
“That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” She’d grinned happily.
“It’s not romantic,” I’d replied. “It’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of alcohol consumption.”
“It’sdestiny,” Athena had insisted.
“And then what?” Vivian had asked, completely ignoring my existential suffering. “What happened in the morning?”
