Page 1 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

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LUNA

I’ve rehearsedthis speech forty-seven times.

I know because I counted. Twice in the shower this morning, six times on the L, three times in the Uber from the stop because I was running late, and the rest in the mirror of my apartment while I did my makeup and told myself I was absolutely, one hundred percent going to do this.

I’m going to walk through those doors, find Hugo Dumas in whatever obscenely expensive suit he bought for his obscenely expensive wedding to the woman he cheated on me with, and I’m going to say what I came here to say.

I’ve got it memorized. It’s a good speech. It opens strong, has a solid emotional throughline, and ends with a line I borrowed from a documentary about a Victorian poisoner who smiled at her sentencing. Cherry said it was “unhinged in the best possible way.” Mike said it made him want to stand up and clap, but he once cried at a fabric softener commercial, so the bar there is debatable.

The point is, I’ve prepared.

But what I havenotprepared for is the Elysian Hotel.

I knew the wedding was being held here because Hugo used to talk about this place as if it were a religious experience, some temple to the kind of wealth that didn’t announce itself because it didn’t have to. His family owns the place, but did he ever take me here?

Nope.

The exterior alone is enough to make you feel underdressed at the cellular level—pale stone and iron and the kind of architectural detail that says we have always had money and we always will—and I’m standing on the sidewalk in front of it, and the massive ornate brass and glass doors are right there. Suddenly, my forty-seven rehearsals are doing absolutely nothing for the certainty that I’m about to make a very public, very permanent mistake.

But I look good. That part, at least, I got right.

The dress is black silk and flares just slightly at the knee, low-cut in a way that screams scandalous-but-appropriate—the exact the energy I was going for. I even used a little bronzer to make my cleavage pop, since the neckline plunges between my tits.

But… What the fuck am I doing?

I never wear anything like this. My normal aesthetic runs more toward black jeans and oversized vintage tees and secondhand boots that have seen things. This dress is a different species entirely. It makes me feel like someone who knows exactly what she’s doing and where she’s going, which is useful right now because I’m faking both.

My hair is up, black and pinned into something that took forty minutes and two YouTube tutorials, with the white streak at my left temple curled and framing my face on purpose. Hugo used to ask me, gently, repeatedly, if I’d ever thought about dyeing it. I never did.

Tonight, it feels like a flag I’m planting.

I smooth the dress. I check my clutch for my phone and lipstick.Got it.I take a breath and walk toward the doors.

Inside, there’s enough marble and gold and warm chandelier light to give me pause. But I came here for revenge, and I’m not leaving until I get it. I will humiliate Hugo in front of his new bride, the woman who apparently has no sense of solidarity with other women.

Excuse me, it should be more likechild. She’s twenty-one, for fuck’s sake.

I march toward the sign that reads, “Dumas-Witte Reception,” and make it approximately twelve steps before a hand closes around my elbow.

It’s a large hand, and it comes from a large person—I process this in the half-second before I turn, a looming figure at my periphery.

Security. Fuck.

My second thought is I should have gotten a plus-one, because there’s nothing that says‘I belong here’quite like another human being vouching for your existence with their physical presence.

The security guard is tall in a way that requires a slight recalibration of my field of vision, silver at the temples of darkhair that’s gone mostly gray, and he has the kind of face that isn’t handsome so much as significant—all hard angles and a jaw that could break his teeth if he’s not careful. Those eyes are chilling, though, so I don’t struggle.

They’re nearly black.

Now that I’m really looking at this mountain, there’s history written all over that hard face. Scars. Not subtle ones. A thin one bisects his left brow. Another traces the edge of his jaw. Even with his salt and pepper stubble, that scar can’t hide. His hands are scarred, too, and tattooed, ink climbing past the crisp cuff of his suit jacket—which is, I notice despite myself, an extraordinarily well-made suit. Very dark. Very precise.

The grip on my elbow is not painful.

Security,I remind myself. Rich-person security, which is apparently just regular security in better clothing.

“Okay,” I say, giving him a sheepish smile. “You’ve got me. I admit it. I’m deeply suspicious. But you don’t need to manhandle me.”