Page 90 of How to Ruin a Wedding

The bartender returns with our glasses, and John gathers all he can and scurries away. Running away from me, from the question, and now I can’t help but wonder if this pairing is more one sided than I thought.

I grab the remaining drink—the Shirley Temple—and head out. Anders is walking toward me, and nobody is at the table anymore. A quick scan shows John and Valerie walking toward the small fountain, and Bethany laughing incredibly hard at something a handsome man is saying.

“Party’s already over?” I say as Anders approaches.

“They want me to mingle more,” he answers. “They say the birthday boy needs to get a lot of kisses and touches and—”

I press a hand to his chest before he wraps his arms around me. “Somehow, I don’t think anyone at the table mentioned that.”

“In my head, they did.” He moves back, and because, behind him, I see his ex-girlfriend watching, I lean into him, sipping the drink.

“While we’re alone,” I say, “let me update you on some things.”

A screech pierces through the air. I jerk back, scanning for the culprit and find a man with a microphone beside a guitarist and a keyboard player, just beside the fountain. “Sorry about that,” the singer says into the mic.

Then they start playing a cover of a song I can’t remember exactly but heard recently on the radio.

“Can you talk and dance?” Anders says, already pulling me by my waist to the center of the patio.

“Growing up in a Puerto Rican household,” I say, letting him sway us to the pop melody, “I can dance and cook and clean all at the same time.”

He smiles in his easy way, and I shake my head when my lips try to mirror it.

“Anyway,” I go on, “there are a lot of eyes on us, so I need you to put on your best acting facade because what I have to tell you is going to piss you off an unbelievable amount.”

His hand stills for just a second before he recovers.

I update him on exactly what went down and how I became a bridesmaid. On how I’ve been speaking with Valerie, texting her, chatting with her, trying to plant subtle seeds of doubt. I tell him what he’s missed and, finally, tell him about the million dollars as the band goes through their set.

My stomach knots the moment I say it. My voice lowers, my breath shortens, and guilt settles somewhere heavy in my chest. I pinkie-swore I wouldn’t say anything. Valerie trusted me. But I also watched her dig herself deeper into a hole, and I couldn’t let Anders stay in the dark—not when he’s technically my employer.

And not when I genuinely believe this isn’t something that Valerie should keep a secret.

His face furrows together, anger pulling at every muscle.

I finish explaining. The moment stretches as a new, slower song drifts through the air. Anders goes still.

His jaw tightens. His hand—still resting on my waist from when we were dancing—clenches slightly. His eyes drop to the ground like he’s trying to process the weight of everything I just dropped on him. His sister. A million dollars. Gone.

“She didn’t tell me,” he finally says. His voice is low, like he’s afraid of how loud his anger might be if he gives it any more breath. “She lost a million dollars, and she didn’t tell me.”

I shift closer. “She was scared, Anders.”

“She should be,” he snaps, then instantly shakes his head. “No. No, that’s not fair. It’s not even about the money. It’s him. John. I knew he was reckless. Itoldher he was reckless. And now it’ll be her problem, forever.”

“It won’t, we’ll stop them.”

“She listens to everyone but me,” he says, on a tangent. “And I don’t even care about being right. I just ... I care. And she makes it impossible to protect her.”

“You’re doing all you can.”

“It hasn’t been enough.”

He sounds defeated. And I hate that.

“I know,” I say gently. “I know you feel like she’s slipping away from you. But she still listens to you, Anders. She still loves you. She just doesn’t want to disappoint you.”

“I’m not even mad at her. I’m mad at him. And I’m mad that I can’t trust him. Not with her, not with her future, and definitely not with her money.”