Page 65 of Marry Me Not
There would be no carefully crafted vows. Just us repeating a script countless others had said before us while standing in this very place.
“I promise to cherish and to hold you. I promise to take care of you when you’re ill.”
When the priest got to the part about being faithful, Fabiana’s lips twitched. The disdain with which she watched me as I said the words I actually did fucking mean made me want to shake her.
How would she react if I told her everything? That my relationship with Rosa was faker than this marriage. That the last time I’d held a woman’s hair while she puked was never. That I hadn’t touched anyone in three goddamn years—and hadn’t wanted to…until she came along.
She wouldn’t believe me.
I slid the wedding ring onto her steady hand. She did the same—briskly,transactionally. God, was I starting to hate that word.
“You may now kiss the bride.” The priest’s fond smile told me the man was completely ignorant of the palpable, suffocating tension between us.
Slowly, Fabiana tilted her face up. She exhaled like she was bracing herself to do something unpleasant.
Frustration ran through my veins.
Just kiss her and move on.
But seconds ticked by, and I just… I just fucking couldn’t.
I didn’t want to take this kiss like something that was owed to me.
I wanted her to give it to me. Willingly.
It made no sense. I knew that. But I wasn’t going to kiss this woman for the first time like this.
I cupped her cheek and leaned in, bringing my lips close to her ear. “Rosa works for me. She’s a con artist,” I whispered. Each word cost me something. Years of secrecy. Countless hours of pretending. “No one else knows.”
A beat.
Then softly, “What?”
When I pulled back, Fabiana’s brows were drawn together in confusion.
I flicked a glance toward the audience. People were starting to look at us curiously. “Later,” I said under my breath.
“Then why tell me now?” she whispered.
I turned my hand and brushed my knuckles over her cheek, hoping the audience would confuse this for a tender moment shared between two fools in love. “Because I’m not a cheater, Fabiana. And I don’t want you to kiss me thinking that I am.”
The ice in her gaze thawed. Softness crept into her expression, and…there she was.
The Nettle I recognized.
Something inside me rejoiced.
I pushed my fingers into her hair and drew her to me, eating up the inches between us.“You understand?”
Closer, closer…
Her lips were a millimeter from mine. I held her there and waited for her to say it.
She exhaled. “Yes.”
The moment those luscious fucking lips touched mine, the church around us shattered right out of my perception. My every nerve ending lit up as if I’d been injected with a drug.
Warmth trailed through my insides, coaxing dormant parts of me awake, to stand at attention. I groaned into her open mouth and pushed my tongue inside. She sighed. Something came loose right beneath my ribs.
