Happily Never After

“GUESS WHAT?”

I stirred the peppers in the skillet and said into the phone, “Who is this?”

“Shut up, smart-ass, and guess what I got for us?”

I turned my head so my neck cracked as I shook some fajita seasoning onto the veggies. I’d been in client meetings all day (my least favorite part of my job) and it was already six p.m., so I was starving and exhausted.

Especially since her sexting had done quite a number on my brain.

I’d damn near wrecked the rent-a-bike when she texted me about the mirror, because fuck, I thought about it obsessively. It haunted me. The sight of naked Sophie, lost in passion and so gorgeous it hurt, meeting my gaze and not looking away as I came apart inside her body—yeah, I couldn’t get the vision out of my head.

I asked, “What did you get for us?”

I gave the peppers another stir before dumping them into my rice bowl. As I carried my dinner to the breakfast bar, she said, “I got us a wedding!”

“What does that mean?” I asked, sitting down on a stool and grabbing the kitchen remote, wondering what games were on.

“A gig,” she said proudly. “I actually scored us an objector gig.”

“Well, look at you,” I teased, scrolling to ESPN. “Such a big girl.”

“Right?”

“So tell me all about it.” I turned on the Cubs game but muted the sound, way more interested in listening to Sophie than I was the announcers. It felt like my interest in her was getting out of hand, but I had no plans to dial it back. I just liked her too much.

I asked, “How the hell did this happen, by the way?”

“Through Larry, of all people.” She started talking about how Larry’s sister’s nephew was getting married next weekend, but he’d confided that he knew his fiancée was cheating but couldn’t call it off.

And since Soph had told Larry about our side hustle, the old grump took it upon himself to make all the arrangements.

“Very impressive, Steinbeck,” I said, shoveling the food into my mouth, glad to have a reason to hang with her on Saturday. It used to just be a job, a side hustle that helped people, but now I actually looked forward to crashing weddings when she was with me. “You’ve got all the details we’ll need?”

“I do,” she confirmed, sounding proud of herself. “The cheating fiancée, Lilibeth, is having an affair, but Garrett, the groom, can’t call it off because her father is the chief financier of his business.”

I hadn’t heard anything but the bride’s name. Lilibeth.

Lilibeth.

Time slowed to a stop as the name echoed in my skull.

“So I want to help not only because this is Larry’s family,” Sophie said, “but because the groom is in the same situation I was in. Powerful daddy-in-law in a position to ruin a career? I feel like I’m meant to help him or something.”

It couldn’t be her. It just couldn’t, because what were the odds? Yet I knew that it was. It had to be.

I just knew it.

“Have you ever noticed that rich fathers are always the problem?” she asked, talking a mile a minute, completely unaware of the turmoil she’d just dropped on top of my world. “Wealthy men ruin the world, I swear to God.”

Still, I had to be sure, and my voice cracked when I said, “I’m sorry, what did you say the bride’s name was again?”

“Lilibeth—what a name, right?” Her voice was full of snark when she said, “There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just such a rich girl’s name. Lilibeth Palmer, daughter of a bank president, destroyer of a groom’s heart.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Holy shit, fucking fuck.

“And you said that she’s . . .” I cleared my throat. “Having an affair?”

I pushed the food away from me as I tried to wrap my head around what was happening. “And her fiancé wants out?”

“Bingo.” She made a noise—I think she was talking to her cat—before she said, “It’s in Lincoln, so only an hour away. We’re in, right?”

I couldn’t hear over the roaring in my ears. Lilibeth. Fucking Lili. “Actually, maybe we should pass on this one.”

“What?” she gasped, sounding utterly horrified. “Why would we do that, Max? Is this because I got us the job? Is the big man the only one who can get jobs? Why wouldn’t we want to take this one?”

“Christ, Soph,” I said, trying to work through this fucking nightmare. “I just think that exposing a woman’s infidelity in public is a bad idea. She’ll get judged a lot more harshly than a man would.”

“I guess that would make sense, except we did Callie’s wedding, remember?”

I breathed in through my nose and closed my eyes. “That was different.”

“Different how?” she asked, wildly insistent all of a sudden.

“Callie was a monster,” I replied, having a hard time even carrying on this conversation.

“True,” she said, “But how do you know Lilibeth isn’t a monster?”

“I just . . .” I said, rubbing the back of my neck, clueless how to convince her. “I just don’t want to do this one.”

“Seriously?” she asked again, sounding as if she couldn’t believe what I was saying.

“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth, wanting to not think about whatever the fuck Lil was going through at the moment. “Let’s pass.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, Soph,” I said, trying really hard not to snap at her but failing. “For the love of God. I want. To turn. It down.”

“Oh.” Her voice was tense as she said in a clipped tone, “Wow. Fine. We will pass, then, Mr. Parks. Goodbye.”

“Soph,” I started, but she was done.

The call was over.

“Fuck!” I said to no one, standing and dumping my dinner into the trash can before literally throwing the plate into the sink like it was burning my hand. “Fucking fuck.”

I couldn’t even think, for God’s sake, as my heart pounded in my chest.

This was fucking madness.

I wasn’t hungry anymore and I needed to do something, anything, so I shoved my feet into my runners, loaded up my playlist, and cranked the motherfucking music as loud as I could stand it.

But as I started running down Tenth Street, the evening air still hot and humid, I realized that even exercise wasn’t helping.

At all.

Because Lil was engaged.

I wouldn’t have imagined that it’d feel this . . . hell, this crushing. I hadn’t been lying when I told Sophie that I almost never thought about her anymore.

It was true, I didn’t.

Yet here I was, nearly hyperventilating at the thought of Lili getting married.

What the hell is wrong with me?

And not only was she was getting married, but her fiancé was trying to get out of it.

How did that even make sense?

I mean, it didn’t to me, but that was probably because I’d wanted to spend forever with her so fucking badly that I would’ve done anything to make it happen.

Hell, I’d tried everything.

But in the end, she’d looked at me through tears and told me that she just didn’t love me anymore.

She hadn’t cheated, and I hadn’t done anything wrong, but she didn’t feel about me the way she was supposed to feel about her fiancé. She just couldn’t imagine spending her entire life with me.

I hadn’t seen or talked to her in over two years, yet I didn’t believe for a second that she was having an affair. It wasn’t something she would ever do—she just wouldn’t, regardless of whatever was going on in her life.

But that didn’t change the fact that the guy she planned to marry was trying to publicly destroy her.

And wanted my help in doing it.

I might not be in love with her anymore, but there was no fucking way I was going to play a part in destroying her wedding.

I just couldn’t.

The biggest question, I thought as I turned onto Ninth Street and cranked my music even louder, was whether or not I was going to reach out to her and warn her. I didn’t want to get involved and knew it was a terrible idea, but I also couldn’t stand by and let her get blindsided, could I?

I knew I’d pissed Sophie off, and I also knew she wouldn’t understand if I warned Lili without talking to her first. So I needed to apologize to Soph, mostly because the thought of her being upset because of me made my heart hurt, and then hopefully I’d be able to convince her about the warning.

If not, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.