Anyone But Rich (Anyone But..., #1)(69)

“Remind me never to cheat your father in a game. And if he’s okay with it, why is he looking at us like that?”

She glanced over at him and twinkled her fingers in a dainty wave. “He’s been having stomach troubles the past few days. Gas and bloating.”

I laughed. “Well. Okay.”

“Richard,” my father said loudly. He came up to Stella and me with a heavy slap on the back of my shoulder. “Good to see you, son.”

I grimaced but hoped it would pass for a smile. As usual, my mother lurked a few steps behind him with her nose tilted up. I suspected she was withholding her relief until the moment she saw the marriage becoming official. True to form, she was planning to be disappointed. I wondered if intentionally disappointing her made me a good son in some twisted, confusing way. Probably not.

I’d given up any last desire to please them. Maybe before Kira and all this mayhem, I’d still held some deep-seated desire to patch over my relationship with them. Now, that was gone. I just wanted them out of my life so I could move on with my future.

“Quite the venue, isn’t it?” my father asked, as if he’d been the one to choose it.

“Quite,” I agreed.

“Stella, what do you think of it?”

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she said.

He gave her a close-lipped smile, and then his eyes shifted to where Kira was standing on the other end of the room. She had a glass of soda in her hand and was doing an adorably poor job of hiding the fact that she was watching us. She took a huge gulp of her drink and jerked her gaze away when she saw my father looking.

“What do you think of her being here?” my father asked. “It wasn’t long ago that my son was ready to toss you aside for her, no?”

“Rich and I have moved on from that,” Stella said. Her voice was icy.

“Of course. It’s just strange that he would invite her, don’t you think?”

Shit. Kira had been right, after all. I’d thought my parents were too dense to suspect anything at this point, but apparently I was wrong. It wouldn’t matter. As long as the wedding happened, everything would be fine. Besides, if they managed to find a way to screw it up, we could always go to the media ourselves and announce we were together. But part of the reason I wanted to use the wedding to announce it was for the theatrics. The real game that had gone on wouldn’t be lost on the people in my parents’ social circle. They’d know my parents had tried to outmaneuver us and lost. It would mean any more attempts they made to sabotage us would be obvious acts of petty revenge, which would risk damaging their reputation even more.

No, it had to be like this.

“Strange?” Stella asked. “No. What’s strange is that you think my soon-to-be husband would have actually held any real interest in a local girl. Think of it,” she said, wrinkling her nose in a perfect impression of my mother. “Richard King with a local teacher. One who can’t even hold a job, nonetheless.”

I knew what she was doing, but I still bristled to hear Kira being talked about like that.

“Is that right, son?”

I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t bring myself to agree or even nod, so I just glared straight at him.

My father’s eyebrows twitched in response, and I wasn’t sure if I was being paranoid, but I thought I saw some kind of resolution forming behind his eyes. “Well,” he said quickly, and in a single word, all the tension had left the conversation. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to enjoy the festivities. I can’t wait to see the ceremony. I’m sure it will be beautiful.”

I waited inside a small, cramped closet for a few minutes before the door opened and shut quickly. It was nearly dark inside, but from the sweet, flowery smell, I knew it was Kira. I reached out in the dark and found her hands to pull her closer. “You okay?” I asked.

“The venue really is perfect,” she said.

I could see only the vague outline of her body, and something about the lack of vision was giving me bad ideas. With her scent filling my nose and nothing but my hands to feel her, it was hard to keep myself focused.

“I think my father suspects something,” I said. I waited for Kira to say she’d told me so, because she literally had.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”

I blindly pulled her closer by the back of her head and bent my neck to kiss her forehead. It was a mistake, because her warmth against my lips stirred up even more dangerous thoughts. There was no lock on the closet door, I knew, and I had no reason to believe someone wouldn’t stumble in here while looking for a restroom.

“And that’s why it was so easy to fall in love with you,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you tried your hardest to convince me this was a bad idea, and as it turns out, you were right. But you’re not going to rub it in my face. You’re too kind for something like that.”

She laughed softly. “Actually, I was totally fist pumping in my head because I was right. I just forced myself not to say anything obnoxious.”

I grinned. “Even better. You’re human, but a better human than me.”

“Maybe in some ways.” Her hands reached out for me and slid down my chest. From the sound of her voice and the way her hands were moving, I knew the dark closet was giving more than one of us some dirty ideas. “But I think you’ve got me beat in the fitness department. And hotness. When do you even work out anyway? Aren’t muscular guys supposed to do nothing but chug protein shakes and live in the gym?”