The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient #2)(81)
That word. She remembered hearing it before. “Yes, he told me.”
He searched her face. “Do you know what it means?”
She fidgeted with her phone uncomfortably. To be honest, she hadn’t thought about it much. “I thought maybe the touching. There is a way to do it.”
“That’s part of it, but there’s more. His mind is different—no, it’s not a sickness. The way he thinks and also the way he processes emotions are not like most people.”
That gave her pause. Yes, he was different, but his differences weren’t unpassable obstacles. At least, she hadn’t found them to be. To her, Kh?i was just Kh?i, and she accepted him the way he was.
The thing she still hadn’t been able to accept was the fact that he didn’t love her, that he didn’t accept her.
As if he could read her mind, Quan said, “Khai loves you. He just hasn’t figured it out yet.”
She had difficulty believing that. Love wasn’t complicated. You either felt it or you didn’t. There was nothing to “figure out.”
Quan’s gaze turned penetrating, and he asked, “Do you want to find out once and for all if he does? I know how.”
Her pride told her to say no, she’d given him enough chances. But her heart had to know. Feeling vulnerable, she said, “Yes, how?”
He looked her directly in the eyes and said, “If it doesn’t work, you’ll end up married to me. Willing to gamble?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Khai stared at the Evite on his phone in a dazed stupor. He had to be dreaming—no, not dreaming, nightmaring. This couldn’t be real.
YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED TO
Esmeralda and Quan’s Wedding
Saturday, August 8th
11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
San Francisco, CA
PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST 7TH
Who the hell sent their invitations out the same week as their wedding? No one, that was who. He was probably still in bed, hugging Esme’s pillow close because it smelled like her. The scent had been fading, and he didn’t know what he’d do when it was gone altogether. Start cuddling up with the dirty laundry she’d left behind maybe.
His phone buzzed with an incoming call as he stared at the Evite.
Quan mobile.
He hit the talk button immediately. “I just got your Evite.”
Quan laughed, the fucker.
“It’s not funny,” Khai said, but his relief was almost dizzying. It was just a practical joke.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Quan said. “We’re really getting married Saturday.”
His brother’s words hit Khai like a punch in the gut, and he sank down onto his couch. Esme’s glass on the coffee table caught his eye. There was only a tiny amount of water left inside. It would probably dry out around the same time she married his traitor of a brother.
“You’re really getting married?” he asked.
“That’s the plan, yeah.”
“To Esme.” His Esme.
“It’s either that or watch her leave on Sunday,” Quan said. “This is mostly to get her a green card, but I do like her. I’m looking at it as a trial period. Who knows, maybe it’ll work out, and we’ll make a go of it.”
That gut-punched feeling worsened, and Khai gripped the edge of the couch with his free hand and squeezed until his knuckles turned white.
“Unless you’re going to do it,” Quan added.
“I already asked her.”
“You know what you have to do if you want her to say yes.”
“I. Don’t. Love. Her,” he gritted out. Why did people keep pushing him on this? It wasn’t like he enjoyed saying he didn’t love her. He wanted to love her. He just … didn’t.
“Did you get rid of that bike yet?” Quan asked in a casual tone.
Khai’s muscles tightened until the blood vessels on his arm bulged. “No.”
“Maybe you should go do that.” Khai opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get a word out, Quan said, “I gotta go, but you’re coming Saturday, right?”
“Yeah,” Khai said.
“Great. See you then.”
The line disconnected, and the gravity in the room pulled him down further.
This wasn’t just a dance or a night. This was marriage. Esme was marrying Quan. She’d be sharing his apartment with him, maybe even his bed because of the nightmares, smiling at him every day, filling his silence, reading his accounting books.
She would fall in love with Quan. If she could fall for Khai, she’d definitely fall for Quan. And Quan would love her back. Quan would be excellent to her.
Fuck, he didn’t want his brother to be excellent to Esme.
He pressed his palms to his eye sockets until his eyes hurt, so he let his hands drop away, but then he was staring at her glass again. There was only a millimeter or two of water left, and when it was dry, the likelihood of her filling it was basically zero.
What should he do? He couldn’t let her go, and he couldn’t marry her. But he couldn’t let her marry Quan, either. None of the available options were acceptable.
He clenched his jaw and shot to his feet. That meant he had to find another option. And he knew just the one.