Accidentally Married to the Billionaire 2(6)
Randolph droned on about rowing crew for Princeton when he was in school, presumably several decades ago. Simon seemed to be in some fashion related to Randolph—not young enough to be the elder’s son, too old to be a brother, surely—a nephew perhaps. She wondered if Simon were his husband, but neither wore a ring and they sat far apart and showed no obvious affection. Which could rightly have described her relation to her own groom, she realized with dismal self-awareness. The self-awareness that made her want to eat a crunchy taco with extra sour cream. She hadn’t eaten anything that greasy in years, fierce as she was about keeping in shape, but a combination of boredom and frustration conspired to make her dream of refried beans.
Marj gazed at her beige fingernails and picked at the cilantro chicken in front of her. She’d read an article last year about how something like thirteen percent of the population perceived cilantro as tasting like soap. She couldn’t be in the miniscule percentile that wins the lottery. Nope, she got lucky and landed in the cilantro-soap minority here. She tried to catch Brandon’s eye but he seemed wholly engrossed in whatever sport Randolph was talking about now.
Unfortunately, Lena managed to meet her gaze and Marj froze like she’d been caught in the crosshairs of a hunting rifle.
“So, tell me about yourself, Margaret,” Lena said, her voice as silky and insinuating as any cartoon villain.
“Well, Lisa…” she smiled, “I studied marketing, and I had just started at Power Regions last month before being dispatched to Las Vegas for our fateful meeting.”
“I know that already,” Lena said rather flatly.
“Yes, it seems you have quite the advantage since you’ve obviously studied me out.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were a good fit for my darling son.”
“Stepson,” Marj said.
She glanced over at Brandon with a smile. “He’s like a son to me. And I couldn’t have him hooking up with somebody that had a criminal past.”
“And did I check out? Because I can supply you with fingerprints.”
“Not necessary. You came out spiffy clean.”
Marj smiled. “Great.”
“Your wedding dress was amazing. Well, for last minute. It’s good you didn’t stick with white. Because white is for purity. And you did look like maybe you had too much to drink.”
Marj felt she’d scored a point by giving nothing away and proving that Lena had trolled the gossip sites for information about their wedding.
“Tell me more,” Lena said.
“What else is there to tell? I’m the luckiest girl in the world, to have such a whirlwind romance with such a wonderful, caring man. Brandon is just amazing, isn’t he?” she said in a voice so bubbly it nearly squeaked.
Marj saw Brandon raise an eyebrow at her, and she beamed back at him, all enthusiasm. She might be a bit too sullied to blush like the bride she was, but she could certainly put on a show of being fascinated by a man who, to tell the truth, was pretty damn irresistible. At least to Marj he was. Maybe not to other, blinder, stupider women, though at the moment Marj thought she herself was perhaps the dumbest person on earth. She’d gotten herself mixed up with this family (possibly Family with the capital letter F) who were, by turns, crazy and litigious. And their food sucked. And she was probably in love with a guy who’d rather talk about a thirty-year-old rowing contest than look at her.
Fuck this. I’m getting tacos.
“I’m from New England,” she said instead of voicing her thoughts, using her preferred euphemism for her hometown of Asswipe, New Jersey (not its official name, but might as well be).
“Really, which part of New England?” Lena inquired, leaning forward so that her rather tremendous cleavage threatened to strain the seams of her LBD.
“Well, Lisa, it’s only a few hours from here. So I grew up a convenient distance from the museums and theater in the city,” she said with a disingenuous smile.
Marj pointedly neglected to mention that the distance was probably only convenient for people whose families had working cars and money for luxury activities more expensive than grabbing a Mountain Dew at the convenience store. She sat there in her understated makeup, pursing her pale, glossed lips and wondering exactly why she wanted to seem like she belonged in that mansion. She was, in fact, like other girls. She wasn’t special and precious and well read and virginal. She liked clubs and tequila and sex with attractive men, and she liked bright nail polish. Hell, her one solitary MAC lipstick was a prized possession without which she felt naked—more so than she would have without underwear. So Marj pushed back her chair and stood up.