“I understand completely. So your wedding, as captured in some screenshots from later-deleted tweets and Instagrams, seems to have been unconventional…” she prompted.
“Yes, because we’re an unconventional pair. Most people, in all fairness, don’t get married the same night they meet. So we made it up as we went along. There was no denying that we had chemistry and some sort of—I know, corny again—connection that we shared. So instead of trying to date and have some kind of truncated courtship, we fast forwarded through the boring parts and headed straight for the altar.”
“Elvis,” Marj put in with a smile, “which was funny and surreal, but the thing is, Brandon made everything so personal and so special. It wasn’t like I wandered into a plastic chapel insta-wedding with a stranger. I knew deep down it was me he was marrying, that he wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him…I mean, the cake alone…this story, it just explains everything you’d ever need to know about how I’d walk through hell to be with this man—“ Marj clung to his arm and smiled up at him. Brandon was on his phone again.
“Just a minute. Sorry,” he mumbled, typing on the touch screen swiftly.
“No, it’s fine. We’re just doing an interview about how happily married we are. Now put away the damn phone, Brandon,” she said, her smile never cracking. He dropped the phone and burst out laughing.
“What? It’s a beautiful fucking story about the mocha cake and you just completely shit all over it with your stupid email,” she said, laughing until her eyes streamed and she swiped beneath them ineffectually with her fingers.
“Ahem,” the reporter cleared her throat, “if we could continue…”
“I assume you won’t strike that from your article,” Brandon said.
“Never. But go ahead with the cake story.”
“Right. Well, back at the suite, after the pillow butler was finished describing basically all the kinds of geese and waterfowl who had given their lives to make these pillows,” Marj said.
“They don’t give their lives. It’s their feathers. Do you think they kill sheep to make wool?” Brandon teased.
“No. But anyway, Brandon had ordered me a chocolate mocha wedding cake to be delivered. I love coffee, even more than I love chocolate and if there’s ever a cake worth dying for…I mean, seriously, if you’re ever in Vegas, you need to get this cake. I don’t care who you are. This cake is heaven. Brandon had gotten me the perfect one to celebrate our wedding, and all he wanted was to see me enjoy it,” she enthused.
“She thought me completely chivalrous,” he said fondly.
“So would you rather have cake or diamonds?” she asked.
“Cake, most definitely.”
“So if Brandon screws up, he can just send cake. And it’s a helluva lot cheaper.”
They all laughed.
The interview wrapped up with talk of charitable work and the art pieces they’d picked up during their travels—hastily acquired bright artifacts from Dubai specifically. After Dayna and her crew left, Marj collapsed against Brandon.
“Do you think I blew it completely or did she think it was charming?”
“There’s no telling, but if all that makeup’s coming off on my Hugo Boss suit—” he laughed as she raised her face from his lapel.
“I think I’ll go wash all this off in the shower. Want to come?”
“Sure, I just need to brush up on some of my design terms first. I’m not entirely sure what midcentury modern is…”
“Something the stylist told me to say.”
“So is the house actually done in that style?”
“I have no idea. So do you want to research it or get naked?”
“I’ll go with nudity every time,” he said, “which accounts for my abysmal knowledge of interior decorating.”
Chapter 8
That very evening, the publicist called to tell them the teaser for the story was live online and would be going to press in full within the week. The whole article was emailed to Brandon, and the two of them read it on his tablet in bed.
The whirlwind romance of Manhattan corporate raider and disputed Power Regions scion Brandon Cates and his sudden bride, former employee Marjorie Reynolds, has been suspect from the beginning. From the neon lights of the Vegas strip, their union came as a shock to society denizens who long expected Cates to wed a suitable debutante to secure his inheritance. The bounty attached to his late father’s will came with strings—the necessity of a marriage by age thirty. At more than three-quarters past twenty-nine and with no fiancée in sight, sources believed that Cates wed a complete stranger merely to gain full rights to his father’s fortune.