I had to smile at him. I wasn’t quite finished being irritated about the whole after-pizza incident, but he was being awfully nice. Of course, it was in his best interests to keep me happy. I had to remember that.
Don’t let things get too personal.
Well, that was going absolutely stellar so far.
I sighed, re-packing all my office supplies. “So these can go into the spare bedroom, I guess. I don’t know about the rest of this crap.”
“Well, you don’t have to decide right now,” said Daniel, charitably. “When we get back from the honeymoon you’ll have as much time as you need to unpack.”
It must have bothered him, all of these ugly, disorganized boxes invading his impeccable space, but he didn’t say a word about it. I had to give him credit for that. He wasn’t trying to be difficult. It was just a difficult situation. And maybe I’d made it harder than it needed to be, by coming on to him so strongly the day before. Maybe I did feel just a tiny bit remorseful.
Still, though. There was no reason for him to be such a baby about it.
“Yeah, I think maybe I’d better focus on the clothes for now,” I said. “I assume that’s what’s upstairs?”
“Mostly,” he said. “Come on, let’s take a look.”
We spent the next few hours organizing my clothes. He even helped me decide what to get rid of and what to keep, promising me I could rush-order some new stuff online when we were done, so it would get here in time for the honeymoon. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow at how many frayed and hole-ridden clothes I still had, stuff I’d bought before college, the sorts of things that no billionaire’s wife should ever be seen wearing.
After that, I got to shopping. He sat me down on the sofa with his laptop, and handed me his credit card. It looked normal - for some reason, I’d been expecting something heavy and jet-black, like the legendary no-limit card that was said to be accessible only to the very wealthy and influential. But this was just fine. He was just a normal guy, after all.
“Have fun,” he said, winking at me. “There’s no credit limit.”
Or…maybe not.
Chapter Ten
The morning of the wedding dawned warm and clear, a pink sunrise bleeding across the sky. I woke up too early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Of course.
The only things I had left in my apartment were a few clothes and other necessities, most of which I’d already packed for the mystery honeymoon. I wished he’d just tell me where we were going. All of this secrecy made it almost seem…romantic. Like we were a real couple. Clearly, we didn’t need any help getting ourselves confused on that front.
I’d spent the whole day before cleaning every inch of my apartment, in accordance with the three-page-long list of demands my landlord had sent over. Apparently, I wasn’t going to get my three hundred dollar security deposit back if I didn’t give the place the white glove treatment. Of course I didn’t care about the money anymore, but I needed something to do. Anything to take my mind off of the future.
So there was nothing to do on my wedding day except sit and think.
My stomach was in knots. I made myself a cup of mint tea and sat by the window, watching the empty sidewalks slowly fill up with people. I had an appointment at the hair salon in a few hours, and I was going to meet Lindsey there. She was going to stand beside Daniel as his “best man.” I had no one. Not even my father, to walk me down the aisle.#p#分页标题#e#
But that was fine. I’d walk down the aisle by my own damn self. I had two million dollars waiting for me at the end of it.
I had to stop getting caught up in stupid, pointless sentimentality. This was a fake wedding, for God’s sake. There was absolutely no reason to get emotional over it. Weddings were a con to begin with, clearly. The soaring divorce rate spoke to that. I was just helping Daniel take advantage of a very convenient loophole in the immigration laws of the United States that allowed for couples to stay together, if they were willing to sign a piece of paper. It was as simple as that. People did it all the time.
My resolve thus steeled, I drove to the salon with my head held high. If I seemed distant, people would simply write it off as nerves. I had nothing to worry about. I just had to get through the day, and after that, things would settle down into some version of normalcy that I hadn’t quite figured out how to achieve yet. But I knew that I would.
Somehow.
Lindsey chattered at me the whole time we were getting our hair done. I nodded and smiled, but didn’t hear a word of it. None of this meant anything. None of it mattered.
Walking through the marble archway of the art gallery, I was struck again by how breathtaking the place was. They had set up pew-style seating and laid out a long, red carpet for me to walk on.