The Wrong Groom

Marlowe heard the car in the driveway before she heard the front door, and her stomach dropped straight through the floor.

She'd spent the last three hours rehearsing a version of herself calm enough to pass inspection. Showered until her skin felt raw. Changed twice. Practiced her own face in the bathroom mirror until the panic sitting behind her eyes looked something close to normal. None of it felt like enough now that the moment had actually arrived.

Lucian was already in the living room when she came down the stairs, a glass of something amber in his hand, posture loose against the back of the couch like he'd been there all day with nothing on his mind. He glanced at her once, a brief unreadable flick of his eyes, and said nothing.

The front door opened.

"Honey." Adrian's voice carried through the foyer, warm and easy, the kind of voice built for rooms full of people watching him. He came around the corner already smiling, suit jacket slung over one shoulder, looking exactly like the man she'd married. Looking exactly like the man currently sitting on the couch behind her.

Marlowe's whole body went rigid for one terrible second before she forced it to unclench.

"Hey." She crossed the room and let him kiss her, brief and soft, his hand settling at her waist like it belonged there. She had to remind herself it did belong there. He was the one with the legal claim. He just wasn't the one who'd earned it.

"I am so sorry about last night." He pulled back, brushing a strand of hair from her face with a tenderness that should have felt nice and instead felt like static against her skin. "I know that's not how either of us wanted our first night to go."

"It's fine," she said, and the lie came out smoother than she expected. "These things happen."

Adrian's gaze slid past her to the couch. "Lucian. You're still here."

"Figured I'd stick around until you got back." Lucian's voice was even, almost bored, nothing in it that hinted at anything that had happened in that house overnight. "Made sure your wife wasn't completely abandoned on her wedding night."

Something passed across Adrian's face, quick and gone, there and then smoothed over before Marlowe could fully name it. "Thoughtful of you."

"I try."

The two of them looked at each other for a beat too long, something unspoken moving between them that Marlowe couldn't read, old and tangled and clearly not something either of them planned on explaining to her anytime soon.

Adrian turned back to her, the warmth snapping back into place like a switch flipped. "Did he behave himself? I told him to behave."

"He was a perfect houseguest," Marlowe said, and felt Lucian's eyes land on her from across the room, steady, daring her to say one wrong word.

"Good." Adrian set his jacket over the back of a chair, loosening his tie with the easy confidence of a man who'd never once questioned whether a room belonged to him. "I want to take you to dinner tonight. Somewhere nice. Properly start this marriage off the way it should have started last night."

"I'd like that," she said, because it was easier than explaining what she'd actually like, which was several hours alone to figure out how she was supposed to survive this.

Dinner happened at a restaurant with white tablecloths and a wine list longer than the menu. Adrian talked the entire time, easy and charming, telling stories about deals he'd closed and people he'd outmaneuvered, and Marlowe nodded in the right places and laughed where laughing seemed required and felt every word land somewhere far away from where she actually was.

It wasn't until the check came that the first crack showed.

"You barely touched your food," Adrian said, signing the receipt without looking up. "You feeling okay?"

"Just tired. Long day."

"You should eat more than that." He finally looked at her, and his voice carried something underneath the casual concern, something with edges. "I don't like watching you waste good food. People who grew up the way you did should know better than that."

Marlowe blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I just mean." He smiled, smoothing it over fast, but the words had already landed and there was no taking them back. "Your father's situation. Money's been tight for your family for years, hasn't it? Seems strange to be picky about a meal like this when plenty of people would be grateful for it."

The comment sat in her chest like a stone. She thought of every dinner she'd skipped so her father could afford his medication. Every job she'd worked through college to keep the lights on. The casual cruelty of it, dressed up as concern, stunned her into silence for a second longer than she wanted to give him.

"That's not fair," she said quietly.

"It's just true." He reached across the table and covered her hand with his, and the gesture should have felt comforting and instead felt like a hand closing around something it intended to keep. "I'm not trying to upset you. I just want you to remember how good you have it now. That's all."

She pulled her hand back slower than she wanted to, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing how deep that had cut.

"You said you were stuck at the airport all night," she said, changing direction before she said something she couldn't take back. "Which airport? I tried looking up the delays this morning and couldn't find anything for O'Hare."

Adrian's expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes did, a flicker too quick for most people to catch. "Midway. I misspoke earlier. Long night, easy mistake."

It was a small thing. A forgettable thing, if she let herself believe it was nothing.

But she'd checked Midway too. There hadn't been a single delay reported there either.

She said nothing. She smiled instead, the same practiced smile she'd been wearing all day, and let him pay the check and lead her out to the car with his hand at the small of her back like he owned every inch of her.

By the time they got home, the lights in the house were off except for one lamp in the living room, where Lucian still sat exactly where they'd left him hours earlier, like he hadn't moved at all, like he'd been waiting.

He looked up when they walked in. His eyes found Marlowe's first, holding there for one charged second before sliding to his brother.

"Good dinner?" he asked, voice perfectly level, nothing in it that gave away whatever he was actually thinking.

"Great dinner," Adrian said, already heading toward the stairs, pulling Marlowe along by the hand. "Don't wait up."

Marlowe glanced back once before the staircase swallowed her view of the living room. Lucian hadn't moved. He was still watching her, steady and unreadable, like he already knew something about tonight that she didn't.

And as Adrian's hand tightened slightly around hers, pulling her up toward the bedroom they were supposed to share for real this time, she realized she had absolutely no idea which brother's lie she should be more afraid of.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​