“What’s the damned rush?” Cary snapped.
“It just . . . happened.” I couldn’t explain it. I’d thought it was too soon. Still did. But Gideon was the only man I would ever love so completely. When I considered that, I knew Gideon had been right; we’d only be postponing the inevitable. And Gideon needed my promise that I was his forever. My amazing husband who found it so hard to believe he could be loved. “I’m not sorry.”
“Not yet.” Cary shoved both hands into his hair. “Jesus, Eva. You don’t up and marry the first guy you have a serious relationship with.”
“It’s not like that,” I protested, awkwardly avoiding looking at Raúl. “You know how we feel about each other.”
“Sure. You two are whack jobs separately. Together, you’re a goddamn nut house.”
I flipped him the bird. “We’ll work on it. Wearing a ring doesn’t mean we stop figuring things out.”
He dropped into the chair across from me. “What incentive has he got to fix anything? He’s bagged and tagged the prize. You’re stuck with his psychotic dreams and Grand Canyon–sized mood swings.”
“Wait a minute,” I said tightly, feeling the sting of truth in his words. “You didn’t get upset when I told you we were engaged.”
“Because I figured it’d be a year, at the very least, before Monica got the wedding worked out. Maybe a year and a half. At least some time for you two to try living together.”
I let him rant. Better that he did it at thirty thousand feet than in some public venue where the whole world could hear.
He leaned closer, his green eyes fierce. “I’m having a baby and I’m not getting married. You know why? Because I’m too f**ked up and I know it. I’ve got no business hitching a passenger on this wild ride. If he loved you, he’d be thinking about you and what’s best for you.”
“I’m so glad you’re happy for me, Cary. That means a lot.”
The words dripped with sarcasm, but they were honest in their own way. There were girlfriends I could call who would tell me what an amazingly lucky bitch I was. Cary was my closest friend because he always gave it to me straight, even when I desperately wanted sugarcoating.
But Cary was thinking only about the darkness. He didn’t understand the light Gideon brought into my life. The acceptance and the love. The safety. Gideon had given me my freedom back, a life without terror. Giving him vows in return was too simple a repayment for that.
I turned my attention back to Gideon’s profile, scrolling down to see that the most recent post was a link to an article about our engagement. I doubted he’d posted it himself; he was too busy to bother with something like that. But I figured he’d approved it. If not, he had somehow already made it clear that I was important enough to become the one bit of personal news that was okay to be shared on an otherwise business-focused profile.
Gideon was proud of me. Proud to be marrying me, a hot mess with a history of bad choices. Whatever anyone else thought, I knew I was the one who’d bagged and tagged the prize.
“Fuck.” Cary slouched into the chair. “Make me feel like an ass.”
“If the shoe fits . . .” I muttered, clicking on the link to view other photos of Gideon.
It was a mistake.
All the pictures posted by his social media admin were business-related, but the unofficial pictures he’d been tagged in weren’t. There, in living color, were images of him with beautiful women. And they hit me hard. Jealousy clawed and twisted my stomach.
God, he looked amazing in a tuxedo. Dark and dangerous. His face savagely beautiful, his cheekbones and mouth chiseled perfection, his posture confident and more than a little arrogant. An alpha male in his prime.
I knew the photos weren’t recent. I knew the women in them didn’t have firsthand knowledge of his insanely mad skills in bed; he had a rule about that. Neither of which stopped the images from making me twitchy.
“Am I the last to know?” Cary asked.
“You’re the only one.” I glanced at Raúl. “At least on my side. Gideon wants to tell the world, but we’re going to keep it under wraps.”
He studied me. “For how long?”
“Forever. The next wedding we have will be our first as far as anyone else is concerned.”
“You having second thoughts?”
It killed me that Cary didn’t care that we had an audience. I was hyperaware that every move I made, every word I said was being witnessed.
Not that Raúl’s presence had any effect on my answer. “No. I’m glad we’re married. I love him, Cary.”
I was glad Gideon was mine. And I missed him. Worse after seeing those pictures.