My (Mostly) Fake Wedding - Penelope Bloom Page 0,27

up, I noticed a set of keys sitting by the door.

Oh, this was too perfect. She locked herself out.

I went to the door, checking the peep hole. There she was, tiny and warped so the top of her head was bulging up toward me. “What do you want?” I growled against the door.

Belle jumped back, dropping her bag. She squinted at the door. “Chris?”

“Wait there,” I said.

I jogged to her speaker and turned on her eighties playlist. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” picked up right where it had left off from earlier that evening. I danced my way to the door, then unlocked it.

Belle let herself in with slumped shoulders and a defeated look on her face.

I frowned after her, still shimmying to the beat. “The song is about girls having fun. Not girls pouting.”

She pressed a button on the speaker, then went to her couch and sank into it. “Do I even want to ask why you were in my apartment with the door locked?”

“We agreed to meet.”

“I thought you were joking.”

“Why do you look like someone just poured mud in your coffee?” I sat next to her, turning to face her on the couch.

She was staring at the ground, shaking her head. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

I dug in the bag I’d brought, then pulled out a big bottle of the fanciest wine I could get my hands on. “The sommelier said someone got murdered over this particular vintage once. Tried to swap it for a cheaper one at his colleague’s house and the guy axed him when he found out.”

Belle scrunched up her face. “Seriously?”

“That’s what the guy said. But if all else fails, it was expensive. So that means it’s good.”

“Did you bring glasses?”

“The only way to drink expensive wine is straight from the bottle.”

Belle looked like she didn’t want to, but she grinned a little. “I’m almost positive that’s not true.”

I’d already sampled the wine, so I was able to easily tug the cork free. It came loose with a satisfying little pop. I held the bottle toward Belle. “Give it a try. You look like you could use it.”

Belle was giving the bottle a doubtful look, but she eventually reached for it and took a swig. “I’m not sure it justifies murder, but that is pretty good.”

I studied her as she took another drink. “What do you do for fun?”

Belle set the bottle down on the coffee table. “What is this, an interview?”

“We’re supposed to be engaged. I should probably know at least a little about you in case someone asks.”

“Well… I do like to make decorations. I have this machine that prints letters onto things, and I’ll make wreaths or wood signs or shirts. That kind of thing.”

I couldn’t say why, but I liked her answer. I guess it was refreshing to hear a woman say she enjoyed doing something other than club hopping or “partying.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Any other hobbies?”

“I got really into golf for a little bit, but my father kind of spoiled that.”

“Wait. Your ‘father?’ Only rich people or people who hate their dads call them ‘father.’ Which one are you?”

Belle made a sour face. “That’s so not true. I’m sure plenty of people who love their parents call their dad father.”

“Well?” I asked. “Are your parents rich?”

She let out a breath. “Kind of.”

“And do you like them?”

“No.”

I laughed. “It’s not easy being so right about everything all the time.”

She grabbed the wine and took a long drink. “I’m going to need more of this if you’re planning to keep talking.”

“What does your dad do?”

Little by little, Belle’s frosty stance toward me thawed. I couldn’t say if it was the wine or the barrage of questions I threw her way, but I found myself laughing and enjoying myself. She even agreed to let me order pizza, which we ate off her coffee table while we watched a family friendly, dubbed version of Snakes on a Plane.

Belle kept offering me some of the wine, but I had a game tomorrow, and I never drank the night before a game. Okay, almost never. Besides, I didn’t need to be buzzed to laugh at the dubbers attempt to cover the movie’s twentieth F-bomb in the first few minutes with, “Enough is enough! I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”

When the movie wrapped up, I realized it was already evening. Belle was tipsy, as far as I could tell, but not drunk. I felt