together. The close contact might cause the universe to implode, like the clash of matter and anti-matter,” I cackled.
“Maybe he’s just Bizarro Adam—like Bizarro Superman,” Mia tossed back and we both laughed while April frowned at us.
“Put a jaunty goatee on him and he could be Mirror-Universe Adam!” I shot back.
April gave us both a look. “You two are way too geeky for this book nerd.”
Alex and Jenna soon joined the rest of us girls around the snack table while the guys stayed in the pool. Once we discreetly caught Jordan’s attention, I made sure to extend my hand while April blatantly ogled my ring. When we looked again, Jordan had his head turned away from us. We laughed anyway.
“So what’s going on over here?” Jenna asked as she refilled her glass of lemonade. “Are you two comparing notes about married life?”
Mia and I exchanged glances, and I sipped my own iced tea. “Sure.”
“Any insights into the ‘species male’ that we can take wisdom from?” Jenna asked.
Mia’s mouth twisted. “Being married is kind of is like seeing how the sausage is made.”
All of us snorted at that while Mia who apparently heard what she’d said on delay, blushed as red as Jenna’s bikini. “I didn’t mean that sausage.”
“And you, Kat? What insights have you discovered about your new hubby?” Jenna asked.
“Well the biggest shocker was finding out that he’s actually European nobility,” I deadpanned. All the girls thought that one was yet another hilarious joke. I disabused them of that notion.
April’s dark blue eyes widened like two big shiny toonies. “What, for real? What kind of nobility?”
“His dad is a Dutch Baron, I think?”
Two seconds later, April had a phone in her hand. Who knew where she’d been packing that thing. Did her swimsuit have secret bra pockets in it or something?
“His last name is Walker, right?” Her manicured fingers started flying over the glass surface of her phone. “Doesn’t sound very Dutch.”
“Uh, no actually that’s his middle name.”
Mia’s head jerked in my direction. “What, he’s got like a secret identity?”
I shrugged, glancing toward where he sat talking with some other guys in the deep end. Would he mind having this fact divulged? He never said anything about keeping it a secret.
“I guess he feels it’s easier to use his middle name. And he doesn’t want anyone making a big stink about it, so please promise me none of you will.”
The girls nodded or stated their agreement all around and then April handed her phone to me. “Just to satisfy our curiosity, though…”
I typed Lucas’s family name into Google after scouring my brain to remember how it was spelled. It was ridiculous that I hadn’t thought to Google the family myself. Once the phone was back in her hand, April hit the search button and her eyes widened. “Holy cow! You weren’t joking. Ancestral family mansion in Utrecht. That’s a castle, not a mansion. Wow, it’s gorgeous!”
She passed the phone to others who scrolled down the search—society pages, headlines, Julia’s personal lifestyle brand and social media accounts.
Jenna clicked on one of the links. “This is about your wedding!”
I frowned. That was incredibly odd. “Really?” Had his family announced our marriage somehow? I held out my hand for the phone after Jenna had scrolled through the page clearly looking confused.
It was Lucas’s wedding, all right. His first one. To Claire. And it appeared that the family had spared no expense on that affair. As in at least a seven or eight figure expense. Wow. Her dress looked like something straight out of the Duchess of Cambridge’s inner circle. Almost certainly a designer gown, probably custom-made.
How glamorous. And he was stunning. What a beautiful couple they made, standing under an arch of gorgeous of flowers near a gazebo in the family vineyard. Something tightened in my gut.
I clicked on the X to close out the window on the phone’s browser. I did not want to explain all that tonight. “Ah, must have been a cousin.” I handed the phone back to April.
She pocketed the phone. In that brief glimpse I got, however, I’d seen, alongside pictures of the happy couple, their formal announcement of marriage. Clearly, from the details, it had been the ultimate society wedding with a massive budget to match.
And he’d looked so young in those photos. Fresh-faced and so far from the cynical present. He was so handsome in that tux and smiling. It made me ache to think he’d sat stoically across from me and signed papers in