I smiled and shrugged. Her anger had to cut through several layers of mellow drunken euphoria to have any kind of sharp effect on me. I was at that perfect state of just having had enough to feel good without going over the top into melancholy.
“Welcome to being married, Cranberry.”
And then I swooped in for a kiss despite her purported annoyance with me. In this condition, I found I couldn’t resist her, so I chose not to. The moment there was a flicker of response from her, my hands were on her neck, holding her head to mine.
My body against her body. My mouth against her mouth. My hands sifting through her glossy, thick hair. Her hands came up first to cling to the lapels of my jacket for a few seconds before giving me a hard shove away.
I probably deserved that.
“I said I was annoyed, What I really meant was pissed off,” she hissed in a low voice so that no one would overhear.
I swallowed. “Kat—”
Heels clopped across the imported stone floor toward us. Before I could turn to see who it was, the generous whiff of designer scent, always Chanel no. 5, gave it away.
All I could do was fumble to straighten my coat so that my current state of arousal wasn’t obvious before turning to face my mother.
“I’ve been looking all over for you two. Aren’t you just the most adorable lovebirds?” She was using her fake-nice sing-songy tone of voice that meant she was irritated or just plain angry about this situation but she was never going to let it show. Especially not to her new daughter-in-law’s face, anyway. I recognized it instantly after enduring a lifetime of it.
Kat ducked her head demurely as if embarrassed and rolled her swollen lips into her mouth.
“It’s my fault,” I said after clearing my throat. “My wife is so gorgeous that I couldn’t go another second without kissing her.”
Mother laid a hand on my arm and smiled, gave a fake laugh and turned to Kat. “Of course. I was a newlywed once myself, you know. It wasn’t so long ago that I can’t remember how that felt. Lucas was a honeymoon baby, after all.”
Ugh. No thanks for that mental image.
My mother, still focusing on Kat, gave one of her sickly sweet high society smiles while settling her free hand over her heart. Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?
“I just want to let you know again how thrilled we are to have you in our family.”
Kat’s eyes widened, and she gave a small smile. “Oh, thank you. That’s very kind. I’m happy to be here.”
Mother darted an unreadable look at me and then proceeded to talk quickly. A sudden sinking in my stomach warned me only seconds before the words were out of her mouth.
“We’re having a family reunion up at the vineyard next month. I have to ask, since we weren’t able to attend the wedding, we’d love for you to be there—”
“Mother, I’ve already said we need to work—”
She pivoted on me. “It’s only for a long weekend. No one—not even you—needs to work that much. And there’ll be relatives you haven’t seen in ages, from the east coast and from the Netherlands.”
My back went rigid with anger, frustrated at her typical refusal to listen to anything I had to say. Kat’s head jerked quickly to look at me. Our gazes met and there was something there. That anger from before and also a little of her signature feistiness.
I turned back to my mother to head Kat off. “For the last time—”
“We’d love to. That sounds wonderful,” Kat overrode me.
Mother ignored me completely and honed in on her new daughter-in-law, whom she was, even now, most likely categorizing as an ally. Fuuuuck.
I shot a glare at Kat and Mother caught it. “Oh Lucas, don’t be like that. It will be fun. Romantic. We’ll put you up in the Lover’s Villa guest house all by yourselves. The reunion is going to be fantastic with amazing food, games and there’s the new spa we just had built. It will be the honeymoon you should have given her when you got married.”
Great. More recrimination. Still more expectations I had not lived up to. Because why not? I hadn’t already disappointed them enough, which seemed to be their unspoken message to me in practically every single phrase they uttered. And now my only ally, Kat, had become a turncoat.