“Amen to that.” He raised his glass to me and took a long pull of his beer. “Have you warned Luna that your ex is going to be there?”
“Not yet. I didn’t think it would be a great selling point when I was trying to convince her to come along. I asked her to pretend to be my wife while we’re there, so I think she knows something is up. She just doesn’t know what.”
My brother’s jaw dropped and disapproval hardened his gaze. “You asked her to do what now?”
“I told her to pretend to be married to me. You know Samantha. If I showed up single again, what do you think she would have done?”
“So instead, you thought it was a good idea to ask Luna to pretend to be your wife?”
I frowned at his tone. “Yes. What about it?”
“Well, that’ll certainly show Sam,” he said sarcastically, shaking his head as he drained the rest of the beer. “I hope you know what you’re doing, man.”
“Of course, I do. I’m taking a friend to Italy, all expenses paid and more, and am asking her to do me a favor to keep my fucking ex off my back. Where’s the harm in that?”
“You’re playing with fire, bro.” He ripped a piece of chicken off a wing and chewed before filling his glass again. “You’ve been the saving grace for our wedding, and I know I owe you for that, but I just can’t get behind this.”
“Luna has been the real saving grace.”
“Exactly.” He nodded and pointed at me with his glass. “Don’t fuck it up, man.”
“I’m not fucking anything up because there’s nothing to fuck up,” I said. “We’ve been over this. She’s a friend who’s helping me out. When I first invited her, she wasn’t going to say yes. Since I couldn’t have her saying no after I found out Sam was going, I added a little incentive. That’s all there is to it.”
“You really are dick, you know that?” With another shake of his head, he finished the wing he was busy with and grabbed another one. “She’s a nice girl and you can bet your fucking ass she’s not going to like it when she finds out why you’re taking her.”
“She knows I’m taking her so she can pretend to be my wife. Does the reason why I need a wife make any difference? No.”
“I don’t think she’s going to see it that way. It’s one thing knowing your friend needs a wacky favor like this. It’s another thing entirely to know they’re using you against their ex.” He tore another piece of meat off the bone, chewing as he narrowed his eyes in thought. “That’s if she even sees you as a friend. You two looked mighty cozy the other night.”
“Whatever. Both of us know the deal between us. We’re friends, we fuck sometimes, and that’s it. Nothing cozy about that.”
“Maybe not to you,” he muttered into his beer.
If only he knew that it wasn’t what was going on in her head I was worried about. I’d decided to stop thinking about what was going on in mine, sure, but it was easier said than done. “Look, Peter, I know you guys like her, but she’s not the girl for me, okay? She loves love. She wants hearts and flowers and a white poofy dress. I can’t give that to her.”
“Big difference between can’t and won’t, brother.” Disapproval crept back into his tone. “What Sam did to you was fucked up, but I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Jenny isn’t Samantha. Luna isn’t Samantha. There’s something going on between the two of you. It’s like you’re doing this dance where neither of you want to admit it, and you keep going to and fro, but eventually, it’s going to blow up in your faces.”
“How very prophetic of you.”
He rolled his eyes and shoved his hands through his hair, agitation coming off him in waves. “I know you think you’ve got this shit figured out, but you don’t. You just can’t see it yet.”
“So, what? You don’t think I should have invited Luna to Italy?” I crossed my arms to keep from slamming my fists down on the table. “Tough fucking luck because it’s already done. I can’t uninvite her now, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. We’re already sleeping together, and we really are friends. What difference does it make if I ask her to wear a bogus ring while we go away together?”
He ground his teeth together. “I’m not saying you should uninvite her. I’m just saying taking her with you to make your ex jealous is wrong.”
“I’m not taking her to make Sam jealous. For God’s sake. I don’t give a fuck what Samantha feels when she sees us together. I only care that she doesn’t spend the entire conference talking shit about what I supposedly feel. I also don’t want that smug asshole husband of hers looking at me like he pities me for losing the gold-digging whore. It’s been years of the same thing and I’m fucking over it.”
Peter held up his palms in surrender, dragging in a deep breath. “I get that you’re over it, dude. Again, I’m not saying you shouldn’t take Luna. I’m saying you should take her because you want to, not to use her in front of a woman who was shit to you. Mark my words, this is not going to end well.”
Chapter 29
Luna
“Sorry for making you drive with me to pick Adi up,” April said as she flicked her indicator on. “I really didn’t realize it was this late already and I’m dying to know your great news.”
“I’ve found a solution for my money problems.” I grinned at her. “Like, all of them, even the ones you don’t know about.”
She turned her head to look at me and slid her sunglasses down her nose. Thankfully, we were stopped at a traffic light, so her brief glare didn’t put us in any danger.
“You have financial problems I don’t know about?”
“I did. I mean, who doesn’t, right? I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to worry you, but I was afraid I was going to lose the shop.”
“What?” The pitch of her voice nearly pierced my eardrums. “How did I not know about this?”
“Like I said, I didn’t want to worry you.” I shrugged and inclined my head at the green light. “Stop looking at me and pay attention to the road. We do want to get to the school alive, right?”
A car honked behind us and April flipped the driver off in the rearview mirror as she shifted her car into gear. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were in such deep trouble. I knew you owed some money and stuff. I kind of figured it was a problem when you started talking about extending the shop’s hours and all that, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“It was.” I swallowed the lump that appeared in my throat when I even thought about the visit from that banker. “But it’s all over now.”
“How?” She frowned and took her sunglasses off this time, obviously deeming it important for me to see her expressions properly while we were having this conversation. “Please tell me you didn’t go to a loan shark or something.”
“Nothing like that,” I assured her as I waved my hand. “Cyrus is helping me out actually. He’s going to pay off all my debt and in return, all I have to do is to go to Italy with him this weekend and pretend to be his wife.”