“What if I just pretend to be sick?” Lex says, leaning back against the front door. “They’ll never know I’m faking it.”
I bite back a smile and shake my head. “Lex, you can’t just skip the first poker night you’re meant to go to after we got married, and you know it. They’ll think I’m some kind of tyrant that won’t let you go.”
Following the wedding, we were exempt from attending smaller family events, like weekly dinners or Lex’s monthly poker night. As of yesterday, our time is up, and Lex doesn’t seem overly happy about it.
“Work has been so busy that we’ve barely spent any time together in almost two weeks,” he says, sounding genuinely aggrieved. “When I do have time, you’re either studying or in class.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “We’ve been married for three months, and we haven’t even been able to go on a proper date yet.”
I walk up to him and wrap my arms around his neck. “What are you talking about?” I murmur. “We went for dinner two weeks ago, and last month you took me to that art gallery after hours.”
I’ve had so much fun throwing off the reporters that are trying to catch Lex with his alleged lover, and I know he’s had fun with it too. The rumors about him and that model annoyed me so much that I wore a crimson wig when he took me out for milkshakes, and then a blonde one the week after. Every time we go anywhere, they think Lex is seeing someone new. It completely throws The Herald off, and it brings me so much joy to see them scrambling for non-existent details. Wasting their time has become one of my favorite pastimes. Unfortunately, it also got us called into his grandmother’s drawing room, and if not for the selfies I had on hand of us, we probably would’ve been in a world of trouble.
Lex grabs my waist and shakes his head. “No, Raya. I mean a proper date.”
I raise a brow in confusion. “If those weren’t proper dates, what is?” I ask, afraid of what his answer might be. Most of the time, Lex acts like a perfectly ordinary human being, but every once in a while, I’m reminded that the man I married is a billionaire, and nothing is out of reach for him.
“You’ll see,” he says, placing his index finger underneath my chin to tip my face up. I grin at him and rise to my tiptoes, meeting him halfway. He sighs when our lips meet, his grip on me tightening.
“That’s it,” he whispers against my mouth. “I’m not going.”
As if on cue, Pippy’s voice sounds overhead. “Critical alert,” she says, sounding worried. “Xavier Kingston is approximately thirty seconds away from your door, Lex. However, Sierra appears to be driving this way too, and by my calculations, she is three minutes away.”
“How does she know that?”
Lex tenses for a moment, his eyes falling closed. “We have security cameras all over the Windsor Estate,” he says, his voice soft.
I nod and bite down on my lip. The cameras must have caught them both at specific locations and calculated their ETAs. “But… why is this a critical alert?”
“Sierra and Xavier hate each other,” he explains. “They have a longstanding and very serious feud, though no one knows why. It’s so bad that we’ve actually actively been hiding our friendship with Xavier. He was originally just Dion’s best friend, but while Dion lived abroad, he somehow kind of became one of us.” Lex frowns, like he’s trying to think back to the origins of their friendship. “He just started showing up for poker nights even when Dion wasn’t there, and none of us ever questioned it. Sierra would absolutely lose her mind if she knew he comes over once a month to play poker with us.”
Lex drops his head back against the door and groans just as the doorbell rings. “Fucking Xavier. Damn that man,” he mutters, his gaze roaming over my body, regret written all over his face. “I should’ve known one of them would come get me if I tried skipping poker night.”
I bite back a smile and rise to my tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek, and he sighs as he turns and pulls the door open with far more force than necessary. “Run,” he tells the tall and vaguely familiar stranger — Xavier, I assume. “Sierra will be here in a minute or so.”
His eyes widen, and without even questioning Lex’s words or asking for any further information, he just grabs my husband’s arm and marches off, dragging a very reluctant and exceedingly annoyed Lex with him. “Sorry about this,” he calls behind him. “I’ll be sure to introduce myself properly next time! Good night, Mrs. Windsor!”
I just nod and stare at them in disbelief as they disappear around the corner moments before Sierra drives up. Her eyes widen when she finds me standing in front of our open front door, and she smiles so sweetly that I can’t quite fathom why Xavier would respond that way at the mere mention of her. She’s always been nothing but nice to me.
“Hi, Raya,” she says, her tone kind and her cheeks rosy. She tucks her hair behind her ears and smiles nervously. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by unannounced.”
I shake my head and smile back at her, still a little bewildered. “Not at all. It’s so good to see you,” I tell her, stepping aside. “Would you like to come in?”
She shakes her head and wrings her hands. “Actually, I’m here to invite you over for our monthly girls’ night. We call it anti-poker night, because, well… it originated when I realized that my five older brothers had a monthly get-together they refused to invite me to. I’d love for you to join us.”
I grin at her in excitement. I’ve been wanting to get to know the other Windsor girls a little better, but with us being exempt from family obligations, there just hasn’t been any time. The only one I’ve really spoken to on a regular basis is Raven. “I’d love that, if you’ll have me.”
She exhales in relief, her whole face lighting up. “Oh, I’m so glad,” she says, reaching for my hand and squeezing. Sierra explains what to expect at anti-poker night as I put on my shoes and grab my purse, and ten minutes later, we’re pulling up in front of her house, where several other Windsor Motors supercars are already parked.
Nerves hit me hard when I hear the laughter in her living room, and for a moment, I feel like a true intruder. But then Raven rises to her feet and wraps me in a tight hug. “There you are, finally! Grandma forbid us all from overwhelming you in the first few months of your marriage, so we’ve all been counting down the days until we could finally hang out with you. I can’t wait to hear about everything you’ve put The Herald through — it’s just brilliant. It’s honestly finally made it fun for me to read their garbage articles.”
Valentina grins at me and holds up a liquor bottle with no labels on it whatsoever, while Celeste excitedly hands me a shot glass with Raya Windsor engraved on it. Faye, on the other hand, smirks from ear to ear as she holds up a photo album.
“Raya,” she says, giggling. “I’ve been dying to show you these photos of Lex as a child that Dion found for me.”
“But first,” Sierra says, “shots.”
My eyes widen, and I don’t have it in me to tell them that I hate doing shots. The pure excitement on my sisters-in-law’s faces is worth the sacrifice, and four shots later, I don’t quite recall why I hated them in the first place.
Faye grins to herself as she slides a photo across the coffee table, toward me, and I burst out laughing with her as I lift it to take a closer look. Lex must’ve been no older than eight, and he looks completely unfazed as Sierra puts makeup on him, her face scrunched up in concentration. Valentina hands me another photo in which he’s smiling from ear to ear, standing in between Luca and Sierra, all three of them dressed in matching pink dresses, clownish makeup on their faces.
“He’s always just been so patient and sweet,” Sierra says. “Growing up, he always indulged me, no matter what. He’s never not made time for me when I’ve asked him to, no questions asked.”
She tenses when she turns over the page in one of the albums on her coffee table, and I only just about catch a glimpse of a photo of Lex with a blonde girl, his arm wrapped around her and the sweetest smile on his face as he looks at her. I’ve never seen that expression on his face — so relaxed, so in love. Sierra snaps the album shut, a forced smile on her face as she glances at me, clearly hoping I didn’t notice.
“Who is she?” I ask, unable to help myself. Lex told me he’d never introduced a woman to his family before, so what was that? The photo looked like it might’ve been taken in a college dorm, and unease settles in my stomach.
“No one you need to worry about,” Valentina reassures me, but she looks just as nervous as Sierra does.
Raven wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me in for a side hug. “All that matters is that you’re the woman he married,” she murmurs, but she knows as well as I do that he didn’t marry me by choice. Celeste and Faye exchange looks, clearly as curious as I am, but no one says a thing, the room descending into silence.
Lex and I are making the best of the situation we were thrust into, and I know he’s trying to be a good husband, but he’s never once looked at me the way he looked at the girl in that photo. I suspect he never will.
“Oh, look what arrived today!” Sierra says, fake cheer in her voice as she jumps up and grabs a box from the cabinet in the corner, clearly trying to change the subject. “I completely forgot to tell you all. I knew there’s something I forgot to fill you in on.”
My eyes widen when she opens the box to reveal long spikes, her eyes twinkling. “Oh God,” Celeste murmurs. Faye stares at Sierra wide-eyed, and Val and Raven sigh, almost simultaneously.
“I’m going to superglue these all over Xavier’s driveway. I can’t believe that asshole acquired the theme park I’ve fought tooth and nail for right from under my nose. He did it to spite me, and we all know it. If he wants a wild ride, I’ll give him one.”
“That, um… that would get you arrested, Sierra,” I say cautiously, surprised by how relatively unfazed everyone in the room is. It took me a moment to realize who he is, the name ringing a bell, though I struggled to place it. Xavier Kingston is a real estate magnate, best known for how ruthless and unforgiving he is. The Kingstons aren’t a family anyone would dare offend — unless you’re a Windsor, I suppose.
Val just shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time she gets arrested over something she did to Xavier.”
Raven nods as she leans back on the sofa. “It’s fine. Xavier probably deserves it. This is actually relatively tame.” She shakes her head, her eyes roaming over her best friend. “Besides, there isn’t much Sierra could do to him that he won’t let her get away with.”
The words just remind me of the photo they tried to distract me from. That’s how Lex looked at that girl — like there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, nothing he wouldn’t let her get away with. He looked in love, and I’ve never seen him look so happy before. Certainly not with me.
