One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

It’s a skill I have yet to master.

“So you did end your detox,” she says. “An hour ago you were swearing up and down that —”

“Do you need something?” I interrupt.

“Do you have the knife?”

I blink.

“Why would I have a knife?” I ask, turning slightly away from Seth, though he keeps his hand on my back. “Where would I have a knife?”

“The cake knife,” she says, as if it’s obvious.

“Where would I be keeping the cake knife?”

“No,” she says, exasperated, waving one hand. “Do you know where it is?”

“That’s not what you asked.”

“Do you? You were the last one with it.”

I stare, blankly, at my second-youngest sister, and wonder if the pregnancy she hasn’t told us about yet is affecting her brain.

“Bree was putting dinosaurs on it and then you were using it as a boat or something, back in the bridal suite,” she says. “No one’s seen it since then, and they want to cut the cake soon.”

I stare at a dancing couple for several seconds. It was a space elevator, actually, and Bree was sending her dinosaurs on a mission to find aliens, but then we had to go line up for the wedding and I have no idea what happened to the cake knife.

“It’s there somewhere,” I finally say.

“So helpful.”

“Can’t they just use a regular knife?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

“This one’s monogrammed.”

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, rub my knuckles to my forehead.

“It might be on that window ledge,” I finally say, the last place I remember seeing it. “If not, try one of those shelves.”

“Thanks,” she says, and turns away. Then she turns back. “Oh, and they want you and your date to line up over there for the shoe game.”

“He’s not my date,” I say, just as his thumb skips over my bra clasp again, then stops.

“Then you go line up over there,” she says, half-shouting over the music. “They want us in the background of all the shots.”

Now she turns away and does her Moses thing back through the dance floor. I turn to find Seth looking at me, still undone as his hand slides off my back.

“What? You’re not,” I say, briefly closing my eyes. “I gotta go do this thing.”

“Of course,” he says, perfectly polite if also cool, distant.

I step away, walk across the dance floor. Whatever power Olivia has I don’t seem to possess, because I’m weaving and dodging all the way back to where the rest of the bridal party is standing.

When I get there, Vera looks around.

“No Seth?” she asks.

Just like that, I feel shitty. Not about Vera. Vera can still go fuck herself, but telling Seth he’s not my date and just walking off was kind of a dick move, wasn’t it?

Crap.

“No,” I tell her without further explanation, and her brow furrows slightly, then relaxes.

“Well, I guess the sides will just have to be uneven,” she sighs. “All right. You’re all going to stand behind Ava and be her backdrop, and the groomsmen will do the same for Thad.”

“Cool, sounds great,” I lie, and Vera pats my shoulder, then walks off.

My sisters are chatting with each other, laughing about something. As I move into their circle I glance over at the dance floor, but I don’t see Seth. Not even dancing with someone else. Bernadette maybe.

I was definitely a dick.Chapter SeventeenSethI lean against the huge stone column and take another cold, deep breath. Behind me I can still hear the noise of the wedding, even though I’m out on the manor’s wraparound porch, staring out over the barely-lit garden, the chateaus vague beacons of light at the other end.

A thousand dollars a night. Holy shit. I know Delilah’s family is loaded — I’ve been to their mansion, I’ve seen their horse stables — but every so often I get a solid, stark reminder that money means something completely different to them.

One night in that chateau is almost a mortgage payment on my townhouse. Who the hell pays that for one night?

It’s easy to feel inadequate at events like this. Even though I’m far from the only person wearing a suit instead of a tuxedo, I feel underdressed. I’ve never played polo in my life. I don’t golf. I don’t fly first class.

Sure, I own a successful business, own a home, and even paid the last of my student loans off last year, but right now it feels like those things pale in comparison to inheriting my parents’ ridiculous wealth. Work hard and achieve goals? Cool, but have you ever thought about spending a month in Europe and never looking at how much anything costs?

I don’t think I could ever buy something without knowing the price. Hell, right now I could tell you the price of gas at every station within a ten-mile radius of my house.