Ryder chuckled. “She was a very special woman.”
The duke turned to me and winked. “We Westbury men have a habit of finding the right woman—even if we don’t realize it at the time.”
Nineteen
Ryder
“You look . . .” Darcy pursed her lips as she straightened my lapel and stared into the full-length, free-standing mirror I was facing.
“Handsome?” I suggested.
She shook her head. “Like the groom.”
“Thanks, Darce.” I rolled my eyes. My sister never threw around compliments and apparently she wasn’t about to make an exception just because it was my wedding day. “It’s a good bloody job since I am the groom. Is Scarlett ready?” I checked my watch. Music from downstairs filtered into the room.
“Last time I saw her she, Violet and Harper were trying to figure out how drunk was too drunk for a bride.”
“Jesus.” She needed to be drunk to go through this? Way to make a guy feel good. “You think she’s having second thoughts?” I asked.
Darcy frowned as if she was thinking about her answer. “I think she’s messing about with her girlfriends.”
It sounded like she was trying to get loaded, as if she needed the liquid courage just to marry me. “Do you think I should be forcing her to go through with this wedding?”
“Forcing her?” Darcy said, picking up the red rose and lily of the valley that was to be fixed to my lapel. “You’re not forcing her to do anything. You’re paying her, remember?”
Of course, I hadn’t forgotten I was paying her. It had started off as the perfect solution but the more time went on and I got to know her, the more time we spent together in and out of the bedroom, the more it was clear that getting married was bigger than I’d let myself imagine.
“You’re both getting what you need out of this,” Darcy said.
I wasn’t sure it was an equal trade. “I feel like I’m taking more than I’m giving. I’m a selfish fuck.” I stared at the flowers in her hand as Darcy began to fiddle with the pin at the back.
“You’re so dramatic. She’s getting what she wants. You’re getting what you want. What’s the big deal?”
An awkwardness lodged in my stomach. I wasn’t sure Scarlett was getting what she wanted. She’d been married before. She knew what a normal wedding day would feel like—a day when the bride and groom were in love. Wouldn’t this be more difficult for her? Knowing how it should be? “Isn’t your wedding day a big day for a woman? Isn’t it meant to be about love and the start of a life together?”
“Have you developed a Disney addiction I’m not aware of?” Darcy asked, straightening her skirt. “Scarlett’s not some na?ve eighteen-year-old girl you’ve tricked into marrying you. She knows what she’s doing. And anyway, she likes you.”
The corners of my mouth twitched at the thought that Scarlett liked me. “Maybe.” The feeling was mutual. She was cool and sexy. Funny and charming. She’d handled Frederick and Victoria like a pro, and Grandfather had clearly taken to her. If I could have designed a fake wife from a blank sheet of paper, I couldn’t have imagined better than Scarlett.
Fuck, I’d seen the woman naked. No question. I’d won the fake-wife lottery.
Darcy’s gaze flickered between my lapel and the reflection of the flowers in the mirror, then she straightened out my jacket one last time. “I don’t see how the deal you struck with Scarlett is all that different to all those women you shag on a regular basis. In fact, that’s much worse, them you use and just don’t give a shit. So why have you suddenly grown a conscience when it comes to Scarlett?”
“It’s not the same.” But she was right. I used all the women I slept with but it was mutual. “I don’t pretend anything else is on offer when I sleep with a woman.”
Darcy frowned. “You said you’d been completely upfront with Scarlett.”
“I have.” I wasn’t quite clear why this felt so different. But it was. The women who came before her, rightly or wrongly, hadn’t mattered to me. Because I didn’t know them, and I didn’t want to. But I did know Scarlett. Liked her. More than that, I respected her.
“You might be feeling like you got the better end of the deal, but as long as you are both happy, then surely that’s all that matters?”
“It’s not too late to call this off.” I let out a long exhale.
“How does that help anyone, you idiot? Scarlett ends up losing her business. You end up losing yours. You upset Grandfather, me—”
“I don’t know, okay?” I pushed my hands through my hair. “Maybe I can just loan Scarlett the money and talk to Frederick.”
Darcy folded her arms and cocked her hip. Damn, I was in trouble. She’d been doing the same pre-fight dance since we were kids. “Don’t be stupid. Frederick doesn’t give two shits about you. He’d relish the opportunity to hurt you, to ruin you. And anyway, it’s far too late to try for a deal. If you were to offer him the title and the estate right now in exchange for signing over your business, he’d laugh in your face. And then what? If you try to marry Scarlett anyway, he’d know it was all for show.”
Of course, she was right. I knew that. I’d known it since I first heard Frederick could get control over the Westbury Group upon my grandfather’s passing. It was why I’d proposed this deal with Scarlett in the first place. If there’d been another viable solution, I’d have thought of it by now. It was just that now I knew Scarlett, it was more difficult to have her lie for me. It was bad enough that my grandfather and sister were embroiled in this deceit. I was asking a lot of Scarlett. And although she seemed to be taking it in her stride, I couldn’t help but think I’d underestimated her role in my scheme.
“You could always buy Scarlett a wedding gift as an additional thank you,” Darcy said.
I nodded slowly. I could but I was sure Scarlett wouldn’t be interested in further financial rewards. “You know, she’s not that girl.” Satisfied with my reflection, I turned away from the mirror and glanced around for the rings. We’d agreed on a simple service. No bridesmaids, no best man. It seemed the right thing to do. If this was a real wedding, I think I’d prefer simple in any event.
“You don’t think she’s interested in the title, do you?” Darcy asked.
I laughed. “No. Not at all. I just mean that it’s her business that she’s trying to save. She’s very passionate about it. The money is just what she needs to do that.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
Scarlett and I were similar in lots of ways. I’d long since stopped caring about the money I made. I was one of those people who genuinely enjoyed their job—the deal, the sense of responsibility I felt for my employees, the feeling of building something of my own. It was a satisfaction unlike any other. Scarlett had that, too.