I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re mad at me? You were the one who fake-cheated on me, almost ruining our fake relationship.”

“I stormed out.” He stumbled forward and I raised my hands, ready to catch him if he fell. He didn’t. “So that makes me the angry one. You’re on the couch.”

Drunk Hunter was irritating and probably inclined to be more dramatic when we argue. “Fine.” I said. “I’ll have the couch.”

I turned from the bathroom, snatched my pillow from the bed, and dragged myself over to the couch. It wasn’t cold enough to use a blanket, so I propped the pillow and dropped onto the couch, stretching out like I had all of the room in the world. Not far from the couch, I heard Hunter drop onto the bed and sigh. I knew I had to talk to him, to tell him that I wasn’t as invested in this as he was, but now wasn’t the time. What was the point? He’d forget it all by morning, anyway. The time would come when I could clear the air between us. He needed to know that when this was over… I would go back to Eli and we would be together. Who knows, maybe we’d even get married. I smiled at the thought. After everything that we’ve been through, that would be a dream come true.

***

“I think grey is a better choice for him to wear,” one curvy woman snapped at the other.

“Grey? Really? He’s getting married, not going to the office. A midnight navy will work best with his eyes.”

Hunter and I sat at the table across from them just watching them bicker. One of them had yet to turn and ask Hunter what he wanted to wear to his own wedding. More and more people began to filter through the gates of the council’s city—people that were previously aware of the council and wanted to help with the wedding. Despite my first assumptions of having a small wedding in front of the council, it seemed it was going to be a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

“How about a normal, plain black?” I suggested and the look they gave me scared the hell out of me.

“Black?” They both began to laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“No,” Hunter said, nodding his head. “I like black. I want a black suit.”

The two arguing women banded together and turned their frustrations on us. They looked similar and I wondered if they were sisters. Both had bright red hair, whipped up in elegant curls an inch from their skulls. “Black won’t work. We want a light shade, it’ll work best with your dark hair, bright eyes and light complexion.”

Hunter shrugged. “The council might have hired you both to help us, but we can do this all on our own.” They leaned away from us, almost as if they were poisoned by Hunter’s words. “If you want to be involved in this, then you will listen to what we want. Understand?”

They nodded, sadly. “Black, it is.”

In a huff, they gathered all of their fabric samples that were laid out on the table and collected all of their strange shade palettes. Without a look in our direction, they left the room. I exhaled and collapsed on the table, dropping my head against my arms. “This wedding is going to be the death of me, I swear.”

Hunter slapped my arm as he pushed up from his chair. “You’ve been through worse. A few more weeks and our part in this whole thing is over.”

I glanced at him as he strolled across the room to the bar. “Do you think the others are doing anything?”

“About what?”

“Well, they wanted to come back to find evidence against the council. Have they? If they have, no one has told me.”

He poured the runny, honey-looking liquid into a short glass. “To be honest, I think they’re just waiting for the application to pass.”

I pouted. “Do you think the council is up to something?”

Hunter sipped at his drink. “Yes. We all saw Tay… he was real. It might not be the entire council, but Cesare is definitely up to something.”

“What can we do about it?” I asked. “If they’re not going to help us out of this mess, then we should do it ourselves.”

“And what do you propose we do?”

“Snoop around Cesare’s room tonight, after our engagement party.”

His eyebrows arched, surprised by my suggestion. “That’s a bold risk, even for you.”

“I can’t sit around and do nothing. If they’re not going to help me, then I’ll help myself.” I pushed my chair back. “I can’t pretend that I didn’t see Tay, the dead guardian. If the council is using a necromancer to bring back the dead, then they need to be stopped.”

Was I the only one not willing to let that go?

“If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll keep everyone busy at the party tonight and you can snoop around Cesare’s office. You know where it is, right?”

I nodded. His room was on the top floor in the building behind the courthouse. I smiled. “You’d do that for me?”

“I find it extremely creepy that the only way I can make you smile is by telling you to break the rules.”

I leaned forward on my elbow. “It’s not breaking the rules if no one finds out about it.”

“I’m pretty sure it still counts.”

“If you say so—and hey, don’t tell Eli or anyone about what we’re going to do tonight. They won’t be too happy about me risking everything.”

Hunter placed his almost empty cup back on the bench and sauntered toward the bedroom. “I’d be the last person you’d have to worry about when it comes to telling De Luca anything.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Anything,” he emphasized, winking, and I rolled my eyes.

“Always inappropriate,” I muttered.

“Don’t be so stuck up.” He chuckled. “You found that funny, I felt it.”

He shut the door and I relaxed into my chair. I looked at the funny knife and fork clock above the kitchen sink and when I saw the time, my blood began to rush around my body. Two hours until our engagement. Two hours until I’m forced to gush over Hunter in front of Eli. People will expect love and kisses and dancing… I wanted to be confident in the fact that I could do it, but I wasn’t so sure. Do it for Mila. Do it for your future. If I wanted a real future with Eli, I was going to have to invest in a fake future with Hunter first.

Chapter Fourteen

As I stepped into the courthouse, I was blown away by the sheer extravagance of it all. It was perfect. It was everything I would have wished for if I planned my own engagement party. I took comfort in knowing that the two psycho planners actually listened to my likes and dislikes, and apart from the large swan ice sculptures on the tables, they did pretty well. I felt like a million dollars in my ombre plum dress. It had a low back that was sheer until the hips, leaving the rest to be embellished by beautiful plum colored stones. It was fitted, hugging me tightly everywhere except the feet, where it flowed off into a small train. Originally, I wanted to wear blue or red, but was told that I didn’t have the figure for red or blue. Whatever the hell that meant.

“You ready to put on the show of a lifetime?” Hunter mumbled, his hand dropping low to my hip.

I exhaled, gripping my clutch tighter and fidgeting with my guardian whistle that hung around my neck. “Let’s have them eating out of the palm of our hands.”

As the surprisingly large crowd turned to face us, Hunter pulled me in, pressing his firm lips to mine. My stomach fluttered and I felt him smile as my lids instinctively shut. He was going to enjoy this. Despite his insisting mouth, I pulled away, playing it off as shyness. The crowd loved it and I kept my stare at my feet, not wanting to lift it and see Eli’s face. People I’d never met before stepped forward to congratulate us, forcing my attention from the floor. It didn’t feel right accepting their congratulations, especially since we didn’t know them. At my wedding, I expected to be surrounded by people I know and love… not strangers. When I looked past my never ending line of congratulators, I saw the bar, and by the bar, I saw Eli staring into a glass of wine. I excused myself and pushed through the people, making my way closer to the bar. As I walked, I thought of ways to apologize for the entrance and came up with none that I knew he’d accept. He’d take all of this on his shoulders, blaming himself for it. It was his only downfall.

“Hey,” I said as I approached him.

I stood still as he lifted his gaze from his glass to me. I didn’t budge as his gorgeous, green eyes drank me in inch by inch.

“You look stunning,” he replied, smiling a little sadly. “Not that that is new information from me.”

I chuckled. He was right. Eli told me that I was beautiful in one way or another every day. “Thank you.”

I admired his charcoal suit—all of it was black—even the under shirt and tie. The whole ‘dark and mysterious’ get up really suited him.

I waved my hand at the bartender and pointed to Eli’s drink. Within a couple of seconds, I had what he was having.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I laughed, grasping the stem and pulling it closer. Eli’s infamous warning stare was fixated on me. “If I’m going to fake my way through tonight with you in the room, I’m going to need at least a dozen of these.”

He groaned, looking away and taking a sip of his drink. “Me too.”

I raked my teeth over my bottom lip a few times before blurting out: “I feel like I don’t see you anymore.”

“We saw each other at breakfast,” he countered, avoiding my eyes.

Obviously. We all eat breakfast together every morning, but that wasn’t what I was getting at. “You know what I mean, Eli.”

The bartender stepped closer as Eli was about to open his mouth. Instead of talking, he drank his wine until the bartender returned to a safe distance.

“We can’t be seen together, Ruby. In order for this to work—”

“What to work?” I snapped under my breath. “What exactly have you guys been doing the past few weeks? Have you got any new information? What about Tay?”

I jumped as Eli shot forward out his seat, bringing his lips closer to my ear. “Now is not the time.”

Before he could walk off, I gripped his forearm, keeping him in place. “Now is the perfect time. I need to be kept in the loop or I’m going to go crazy. Please,” I pleaded with him. “Please tell me you have something, anything, so I don’t have to go through with this.”

His features softened as he looked down at me. He allowed one of his fingers to stroke my thigh and someone could have looked over and seen his finger stroking me, but I didn’t care. I needed it. I needed him. Eli pursed his lips before shrugging out of my grasp.

“I’m sorry,”

He stormed away, disappearing into the sea of strangers, leaving me feeling more alone than I had ever felt in my life. I grabbed my glass and began to slam back the wine until Hunter showed up and took my near empty glass away from me. A few drops rolled down my chin and onto my dress, thankfully the drops blended in to the plum.

“You shouldn’t be drinking those if you’re going to be invading someone’s privacy later.”

Right. I was going to break into Cesare’s office.

“I wasn’t going to get drunk,” I told him, neglecting to mention the fact that I’d thought about it. “I was just taking the edge off.”

“Stay away from De Luca, stick with me and you’ll be fine.”

“Doesn’t this exhaust you?” I asked, flicking my hair over one of my shoulders. My head spun and I suddenly wished I’d eaten something before showing up. “All of this faking?”

His lips twitched. “I have a reply to that, but not one that’ll make you feel any better.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m not pretending, Ruby. For the moment, this is real for me.”

I frowned and glanced down at my hands, but his fingers caught my chin and he tilted my face back up.

“Don’t ruin this. Have fun.” He smiled. “We’re getting married and I’m one hell of a catch, so smile.”

I felt so sorry for him. Here I was, moping about complaining about him and this whole situation when he was happy pretending it was real. I needed to be grateful. I wasn’t the one who drew the short straw. Once this was over, I had nothing to lose.

“You must think so little of me… stringing you along like this.”

Hunter extended his elbow to me. “It sucks, but I think any time spent with you is worth it.”

I groaned, taking his elbow and slipping from the stool. “Stop being nice to me. You’re making me feel even worse.”

He escorted me in the direction of Mr. Aleksandrov. Out from behind him stepped Mila, who was positively glowing. Her sky blue chiffon gown swayed around her with every movement, but despite her angelic look, there was unease in her features.

“Mila,” I gasped as we drew closer. “You look—”

“Pregnant? Oh God, I knew it—”

“Relax,” Mr. Aleksandrov snapped under his breath. “You can’t see a damn thing in that dress.”

A surge of calm energy rolled over me and Mr. Aleksandrov took a deep breath.

“I was going to say amazing,.” I told Mila, biting a smile. Her pregnancy made her so testy.

“Oh.” She relaxed. “Thank you.”

“You two are doing well,” Lyric commended us with a tilt of his wine glass. “But Ruby, would it kill you to smile a little more?”

Smile more? The nerve of him to ask such a thing from someone in my position. I took my arm back from Hunter and stepped closer to Lyric. I smiled politely as I took his glass of wine out of his hand and brought the cool glass to my own lips, finishing off its contents. As I swallowed the last drop, Hunter wrapped an arm around my waist, and pulled the glass from my lips. “Easy, drunky pants. You don’t need wine.”