Page 28 of Bloody Wedding (The Order of the Owed #1)

EIGHTEEN

THE COURT

ADRIAN

T his could have been an email.

As the meeting drones on, something about the new hospital, and the upcoming mayoral election, and God knows what else… all I keep thinking is that there’s no reason for me to be here instead of at home with my wife.

I mean, seriously. This can’t go on much longer. Every time I think it’s done, Jack stands up, mentions another order of business, then sits down with a smirk as one of his yes-men start droning on and on about more bullshit.

Not even caring that I’m making it obvious, I check my phone for the time.

Fuck me. It’s already quarter after nine.

I still have to get Loni’s cake. I’d be a shit husband if I didn’t even have a cake for her birthday, or a present to go along with it.

Then there’s dinner. The restaurant is just waiting for my call.

The order was placed last week, but I want it hot and fresh.

Thankfully, they don’t close until eleven, but it’s already getting so late.

Dinner might have to wait until tomorrow.

Maybe that’s for the best. I’ve already told my clients that I’m taking a half day on Friday due to the appointment I have scheduled in the afternoon.

We can consider today a wash, and though I know her birthday is today, we’re adults.

As long as we celebrate it, it shouldn’t matter if it’s today or tomorrow.

Right?

If this meeting doesn’t end soon, I’ll have no choice.

I’ll make it up to her. I’d give her the fucking world if she asked it of me.

Since the only thing she seems to desire right now is my head beneath a guillotine so that she can be free as a widow, I’m not that eager to comply.

However, I’m hoping that the long black box I’d picked up at lunch might at least begin to show her that being Mrs. Adrian Heller isn’t all that bad…

I’m just about to set my phone down again when, suddenly, it buzzes. I expect the text to be from Loni. Sure, none of the other messages I’ve received so far have been from my wife, but she has to be wondering where I am.

Only it’s not my wife.

It’s Sebastien.

BAS

Hey, bro.

I know you’re in that stupid meeting with Dallas and the King’s men, but I’m at the Court.

So is your wife.

Did you know that?

It takes me a moment to understand what Bas is asking me.

Did I know that Loni was down at the King’s Court?

No. No, I did not.

I don’t even think. In the middle of Oliver blathering on about God knows what, I stand up.

“Adrian?” Jack purses his lips. “We’re not done here. Sit down.”

Bullshit.

“Family emergency,” I grit out. “I’ve got to go.”

Jack’s smarmy expression does nothing for my blood pressure right now. He gestures at himself and Dallas. “Your family is right here. Unless you mean something happened to my sister?”

I shake my head. Let him think it’s my idiot father in trouble, but no way in hell am I going to admit that my wife is down at the Court without me when I know—I know —that Jack’s just waiting for any cracks in my relationship with Loni to show.

“I’ve got to go,” I repeat, snatching up my suit jacket. My phone goes in my pocket. I nod at the men sitting at the conference table. “And next time? Shit like this could’ve been an email.”

I owe Bas big time.

Without letting Loni know that he’s watching here, he’s given my play-by-play reports of what she’s up to.

I’m glad she’s avoided going anywhere near the backroom where the Used spend their time—I don’t know what I would do if anyone mistook my wife as an available mistress—though I hate the idea of her sitting at the bar alone, nursing a gin and tonic.

At least she’s alone, though… until I’m pulling up at the club, and Bas’s latest message comes through my phone.

BAS

Hurry up. You won’t like this, but Max Roberts has been talking Loni’s ear off the last couple of minutes.

Fuck, no.

Max Roberts. He barely got inducted into the Order a year after we graduated. His legacy was questionable, and when he did get in, he wasn’t of a rank to get his own Offering.

Hell if I’ll let him get anywhere near mine.

I swear, it’s like everything from our high school days just keep coming back around.

Max was on the football team, plowing cheerleaders left and right because they were just regular townie girls, but I caught him eyeballing Loni once or twice.

She never seemed to notice. I didn’t care. I couldn’t have him doing that anyway.

Not when Loni was mine .

So I spiked his sports drink with vodka, sent an anonymous message to the principal that a couple of players were drinking before big games, and he got booted.

Nowadays, he works down at the Harmony Heights car dealership. He married one of the cheerleaders, but even though she wasn’t an Offering, just being a member of the Order means he can have his fun with his Used.

Is that why he’s trolling the Court instead of being home with his wife? Because he’s hitting on mine?

When I think of Max Roberts, I inevitably think of vodka. It might be fitting to grab a bottle of the high-end shit from behind the bar and smash him over the head with it…

Stalking into the club, ignoring the neon lights and the loud music on this side of the Court, I scan the crowd.

I see Bas first, and he waves, then points at the bar.

I nod and, seeing my beautiful bride leaning forward, listening to something Max is saying to her, I zero in on her like a great white shark going after its prey.

It doesn’t help my possessive jealousy that Loni…

my wife is the most beautiful creature in the world.

Whether she’s naked or lounging on the couch, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, I’m constantly fiending for her…

but to see her wearing a little black dress with a low-cut top and fuck-me black pumps?

Max just might be a dead man, but right now, I could fuck through a wall to get to Loni’s heat.

Palming my growing erection, I keep moving.

To hide the insane gleam in my eyes, I force a smile to my lips right as I reach them. Then, when they don’t sense my present, I raise my voice. “What do you think you’re doing, Avalon?”

Her head whips around. I see surprise, then guilt, then anger and I know that, whatever I interrupted, she’s not happy about it.

Too bad.

I give the other man a pointed look. “Max.”

“Adrian.” His gaze immediately slides to the side.

“Oh. Wow. Benny is waving at me. I, uh, think he needs me for something.” He raises his voice, holding up a single finger.

“One second, Ben!” An apologetic shrug follows.

“Sorry, Adrian. It’s so good to see you. You, too, Loni. But… yeah. Gotta go.”

Smart Owed. Like the rest of Harmony Heights, he knows that I’m Loni’s husband. What I did to Claim her and make her mind. Since he clearly doesn’t want to suffer the same fate as Desmond, he makes an excuse and bolts, leaving Loni alone with me.

Very smart Owed.

Getting up from her stool, my wife crosses her arms over her chest, concealing that delicious cleavage, glaring daggers up at me when she notices my eyes had dropped to her tits. “Was that necessary?”

Yes. “If you weren’t here, chatting with him, that wouldn’t have happened.”

Her back goes stiff. “I’m celebrating my birthday. Even if you didn’t remember it, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have some fun on my own. A girl doesn’t turn twenty-eight every day, you know.”

Hang on. “You think I forgot your birthday?”

She unfolds her arms, waving her hand, dismissing it. Dismissing me . “It doesn’t matter. If I hadn’t come down to the Court, I never would’ve heard that something is up with Haven. That’s what I was talking about with Max. She was my best friend. She got hurt, Adrian? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Fuck.

I knew this would come back to bite me in the ass.

I couldn’t, though. I can’t .

Luckily, I don’t have to. “Later, princess. I want to go back to the topic of your birthday. I didn’t forget it.”

She snorts, her obvious annoyance with me enough to get her to drop the subject of Haven…

for now. It won’t last, and I’ll have to give her as many details about Haven’s ordeal that are widely known so she understands how she’ll only hurt her old friend if she continues to dig, but I can’t stand the idea of Loni believing that I wouldn’t celebrate the day she was born.

“Honest. Look.” I reach into my suit jacket pocket. Tucked in there with my useless cigarette case, I pull out the long, skinny black box. “Here. I bought this for you. Happy birthday, Loni.”

With a hint of suspicions lingering around her, she accepts the box. Flipping it open, her face falls. “Oh. A gold bracelet. How… thoughtful.”

I blink. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s… fine. Jewelry. That’s what a husband buys his wife, right?”

That’s what I thought. It seemed a safe bet.

For every occasion in my mother and father’s marriage, he bought her jewelry.

The fact that her collection was bigger and more expensive than that of any of Dad’s Used is one of the only reasons Mom still sticks it out instead of moving into her own place.

I realize my mistake almost instantly. A simple gold bracelet… for a woman whose only piece of jewelry is the ring I haven’t been able to replace yet… and a reminder that, like the ring, she’s just another stock-standard piece, doing what the Order expects of her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

What was I thinking? Sure, this is only one part of her gift—due to a slight miscalculation I uncharacteristically made, I have to wait until tomorrow for the rest—but, first, she believes I forgot her birthday.

Now, I followed her to the Court, and instead of begging her for her forgiveness, I made it worse with a half-assed present.

I have to fix this, and it starts by getting her to like the bracelet.

I hold out my palm. “Here. Give me. Let me put it on you.”

She snaps the box closed on the bracelet. “I’m fine.”

I want her to wear it. “Come here.”