Page 4 of Marrying Mr. Wentworth (Austen Hunks #3)

Thursday at noon — Milwaukee Private Airport — Ariana

T here are a few things you expect when you pull up to a private hangar for a bachelor-slash-bachelorette weekend in Vegas.

Champagne. Luggage the size of compact cars. A well-dressed assistant named Blaine or Reese asking if you’d like a lavender-scented eye mask for the flight.

Christopher @#$% Wentworth.

Of course he was already on the plane. And of course he looked even hotter than before.

Because fate isn’t just cruel—it’s petty.

I paused halfway up the steps, momentarily blinded by the sunlight reflecting off his aviators and the unmistakable glint of smugness that came with being a famous musician in designer boots.

His dark hair was artfully tousled like he’d just rolled out of bed with a guitar and a minor chord.

His jawline had only gotten sharper, more capable of slicing through steel, silence, or my remaining dignity.

Well. Fantastic.

Behind me, Meg nudged my back with her purse. “Keep it moving, Ari. This isn’t the Oscars.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I murmured. “I see a lot of acting already.”

Meg snorted, but I kept my eyes forward. One foot in front of the other, like I was walking toward justice and not the inside of a flying panic attack.

Jeremy was waiting at the top of the steps like a human buffer. “You okay?”

“I’m great, ” I replied, voice dipped in sarcasm. “Really enjoying this new immersive therapy technique. It’s called ‘Surround Yourself With Everything That Traumatized You and Smile.’”

He winced, the way a brother does when he knows he’s stepped on a landmine of his own design. Good. Let him squirm.

I stepped onto the jet and immediately understood why Luke Knightley could casually afford to invite a dozen people to Vegas on a whim.

The interior looked like an Architectural Digest photo shoot had collided with a luxury whiskey ad and birthed a sky mansion.

Cream leather seats, gold accents, and windows that dimmed with a touch.

And at the back of it, lounging like temptation incarnate, was Christopher. Sitting with one long leg stretched out, leather jacket thrown over the back of his chair like it was being held there by the sheer force of his ego.

He didn’t need to be here.

He wasn’t in the wedding. He wasn’t family. He was simply the bassist in the band Luke fronted. But apparently, that made him important enough to tag along on a weekend designed to celebrate my brother and my friend.

Ellie, Luke’s girlfriend and Meg’s maid of honor, had apologized to me the moment the group text went out.

“I tried,” she said. “I swear I tried. I told Luke it would be awkward.”

Awkward? It was a psychological booby trap.

But if Christopher didn’t come, he’d be the only band member not invited. And Luke was loyal to a fault, especially when it came to his guys. So here we were. Trapped together in a pressurized tube for four hours, pretending this was fine.

Christopher hadn’t even had the decency to decline the invite. Which meant, in my professional opinion, he was still a complete jackass.

“Drinks in the back,” Luke called, one arm draped casually around Ellie, who was already scrolling through the weekend itinerary on her phone. “We’ve got champagne, whiskey, and sparkling water for the emotionally repressed.”

“That’s mine,” I muttered, tossing my carry-on into an empty seat with the grace of a woman barely suppressing a full-scale meltdown.

Meg plopped down beside Jeremy. I took the seat directly across from them and immediately pulled out my e-reader like it was a taser. If anyone needed me, I was elbows-deep in a feminist murder mystery and not silently cataloging all the ways my ex had managed to look better with age.

Christopher was across the aisle, two rows back. The plane was wide enough that we weren’t breathing the same air, but close enough that if I looked up—and I wouldn’t—I could probably smell his cologne.

I hated that I noticed.

I hated even more that he hadn’t aged badly.

If anything, he looked like a more refined version of the heartbreak I used to cry about at two in the morning, curled up on my bedroom floor with Taylor Swift and a family-sized bag of Chips Ahoy.

He was leaner now. The boyishness had burned off and left something more solid, more grounded.

Like life had hit him and he’d somehow landed upright.

Liam Dashwood and Nick Holt, the other two members of Whiskey Smoke, were flanking him and cracking jokes that sounded like punchlines to sins they hadn’t confessed yet.

I didn’t want to know. I especially didn’t want to imagine any of them hooking up with a bridesmaid mid-flight.

Which—let’s be honest—wasn’t off the table.

Speaking of bridesmaids, two of Meg’s college friends were perched at the bar in identical rose-pink hoodies that screamed “ brIDE SQUAD” in rhinestones. One of them was named Heather. Or Hailey. Possibly both. I hadn’t been introduced, but I was already exhausted by them.

Christopher’s head tilted slightly. Just enough that our eyes locked for one searing, godforsaken second.

I didn’t flinch.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t fall apart.

But my grip on the e-reader did tighten like I was one chapter away from murder.

Instead of throwing it, I gave him a nod. Cool. Dismissive. Legal-drama-level lethal.

He raised a hand in response, maybe a wave. Maybe a peace offering. Either way, I blinked once—slowly, like a judgmental owl—and turned back to my book.

Let the record show: I acknowledged him. Briefly.

Further, let the record also show: I hadn’t burst into flames. Progress.

Meg leaned over and whispered, “You okay?”

“Peachy,” I said without looking up. “And by peachy, I mean currently weighing the pros and cons of emergency exit door access mid-flight. Is there a parachute on board, by chance?”

She gave me a look that hovered somewhere between pity and admiration. “You know you’ll have to talk to him eventually.”

“Only if I’m legally compelled to.”

Jeremy chuckled. “God, I missed this dynamic.”

A flight attendant in a crisp black uniform offered me a champagne flute. I took it and raised it in mock salute.

“To old flames,” I said. “May they stay where they belong: in the past, and preferably on fire.”

Ellie winced.

I straightened my shoulders and stared straight ahead. I wasn’t here to have a second chance. I wasn’t here to forgive.

I was here to celebrate my brother, support my friend, and maybe— maybe —prove to myself that I’d evolved beyond the girl who used to wait by her phone for a call that never came.

No flirting. No reminiscing. No wondering what his lips would taste like now.

Absolutely no imagining how that soft black t-shirt would feel bunched in my fists.

Nope. Not happening.

I took another sip of champagne.

Vegas hadn’t even started yet.

And I was already burning.