Page 48 of The Hero + Vegas = No Regrets

My phone buzzes. It’s Worth.

I answer. “Hey.”

“I’m buzzing your buzzer. Can you let me in?”

“Shit, it’s broken. I’ll come down. I just need to decide what to wear.”

“Whatever you’ve got on is fine,” he says.

“Oh okay, jeans and a white tee okay for you?”

“Completely fine,” he says. “You’ll look beautiful in anything. I’ll be waiting.”

I groan and hang up the phone. He always says the sweetest things. But surely he can’t mean that we can have our first date when I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

I put on a black cocktail dress—which is Holly Golightly meets Zara—grab my bag and pink coat, and head downstairs.

Worth is leaning against a black SUV. He wears a long gray coat with the collar turned up, because it’s fucking freezing. He looks so hot, I want to suggest skipping dinner and going back upstairs.

But I want to get to know Worth. He’s a good guy. He’s also my husband. Our marriage is essentially just a piece of paper—it shouldn’t mean anything. And yet… it does. I’m just not sure what.

“Pink suits you,” he says as he greets me with a kiss.

“Would you have said green suited me if my coat had been green?”

“Absolutely. Because green does suit you.”

I grin up at him. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so adored. I’ve been love-bombed before, but that’s not what Worth is doing. I haven’t known him long, but I know him well enough to understand that he doesn’t say anything he doesn’t mean. He adores me. And instead of it making me deeply uncomfortable, I kinda like it.

“You look hot. But then, I did marry you, so I guess you know that already.”

He pulls me closer to him and growls in my ear, kissing my neck. “We should leave now or we won’t make it to dinner.”

We slide into the car and Worth takes my hand in his right away.

“I saw my sister yesterday,” he says.

“How was that?” I ask. He obviously has a very close relationship with his siblings. I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t.

“She wants to drop out of Columbia.”

“Because she’s on academic probation?” I ask.

“More like she’s on academic probation because she wants to drop out. She says she doesn’t like studying economics.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a bigger problem. It’s nice she came to you, though. Isn’t it?”

He sighs. “I don’t know, honestly. She obviously wants my approval to drop out.” He glances across at me, and I try to keep my expression neutral. “Because I’m older, and because once our dad died, our mom wasn’t particularly engaged, both my sisters put me in a parental role.”

He’s a problem solver for more than the people he invests in, but he seems to like it. “Putyou?”

He’s silent for a beat while he thinks. “Maybe not consciously, but that’s the role I’m in. Partly because I was the one who made sure they had their packed lunch and clean clothes a lot of the time. I made their doctors’ appointments and nursed them when they were sick. But also, because I have the money now to pay for their education or whatever else they want to do with their lives.

“Youparentedthem? Because your mother was sick after your dad died?”

He takes in a juddering breath. “I knew if I didn’t step up, we’d all end up in foster care. I wouldn’t let that happen. So I got on with it. Lucky for everyone, I was fourteen and smart. Mom had her good days.” He pauses. “And her terrible days.”

Pain flashes across his expression, and I squeeze his hand. Worth is the dad of the friend group and oh-so-sensible, because that’s what he knows. It’s what his family needed from him.

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