Page 107 of The Brutal Arrangement

DAMON

It turned out that Sloane wasn’t one of those women who were obsessed with details about her wedding. Her only request to Maxim was that they’d wait until Nik was back home, but that wasn’t happening.

What was happening was their wedding.

Today.

Now.

I sat with Lucy as Maxim and Sloane stood at the small altar space that the staff had arranged overnight. Flowers and greenery went toward the aesthetics, but I doubted that my brother gave it much notice.

His gaze was locked on his bride. He had eyes only for her, and I drew in a deep breath, trying to give myself the permission to feel relaxed and happy for him.

But that was the problem with ignoring or resisting emotions for most of my life. I couldn’t just chill and let happiness take over.

Not right at this moment.

And oddly, despite how happy Maxim had to be to marry Sloane sooner than later, I knew he couldn’t really lower his guard and be nothing but happy, either.

Sloane tried. She smiled and put on a brave act of seeming at ease and glad to make this wedding happen now.

But the truth was that none of us were calm.

Since Lucy had a lightbulb moment of recognizing the importance of guest-of-honor acronyms last night, we had all been excited at the hopeful turn of clues in our search for Nik.

She hadn’t blurted out that detail about the acronym for the hell of it. She’d only wanted to help.

The timing did suck, though. Because instead of us being joyful and in any celebratory mood for Maxim and Sloane’s wedding, we were all impatient to dig into this angle of Nik’s location.

“You may now kiss the bride.”

The officiant, the same one who’d seen me and Lucy get married, reared back in surprise.

Maxim reached out to grab the back of Sloane’s neck and haul her in close for a kiss. Saul chuckled at his enthusiasm, and Grandmother rolled her eyes.

I leaned over to kiss Lucy’s temple, amused but not surprised that my brother would act like that with his new wife. It wasn’t so strange to witness them as a loving couple anymore, not since I was now one half of a couple with Lucy. We were committed to each other through all the ups and downs we’d experienced so far, and I was proud that I’d overcome my fear of trusting women to let her into my life.

Sloane pulled back from the first kiss and smiled at Maxim with eyes of wonder and mischief.

“You’re never getting rid of me now,” she teased.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, leaning back in to kiss her again.

We applauded them and waited for them to walk back down to the few seats that had been arranged for the ceremony. While it was rushed, it wasn’t without love. Maxim had already promised her that they could renew their vows with a big, fancy wedding if she wanted. I kind of liked that idea myself. Maybe after Lucy delivered our baby, we could go big on a lavish gathering—if she wanted. I was content with simply calling her my wife, unafraid to let the whole world know that she was irrevocably mine forever.

Sloane held Maxim’s hand as they joined us. For as much as she protested marrying too soon, waiting for the baby to be born and Nik to be home with us, she looked like she was taking Maxim’s orders in stride. I doubted she’d ever really fight with him so much that they wouldn’t be in agreement in the end.

“Okay, so what’s the plan again?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“Now we celebrate,” Grandmother said with a smile. She was slow to approve of Sloane, but I could tell that she’d come around. “We have cake and?—”

“No.” Maxim shook his head. “The cake can wait.”

Sloane nodded then leaned against his shoulder. “Yeah. Besides, I want something salty and cheesy instead.”

“We need to start going through the Kozlov properties,” Maxim replied, all business.

Lucy winced at my side. “Look, I don’t want anyone to get their hopes up…”

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