“Y-yeah.” Olivia took a tiny step away from her ex(?)-boyfriend. “Um, I’m going to rejoin the party. See if…anyone needs help.”
She ran off like a bat out of hell.
Sammy watched her leave, his face grim and hard.
“Everything good?” Nate asked. The other man looked like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to chase Olivia down for a repeat of whatever they’d been doing or drink himself into a stupor.
“All good.” Sammy flashed a tight smile. “Congrats again, guys. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception is kick ass, but I’m beat so I’m gonna call it a night.” He paused. “If you could, uh, keep this—”
“Don’t worry,” Kris said. “We won’t tell anyone.”
Sammy responded with a quick nod and left for the castle, which doubled as a hotel and where several guests had opted to stay for the wedding weekend.
“Talk about surprises,” Nate said once the other man was out of earshot. “Sammy and Olivia, huh?”
“Part deux in the works.” Kris shook her head. “They’re worse than Blake and Farrah. At least they got over their shit and worked it out. But Liv and Sam have been doing this dance for years, and it’s exhausting. Not that it’s any of my business.”
“Really?” Nate sized up his wife with a suspicious glare. “So you’re going to be hands-off their relationship or whatever they have going on?”
“Until I get bored. Though Liv, ironically, is the biggest meddler out of all of us,” Kris mused, tapping a finger on her chin.
“Says the woman who once paid someone $15,000 to get rid of her father’s fiancée.” Technically $7,500, since Nate hadn’t completed the contract terms, but who was counting?
She gasped. “I can’t believe you’re bringing that up. First of all, that wasn’t meddling—that was protecting my father’s heart and money. Second of all, I happen to know that scheme worked out well for all parties involved.” A short pause. “Except for a certain redhead.”
“Gloria,” Nate remembered. He hadn’t thought of her in years. “Wonder what happened to her?”
Kris hitched a shoulder. “Don’t know. Don’t care. She’s in the past.”
“How enlightened of you,” he teased. He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, thinking of the day they’d met in the parking lot outside Alchemy. She, icy and guarded. He, wary and defensive. Both with chips the size of glaciers on their shoulders.
How much life had changed since then.
“That deal was the best I ever made,” Nate said. More than any multimillion-dollar movie contract or endorsement for sure, because it’d brought Kris into his life.
“You think so?” She looped her arms around his neck. “Because I think I got the better end of the deal. A couple thousand dollars and you’re mine for the rest of our lives.”
“Damn right.” Nate lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. “And you’re mine.”
“Always.”
But as they kissed beneath the stars of the Italian countryside, they knew the price of their love wasn’t measured by money but by their hearts.
One’s heart in exchange for the other’s, forever.
It was a helluva deal.
THE END
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