I stepped out and held out a hand to help Georgie to her feet.
“Enjoy your evening, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks,” Nico said, offering a smile that damn near bordered on devilish, and then he was back in his town car and heading down the long driveway.
“Okay…so, that was kind of strange…” I muttered, pausing to press a gentle hand to Georgia’s back and walking toward the velvet-roped-off aisle that led inside the mansion.
“What was strange?” she asked, glancing toward me, her blue eyes flashing with confusion behind her mask.
“Our driver. Nico.”
She quirked an eyebrow, and it just barely rose above the right side of her mask.
“It felt like he was talking in code, and my radar detector didn’t like what he was implying.”
“What are you talking about?” Still confused, she paused just outside the mansion doors, and the masked couple at our backs had to step around us to go inside.
“That conversation didn’t feel odd to you?”
“Uh…no.” She shook her head, and an amused smile formed at her lips. “It only made me more excited about tonight. I think Paula was right. We’re going to have the time of our lives.”
“Okay,” I said through a sigh, just wanting to have something go right. I didn’t want to be the stick in the mud that led to even more disappointment for my wife. “Let’s do it, then. Let’s go have some fun.”
She laughed. “You seem like you’re afraid Thatch is going to, like, pop out of the bushes or something with an entourage of clowns.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past the bastard.”
I mean, he did send an entire hibachi grill into our suite last night. And had a band stalk us today.
“You’re just being paranoid,” Georgie chastised.
Maybe she was right. Being best friends with the world’s biggest prankster would make anyone jumpy after they had to suffer a five-alarm fire in the name of Thatch’s idea of romance.
If that bastard ever decided to stop eating at the pussy buffet, good luck to the woman who married him. She either needed to be completely clueless or downright insane to willingly be a part of his craziness for the rest of her life.
Finally, Georgia and I stepped inside an entryway that felt as if it had been plucked right out of Versailles. Gilded pillars and marble floors and a Renaissance-style painted cathedral ceiling filled my view, and I immediately started to wonder about who was footing the bill for this place. I knew I was a billionaire, but a villa like this had to go for more than a hundred grand a night.
Surely, he or she was in the business of making money.
Lotsof it.
And damn did they like showing it off.
“This place is insane,” Georgia whispered toward me, and I nodded.
“Whoever is staying here really wants us to know they have money.”
She snorted. “You do realize you’re worth billions, right?” she tossed out, a giggle on her lips.
“Pretty sure you meanwe’reworth billions,” I corrected her. “And the day I start renting mansions like this and gilding fucking everything like some kind of sixteenth-century king instead of donating money to charities that actually serve good in the world, divorce me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She slapped my chest. “That would mean I’d be going against my vows.”
“Yeah, well, this is me giving you permission to go against your vows if I turn into that kind of megalomaniac moron.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “How about we actually go inside the mansion and, I don’t know, enjoy the party instead of balking at how much they spent on those gold pillars until your humble billionaire head explodes?”
I grinned down at her. “Good idea.”
Once we reached the end of the entryway, the room opened up into a grand ballroom that was filled with about a hundred guests. Everyone was dressed for the occasion in suits and gowns and masks adorning their faces.