“I’m too hotheaded to have this conversation without a stiff drink,” I growled. Madison laughed. I put my arms around her, my lips brushing her hair. She smelled of flowers and coconut and my potential demise. I needed to rethink the whole pretend-real-girlfriend idea before she caved to it.

“So. You dated Amber,” she started, her warm breath tickling my chest.

“Was engaged to Amber,” I corrected.

“Get out.” She swatted my chest, looking up at me with shock.

“Madison! No battery in the studio. That’s why I don’t allow couples to drink before photo shoots. Things can get rowdy,” Becky shrieked, unplugging the camera from the tripod and circling us with it. “Whisper sweet nothings to her, Mr. Black.”

I put my lips to the shell of Madison’s ear, feeling her shivering in my arms. “We were fresh out of college. Amber was different back then. Pretty, natural, sane. Believe it or not, she wasn’t completely superficial. We took some classes together and always ended up on the same side of the argument. Although in retrospect, she’d have agreed that drowning babies as a form of contraception was a good idea if I’d promoted it. She was riding a full scholarship and wanted to marry up. That she did.” I chuckled bitterly.

“Did she cheat?” The air around Madison crackled with fury and surprise and delight, and fuck, fuck, fuck, why was everything about her so expressive? I wanted to lean down and bite her lower lip until she moaned, but I doubted that was what my parents had in mind when they asked for formal engagement pictures.

“Not that I’m aware of.” I ran my thumb across her cheek, knowing she was too engrossed in our conversation to push me away.

“What happened, then?”

“I was taking a few minutes to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Julian was a fully formed person. He bragged about becoming the next CEO of Black & Co. Said he’d been groomed and prepped for the job. Julian and Amber got close. I drifted apart from them.”

I brushed my thumb along her lower lip. She let me do that. I continued talking, but my mind was far away from the Julian-and-Amber story.

“I never corrected his assumption. Amber wanted to be at the top of the food chain. She asked me if I could promise her I’d be the CEO. That I’d give her the life of luxury she was after. I said I couldn’t. I also mentioned I might want to become a teacher. Julian made her believe he was calling the shots.”

“Was he? Is he?” Her eyes implored me.

I shook my head.

“Did you really want to become a teacher?” She sounded surprised and delighted by that. I couldn’t blame her.

I shrugged. “I thought about it, for half a minute. I was a bit of an idealist back in the day. Anyway, Amber broke off the engagement. I took a few months off. Traveled the world. By the time I came back, I knew I wanted to join Black & Co. Realized becoming a teacher wasn’t my calling. Amber was already engaged to Julian and heavily pregnant with Clementine. Having their son bring an out-of-wedlock baby into the world was going to kill my parents, so Julian and Amber tied the knot as soon as I landed back in the US.”

I could see her doing the math in her head, arching an eyebrow. “The pregnancy. It was a close call between you and Julian.”

I nodded. “That’s why I said I don’t know if she cheated.”

“You never asked?”

“I didn’t want to know the answer. Julian was my brother, and we’ve always had this bond. I let it go, but I stopped believing in marital love as a concept.”

“Did you go to the wedding?” she asked quietly. She looked destroyed on my behalf, and I wanted to slap my own face. Because to me, it didn’t really matter. It was water under the bridge. The Amber-Julian blow was nothing more than a faded scar these days.

“I was the best man.” I smirked. “Showing them I gave a fuck wasn’t on the menu for me.”

“Mr. Black! Miss Goldbloom! Would you mind?” Becky yelled in the background, and I realized, albeit belatedly, that we’d been having the last ten seconds of conversation with our lips hovering against one another. I pulled back, feeling flushed like a middle schooler who had been caught trying to figure out the ins and outs of masturbation. Madison looked down at her feet, turning deep red.

“Sweet nothings,” Becky repeated sternly, waving her camera in her hand. “Save the PDA for the honeymoon. Where is your honeymoon, by the way?”

“Malta,” Madison said.

“Fiji,” I said at the same time.

We both frowned at each other. I fought a smile. “Malta?”

“I want to take the Game of Thrones tour. You know, where they filmed big portions of the show. Fiji?”

“Yeah, I want to get a tan, get drunk, and bury myself inside you on the sand.”

“Oh, Lordy.” Becky looked like she was about to faint. “Focus! Sweet nothings. Not dirty nothings. Sweet.”

I moved my lips back to Mad’s ear. The thing about us, Madison and me, was that our bodies seemed to be in complete sync with one another. She turned around again and pressed against me, the curve of her ass touching my erection, and I stifled a curse, breathing through my nose and trying to think about sad things to stop myself from grinding all over her.

Children living below the poverty line.

Climate change.

Starving bears.

Dad.

The last one did it. Becky returned to her place beyond the bright light aimed at the white screen, click-clicking her camera from the shadows.

“So Amber broke you,” Mad whispered.

“I think I was already broken, but yeah, she was definitely the final hammer to smash any romantic bone I had in my body.”

“I hate her,” Mad said.

I didn’t. I felt nothing toward my ex-fiancée, whom I’d spent the majority of my college years with.

I had to do something to take the Amber edge off. I didn’t want to talk about her or Julian. It wasn’t even the heartbreak that had made me swear off love. It was the embarrassing aftermath. The gossip mill. The humiliation.

Poor Chase got dumped.

Never was quite as hardworking and hungry as Julian.

They say Amber had to make it official with his brother because he impregnated her while she was still engaged to Chase.

Maybe Chase didn’t deliver you-know-where.