"I don't understand how you can be so nonchalant about this!" Micah demanded as he paced around the room like a tiger in a cage.
Avery was still busy admiring the ring on his finger. "To be perfectly frank, I can't say I'm too surprised by this turn of events. Adeline and I don't really get along, but I know her almost as well as I know myself. After all, we came to this world together."
"And the two of you will leave the world together if I have anything to say about it!"
"Hmm?" Avery lazily looked up, as if finally noticing the agitation of his former brother-in-law (who also happened to be his current husband). He quickly fixed his pale blue eyes on Micah. "There, there, don't get your panties in a twist. I'm listening to you."
"You knew about her plan the whole time and helped her hide it from me? How could you?"
"Ah no, not at all. You wrong me. I had a hunch, of course, but nothing more than that. I assumed you knew more about the situation, because since when has there ever been a gay man called Rhys?"
"I'm afraid I'm not following."
Avery cocked his head to one side. "Rhys was obviously into her, and she into him. I assumed their romance continued with your permission or approval, since you had to be blind to not see it. I thought your relationship with her was a contract marriage of sorts. Or a marriage of convenience."
"A marriage of convenience?" Micah could hear how strangled his own voice sounded.
"Oh, you know, a mutually beneficial union," Avery explained slowly, as if mistaking Micah's response for confusion rather than guilt. "You get the connections and prestige, she gets to hide her relationship with Rhys more easily. As a bonus, Mama gets her dream wedding. It's been thirty years and she's still bitter that Uncle Percy ruined her wedding by proposing to his pregnant booty call. I fully expected Adeline to leave you at the castle and spend her honeymoon with Rhys. I just didn't expect her to do it *before* the wedding."
"You expected this."
"Yes," Avery replied, neutralizing Micah's accusation by treating it like a question instead. "I did. I believed you did too. I only realized my mistake when the bridesmaids couldn't find her this morning. I searched her room for clues. Beside her bed were the ring and," Avery slipped his hand under his collar and pulled out a small black box from where his breasts would've been if he had any, "this lifesaver."
Micah stared wordlessly as Avery dramatically pressed the red switch on the box.
Nothing happened.
Avery rolled his eyes and began jabbing the switch as if it was on a traffic light and he was a particularly impatient pedestrian who didn't believe the other pedestrians when they said they had already pressed the button.
The recorder reluctantly buzzed to life.
"With God as my witness and family as my audience, I, Adeline Valerie May Welland, do take Micah Haugh Carrington to be my lawfully wedded husband. You are the moon to my stars, the salt to my meat, the sword to my scabbard. I promise to love you, cherish you, and honor you for as long as we both shall live, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth. Till death do us part!"
That voice, though fuzzy and muffled, was unmistakably Adeline's. Girlish and soft, shy and hopeful. Micah did not expect his heart to ache as much as it did. This was the wedding vow she had written herself after complaining that the standard ones were too generic to reflect their love.
And yet she couldn't even be bothered to recite it to his face.
He had been tricked, yes, but for now, the anger was just a tiny speck in an ocean of sadness. Had it been all a lie?
"But why did Adeline do this? Why did she even involve me? Why couldn't she just marry Rhys?"
"Because Rhys is an ex-convict with a long rap sheet, warrants out for his arrest in four separate sovereign states, and three kids by two different women. One of whom he's still legally married to. And that's what we know of. He may very well have other surprises. You may be a trashy and tasteless middle class upstart whose greed for wealth and status is written all over your face, but at least you're a law-abiding citizen with no secret families. That we know of, of course."
"Trashy and tasteless middle-class upstart?!"
Avery said nothing. From the corner of his eye he could see Micah spluttering in shock and embarrassment.
For a moment, Micah bore an absurd but fitting resemblance to a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.
Because, in a sense, he had indeed been caught.
It was some time before he composed himself and, clinging to the remaining shreds of his dignity, asked, "How long have you known this?"
"Even before Adeline brought you home for the first time. Mama knows. Adeline knows. Mr Reed knows. Heck, even Felicia knows. I'm almost certain that's the reason Adeline picked you. Gold diggers are so predictable and easy to control. You couldn't even see past her godawful acting."
Micah did not know whether to be insulted. What he did know, but did not want to admit, was that Adeline preferred a criminal manwhore over him. A tall, handsome, genetically-blessed criminal manwhore, but a criminal manwhore all the same.
His self-esteem was never going to recover from this.
"So," Micah finally ventured, "what are we going to do now?"
"We follow Mama's instructions," Avery answered. "Although I want to get a jeweler to look at this ring and resize it so it can fit my fourth finger. I want to look like a real married man, not someone's sloppy seconds. Surely my dear, dear Mr Welland can't find it in himself to disagree with his new bride?"