"I CAN'T believe you'll be getting married to Ryker Cadel, you're so lucky!" Josephine, one of Electra's closest friends, exclaimed.
"More like he is lucky to be getting married to her," Mars muttered, chugging down a shot. Mars had arranged a girls' night out so Electra could catch up with her friends and also spend some time with him after a week of moving out.
"Only if someone was brave enough to ask her out and stopped being a baby," Aphrodite mumbled, eyeing Mars and leaving Electra confused. "What do you mean?" Electra asked.
"Nothing. I guess she meant that there are a lot of guys who should have asked you out but were too scared to do so they stay... as friends," Daphné answered.
"...but I'm happy his mother took a liking to you. Ma mère always says, it's better to have a bad husband than bad in-laws," she added.
Aphrodite, Mars, and Electra had gone to the same high school, but Mars and Electra only became friends with Aphrodite when they found themselves in the same college, while Josephine and Daphné grew up together.
The five of them bonded through study groups in law school and had been friends since then. Of course, they'd had numerous ups and downs and their fair share of fights, but Mars was always there to dissolve any misunderstandings between them.
"Me too, she made Electra slap her crazy stepsister. I couldn't be happier when she told me. I wished I was there to see Nadia's stupid face getting smacked by Electra. I bet she saw stars for some minutes," Mars chuckled.
"So, we're getting our marriage license issued tomorrow at the city hall. I'm finally going to meet him before our wedding. I'll invite him out for lunch and hopefully try to get him to like me," Electra explained, taking a sip of her beer.
"C'est un mariage arrangé, he'll like you with time," Daphné said, twirling her beer glass.
"Time is what I don't have. The fate of my family depends on this wedding and—"
"Oh my god, that guy has been checking you out for a while now. What do you say to a little bit of fun before you get locked in the shackles of marriage?" Josephine asked, cutting Electra off.
---
Ryker fluttered his eyes open but closed them back and let out a yawn that constricted his chest for a bit. Moving his hands to scramble for his phone, his hand landed on warm skin, making him open his eyes widely to see whose skin it was.
His eyes landed on a woman peacefully sleeping, and the memories of the previous night rushed back to his head. He had called his favorite woman, Gloriana, to come relieve all the tension the marriage had been putting on him. Sylvia Clèment only relieved work-related tension while Gloriana relieved his personal life tension.
Gloriana was a prosecutor, and they'd known each other since college. They'd also been sleeping together since their college days and were now thirty-two. They'd only been able to be together for so long because they understood each other: they both wanted nothing serious, only physical and no emotions included.
Normally, Ryker hated friends-with-benefits relationships because they didn't end well; it was either A falling in love with B or A and B having feelings for each other and lying to keep their relationship the way it was. But Gloriana and Ryker had been together since they were nineteen, and they knew how to handle themselves.
They didn't text or call each other unless they needed to get physical and minimized any friendly interactions between them. That was the law between them, and Ryker was happy they'd been able to abide by it.
He got off the bed and started getting ready to head to the office and drown himself in another criminal's business for money. It didn't take him long to finish getting dressed and arriving back in his room, the bed was empty, and Gloriana's things were gone.
She left.
That was how their situationship worked. They didn't say hellos or goodbyes; they just had sex and left without exchanging unnecessary words.
In a blink of an eye, Ryker was already in his office, settling in and going through what he needed to do for the day while sipping on his daily black coffee. While skimming through the list of tasks, the office handset rang, distracting him. He picked it up and his assistant said, "Mrs. Fountaine-Cadel is here to see you."
Letting out a sigh in annoyance, Ryker said, "Let her in," and settled the handset back in the cradle.
After a few seconds, the door slid open and his mother stepped in with a file in her hands, making the atmosphere and his mood change from bad to worse. He couldn't help but sigh again, knowing he couldn't do anything about her.
She was his mother, after all.
"What do you want?" Ryker asked, trying to be as polite as possible.
"What a nice way to greet your mother 'good morning'. I'm not here for your greetings anyways..." she responded and rudely threw the file on his table. "That is the house you and your soon-to-be wife will be moving to after the wedding. Get your things moved in there," she finished.
Picking up the file, Ryker said, "I thought I already chose the house I wanted," flipping open the pages. His eyes landed on the house he disliked the most among the options she brought a week earlier.
"What is this? This wasn't the one I chose," he said with knotted eyebrows.
"I know, but this was the one Electra chose, and I suddenly just didn't care about your choice. Also, you need to come with me to get your marriage license with Electra today, right now," she informed, and his eyes instinctively rolled back as he slammed the file back on the table.
"WHAT??!!" he exclaimed. He understood that getting angry over a house was a little much, but little things like that got on his nerves and triggered his anger issues.
"You're telling me that you got this dumpster for my wedding home and are also dragging me to the city hall without informing me first?" he asked rhetorically, trying to stabilize his breathing so he wouldn't flip his table.
"Electra picked this house because it's closer to your workplace. She was being considerate, but you called this a dumpster? Wrap up whatever you're doing. We are going to the city hall right now," she ordered calmly, which only angered him more.
The fact that she always stayed calm and collected, even in heated situations, all in the name of being high-class, got on his nerves like nothing else.
If Céline Fountaine wasn't his mother, he would have planned her death and had her vanish into thin air.
"You didn't even consider that I might have something important to do and inform me in advance. Are you expecting me to drop everything and go to the city hall with you?" Ryker asked rhetorically, knowing there was nothing he could do to her.