Wedding Party Collection: Don't Tell The Bride: What the Bride Didn't Know / Black Widow Bride / His Valentine Bride

‘Exactly.’

‘I could have a turtle engraved on the inside of mine,’ she murmured.

Or not.

‘Or the date.’

Or not.

‘What was the date of our wedding?’

‘November the twenty-eighth.’

‘I’ve been married almost a week already? Doesn’t feel like a week.’ She favoured him with a sultry smile. ‘You really are going to have to bed me soon. Because it’s criminal that I can’t remember any of that.’

‘You can’t help it. No need to dwell on it. I’m not dwelling on it.’

‘I can’t remember any of the sex we had before marriage, either. That’s assuming we had it.’

‘Lena, can we not talk about the sex we may or may not have had? I am stark naked in a public bathing pool and at some point I am going to have to get out of here without giving anyone here a heart attack.’

‘You want your wash cloth back?’

‘No! Keep the cloth. You need that cloth to cover you up when we get out of here.’

‘This isn’t working for you, is it? You’re not relaxing.’

‘Maybe if we stopped talking.’

She lasted less than five minutes. Five minutes during which he convinced himself that if he took nothing too seriously, he could probably get through another day of being married to Lena without losing his mind.

‘So would you wear a brushed-platinum wedding band?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ Not a lie. More of a theoretical answer to a theoretical question.

‘There could be a glossy strip running through it like a wave. And there could be diamonds, little ones, like a little wavy strip crosswise across the band. Or little sapphires the colour of the sea. But not the deep blue sea. The light blue sea.’

‘I see.’ And he did.

‘Maybe we should consult a jewellery designer.’

‘Maybe. Are you tired?’ he asked. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Hot water does that. May I ask you another question that I can’t remember the answer to?’

‘Shoot.’

‘It’s December the fourth already and we’re in Turkey on our honeymoon. How long is our honeymoon going to take and where are we going for Christmas?’

‘That’s two questions.’ And he didn’t know the answer to either. ‘Two weeks for the honeymoon—though if your memory doesn’t reappear in all its glory soon I want to cut this trip short and take you home.’

Lena said nothing.

‘I mean it, Lena.’

‘I know you do. I can hear it in your voice.’ She brought her hands to the surface of the water and started churning slow circle patterns in the froth. ‘I’m remembering more. I can tell you that. I remember tagging after you and Jared when I was a kid and resenting the hell out of you both for being stronger, faster and more fearless than me. I remember wanting to rip Jessica’s eyes out because you took her to your year twelve formal.’

‘Really? You remember that?’

‘As if it were yesterday. First time I’d ever seen you wearing a suit and tie and the things it did for your shoulders and my libido. As for Jessica, she had an hourglass figure, waist-length auburn hair and a smile just for you. In another universe I might have even liked her. She didn’t even look at Jared.’

‘Yeah, that was always a good sign in a date. Jessica was a good sport.’ Who’d known by the end of the night that Trig didn’t want to take things any further. ‘Probably still is.’

‘Jealous wife here,’ warned Lena.

‘You’re a good sport too,’ he offered hastily.

‘Are you sure? Because I seem to recall that I really, really like to win.’

‘This is true.’

‘I also have this niggling suspicion that I’m a bad loser.’

‘Sometimes you react badly when you’re forced to reveal weakness in front of others,’ he offered carefully. ‘You hate that.’

‘Well, who wouldn’t?’

‘Borrowing strength from someone else when you need it doesn’t make you weak. Makes you human.’ He laid out his thoughts for her; honest in a way he’d never been before. ‘Sometimes I wish you’d lean on others a little more.’

‘Doesn’t that make me needy?’

‘Not saying I want to tie your shoelaces for you. But when you’re railing against your body’s limitations and when you’re scared about being left out or left behind, would it kill you to say something?’

‘Like what? Carry me?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You’ve carried me before.’

‘I have.’

‘Which must give you a certain sense of self-worth.’

‘I’m usually more focused on staying alive at the time.’

‘Can’t you see that me borrowing strength from others gives me less self-worth? That the last thing I want is to be a burden to you?’

‘It’s not like that. That’s not what offering and receiving help is all about.’