I Do (Hate You) by Sienna Blake

James

“Rupert, I need to talk to you about something important,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “Now.”

“You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me!” Rupert spat out the words like nails, but his lips barely moved, and his smile never wavered. He was clearly aware of the guests staring at us and of the wedding photographer eager for closeups.

I was about to ask him if he had a past as a ventriloquist when I heard an old lady in the back say, “My goodness, aren’t you an eager bride.”

When I turned, I spotted Shell running toward us, a bouquet in one hand and the hem of her dress in the other. Her dress was no longer that sparkly white thing with dirt on it and her hair wasn’t pulled back in that bun.

She had been gorgeous this morning, but different. This was the Shell I knew, one in a sexy silky dress, her long red waves past her shoulders and…a look like she wanted to kick my ass.

Uh-oh. Maybe she’s looking at Rupert?

“James Kane, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Well, that made it pretty clear.

“Shell, I tried to pull Rupert aside and talk to him privately. But he refused to leave.”

“He refused to leave the altar where he was waiting for his bride in front of fifty people? Shocking. It’s not like he was busy or anything.”

I didn’t even acknowledge her sarcasm. “I figured out what happened, Shell, and Rupert is right in the middle of it. He won’t talk to me, so you ask him about it.”

Shell dropped the hem of her dress and I hoped that wasn’t her slapping hand. “Ask him what, exactly?”

“I’ve got this, Shell,” Logan said as he walked over from his front row seat and put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Come on, mate. Let’s take a walk.”

“Wait, Logan. Just wait. Shell, tell your brother that we just spent two days handcuffed together and—”

A collective gasp rose from the guests.

“Bravo, darlings! You must have really loved it if you kept them on for another day!” Tillie shouted from the front row, and I noticed her “Plus One” was the stripper, who gave us a thumbs up.

Shell ignored them both, so I kept going. “…and today we found my cell phone, a busted pipe and your missing earring behind Clive’s toilet.”

There was another collective gasp. Shell turned and gave her exasperated answer to the entire group. “Okay, yes, fine, that did happen. But we were drugged! At least we must have been because we can’t remember anything from that first night until we woke up handcuffed and naked in my bed.”

Another louder gasp followed and an old lady in a pink suit fainted, crashing over into the lap of the white-haired man sitting next to her.

“Look what you’ve done to my mum,” Rupert accused.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson,” Shell said to the man with the rather large woman in his lap. He didn’t respond, he just patted his wife’s head and looked like he wanted to kill us both.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

“You still haven’t told me what possible motive Rupert could have to do all this,” Shell hissed at me as the guests stared in horrified delight. Or maybe it was delighted horror? Anyway, they were all in on the tragicomedy wedding disaster unfolding in front of them.

“Shell, you should talk to Clive,” I hedged, then looked around. “Where is Clive, by the way?”

Rupert pointed up the beach by the tiki bar; Clive was close enough to hear what we were saying but not close enough to knife me.

“Clive, do you want to talk to this idiot?” Rupert asked a little louder. Clive shook his head.

Shell sighed. “Okay, Natazia’s not here and Clive isn’t talking, so it’s up to you, James. Do you have any proof?”

I looked around at the curious crowd now on the edge of their seats, minus Mrs. Wilson, who was still conked out on Mr. Wilson. I took a deep breath and prepared myself.

“I don’t have proof. All you have is my word,” I said as sincerely as possible.

Vina snorted and Rupert actually laughed out loud.

“You have to believe me! Shell, I finally figured out that the code to my safe was your birthday, but when I opened it someone bashed me on the head and took the original photos of Rupert getting cozy with Natazia.”

Shell had an odd expression on her face and mumbled something under her breath that sounded like, “My birthday is your code?”

Shell turned to Rupert, who was fanning his mother as she came out of her faint and took a sip of water.

“Did you really get it on with Natazia at a hotel, then get Clive to beat him up to get the photos away from him?” Shell asked, her voice quaking with embarrassment.

Mrs. Wilson gave out a squawk that sounded a lot like a pissed-off goose, then fainted again.

“Oh, come on!” Mr. Wilson shouted, and I couldn’t tell if he was yelling at Shell or me or maybe his wife this time.

“How can you even ask me that question?” Rupert asked Shell in his haughtiest British royalty voice. “This man is a lunatic, and he is putting lies into your head. If he had any proof of an affair, he would show us. Even if you believe that I would get Clive to drug and kidnap him, why would I have him do the same to my fiancée?”

Shell and all the guests except the unconscious Mrs. Wilson turned in unison from smug Rupert to me as if they were watching a tennis match and Rupert had just blasted an unreturnable hit across the net.

Rupert’s question was one that had been bothering me all that day. If I went missing for the weekend, they would all chalk it up to me being a player and going off with an air hostess or stripper, but how the hell could he think that he could get away with kidnapping the bride?

Then it hit me like a lightning bolt.

Before I could explain, Shell said, “James, Rupert is right. It makes no sense that they would have kidnapped me.”

“Unless they didn’t know it was you,” I said slowly, hoping she would get it before I had to explain it to her.

“Now how the hell would they not… Oh my gosh! Of course!”

She got it.

“I had all that drag queen makeup on with the pink wig from the hen’s party. No one—absolutely no one—would have recognized me in that getup,” she said, grabbing my hand in the excitement of the discovery.

“That is preposterous!” Rupert roared, staring pointedly at Shell’s hand until she realized what she was doing and let go of my fingers. “Clive probably has some explanation but even if he doesn’t, you have no proof of the affair or that these photos exist or I had anything to do with this crazy scheme.”

Shell stared at him and I could tell she had just thought of something. “Rupert, why did you come to my villa yesterday morning? You were all jumpy and jittery.”

She didn’t seem to have the nerve to accuse him of something. But I did.

“Yeah, and you had all those strange questions. Were you trying to see if she remembered anything from the night you guys drugged and kidnapped us? Is that why you were so nervous?”

“How do you know what I asked her? Oh, right. You were still handcuffed to her. Hiding behind the door?”

I nodded.

Rupert’s voice was cold as ice. “You either produce some proof right damn now for any of these ridiculous accusations or you get the hell out of here so Shell and I can get married.”

The guests were on the edge of their seats. A few people made “oooh” sounds and Aunt Tillie shouted, “Don’t do it, Shell!”

Shell stared right at me. “Unless James can show me proof that Rupert knew about any of this, then I owe it to Rupert to go through with the ceremony. I’m not going to throw my happiness away on something that might not be real, that might just be…a fantasy.”

Rupert and everyone else probably took “fantasy” to mean something I may have made up. But in my mind…and I think Shell’s…it meant the fantasy of what it would be like if we were finally together. She stared at me and I swore that she wanted me to say yes so she could get out of this marriage, but she was too stubborn to admit her mistake without proof.

But I didn’t have it.

The photos were gone and with them, the chance to stop the wedding and get Shell to dump this cheating bastard. I couldn’t prove his affair and I couldn’t prove he had any part in what Clive had done to us.

“Do you have any proof, James? Do you?” Shell asked, and I felt every eye staring me down, except one. Mrs. Wilson was awake again but only had one eye open.

I shook my head in defeat.

“You see that, darling?” Rupert asked, taking Shell by the arm. “He made it all up. Let’s throw him off the beach and get this wedding started. We’ll find Clive after the ceremony and get everything settled. I’ll fire him if that’s what you want. I’m firing Natazia too. Who needs them?”

He grabbed Shell’s hand and practically dragged her to the flower-covered altar where a shell-shocked officiant stood looking slightly terrified and completely confused.

“Go ahead,” Rupert told the man. “Let’s get this over with.”

At Shell’s look and an “Oh no, he didn’t!” comment by one of the guests, Rupert knew that was a step too far.

“Let’s get this over with?” Shell asked.

“I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I just can’t wait another minute to be your husband,” he said sweetly. I threw up in my mouth a little.

That bastard had won. Dammit, if only I had proof that he had cheated.

As the officiant began his “Dearly beloved…we are gathered here today…” speech, Logan slowly guided me away from the altar and to a chair. I stared over my shoulder at Rupert and Shell, knowing in less than two minutes they would be man and wife.

Short of running up there, punching Rupert in the nose and carrying Shell off fireman style, there wasn’t a chance in hell that I could stop this wedding.

I heard a buzz and instinctively patted my pocket in case it was my phone and saw Rupert do the same. You’re getting married, asshole. Turn your phone off.

I looked down at my own phone and realized I did have proof. Not of Rupert being a cheater. But definitely proof of him being an asshole. I didn’t know if it would be enough for Shell to call off the wedding, but it was all I had.

Logan must have felt me start to stand up and he put his big paw on my shoulder. “James, I am begging you to stay quiet for the rest of this ceremony. For the sake of our friendship and my sister’s happiness.”

That was hard to argue against. But I had an idea.

“What if someone asks me to talk?”

“That won’t happen,” he said, loosening his grip on my shoulder.

“Yeah, but what if they do?”

“Fine. If someone asks you to talk, then you talk. Otherwise, you need to keep your trap shut.”

I nodded my head in agreement and Logan sat back in his chair, turning his attention to his sister and the asshole while I concentrated on the officiant.

He went through the traditional vows, love, honor…blah blah blah…and I made myself sit still. It was just one sentence that I was waiting to hear.

Wait for it…waaaait for it.

“If anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

Logan still had his hand on my shoulder but sensed my movement just a fraction of a second too late. I jumped up and actually raised my hand like I was in the third grade. “I can!”

“Oh, come on!” Logan, Rupert and Mr. Wilson all said in unison. Shell stared at me with her mouth open.

“Well, I don’t actually think it’s a legal reason,” I said to a few groans from the guests. “But it is a reason. And before you ask, I have proof this time.”

“What is it now, James?” Shell asked in a low voice, looking exhausted.

“Shell, didn’t Rupert promise you that he wouldn’t do any business this weekend?” I asked.

“He did.”

“What would you say if I told you that he was doing business the entire time? In fact, I think that’s why he drugged and kidnapped us—wait, I know, I know—I don’t have any proof of that. But if you call Matthew Edmonds, the CEO of Whitehaven, he’ll tell you how Rupert has been working on a counteroffer when he said he would focus on the wedding. Did you hear his phone buzzing during the vows? That was probably the CEO right then.”

Shell turned back to Rupert. “Is this true?”

He shrugged his Armani-clad shoulders. “Well, yes, but I only did what James would have done. All is fair in love and war and business deals, darling.”

I went in for the kill. “Shell, didn’t you once tell me that you’d never date a man who was a bastard in business?”

“Well, yes…”

“And if you wouldn’t date someone like that, why would you marry someone like that?”

Shell stared at me for a long minute, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was. That by talking her out of marrying Rupert, I was most likely talking her out of being with me. Rupert was a lying, cheating, cut-your-nuts-off kind of businessman, but so was I. Or at least I had been.

Before Shell answered, Rupert jumped in. “I admit that I did work this weekend and I did put in that second offer, but it’s nothing James wouldn’t do if the situation was reversed.”

“No, that’s not true,” I said. “I mean, the old me would have done exactly that, but I don’t care about this deal anymore. I didn’t put in a counteroffer. I would never ruin Shell’s happiness for money. She is much more important than that.”

A chorus of “awwws” went up from the guests. Rupert rolled his eyes and shocked us all when he asked, “Can you please just shut the fuck up?”

It wasn’t clear if he was talking to me or them. Mrs. Wilson somehow managed not to faint again, but she did look like she’d sucked on a lemon.

Before she could reprimand her son, Rupert’s phone buzzed again.