I Do (Hate You) by Sienna Blake

Shell

“I’ll just shut that off, shall I?” Rupert asked, regaining some of his composure.

He reached into his suit pocket, pulled out the vibrating phone, then yelped when I grabbed it from his hand. I quickly put it on speaker and said in the cheeriest voice I could muster, “Hello, Mr. Edmonds, this is Rupert’s fiancée. We’ve been waiting for your call with the decision on the contract deal! Rupert is right here with me.”

Rupert looked like he wanted to hang up, but I held the phone away from him and tried to make it clear with my expression that I’d kick him in the balls if he tried.

“Well, hello!” Edmonds said over the speaker. “I have great news for you both. Rupert, you won the deal. I told James Kane that you were making a counteroffer, but he didn’t even try to beat it. You win by default. Congratulations!”

Rupert didn’t have the decency to look ashamed. Instead, he shouted into the phone, “Matt! So glad to hear it. This is going to be a business marriage made in heaven! I will make it my top priority. Nothing is more important to me.”

Before he could stuff his foot farther into his mouth, I said into the phone, “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Edmonds, but Rupert is going to have to call you back.” I stabbed the “End Call” button.

“Shell!” Rupert cried out. “What did you do that for?”

“So I could do this,” I said, shifting his phone to my right hand and cocking my arm back over my head. Then I chucked it as far as I could into the ocean.

“Have you lost your damn mind?” Rupert asked as he took two steps toward me. James smoothly stepped between us. “How am I supposed to call him back if I don’t have a phone? How can I put this deal together? What if I miss an important message?”

As if on cue, phones in the pockets and handbags of every single guest began to buzz and chirp and of course, Tillie’s played the dirty rap song that was her ringtone. I ignored it all and stepped around James. I needed to look Rupert in the eye for what I was about to say.

“I don’t know if you had anything to do with the drugging or kidnapping or hitting James over the head or if you really had an affair with Natazia, but the bottom line is, you don’t love me.” I held up my hands when he drew in a deep breath to (probably) deny it. “And Rupert, I don’t love you either.”

I pulled off my engagement ring and handed it to him, feeling lighter and happier than I had in months. I was so proud of myself and shocked at my audacity that it didn’t totally register why people were pulling out their phones and either gasping or laughing. Even Aunt Tillie yelled, “Hot damn!”

“Mother, Father, we don’t have to take this! We are leaving!” Rupert shouted as he shoved the ring in his pocket and snapped his fingers. “Clive, let’s go!”

I looked to the spot by the tent where Clive had been standing, but he wasn’t there. Rupert eyes scanned the crowd, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Clive! Clive, where did you go?” Rupert yelled.

“You did just say you were going to fire him a few minutes ago. Why would he stick around?” James asked.

“Are you talking about that big guy in the black t-shirt who looks like he lost a knife fight?” my cousin Shawn asked from the back row.

James nodded. “That’s the guy.”

“When Rupert said he would fire him, he said—excuse me for the language—‘Fuck that guy,’ and took off that way.” Shawn pointed toward the groom’s villa.

“Well, you still have Natazia,” James said with a wicked grin.

Rupert looked like he might punch him. “Shut up, you asshole.”

James did not shut up.

“I get why you won’t admit to your part in the drugging, kidnapping, stealing, and conking me on the head. Those are all felonies. But why not admit to the affair? The wedding is canceled. What do you have to lose?”

Rupert turned on him, looking so enraged that Logan came up beside him in case he really did hit James. Which was ridiculous because James could snap Rupert like a twig, but I’m sure James appreciated the backup.

“How dare you accuse me of cheating on my fiancée! I have done nothing but love and honor Shell and do my best to make her happy! I considered this engagement ring a sacred bond,” Rupert shouted as he pulled the ring out of his pocket, the picture of moral outrage. “The idea of even touching another woman, dishonoring…”

“Oh, save it, you horrid creature,” Aunt Tillie said, rising from her chair, looking lovely in a divine blue dress with a matching hat. “If you and Natazia weren’t having an affair, then how did she just send a photo of your genitals to every guest at this wedding?”

“It’s called a ‘dick pic,’ Aunt Tillie!” Claire said helpfully from her seat next to Rupert’s parents, and at his mother’s look of outrage added, “What? It is.”

Rupert turned bright red with rage and sputtered, “I have never taken a dick pic in my entire life!”

Logan pulled out his phone and swallowed a laugh as he held it in front of Rupert. “The monogrammed boxers in the photo actually have your initials on them.”

“I got you those boxers for Christmas,” I said. “Just give it up and leave, Rupert.”

Rupert wasn’t giving up yet. “This must be some of James’s corporate sabotage to get the Whitehaven contract from me. Natazia doesn’t even know most of you. How would she get your phone numbers?”

“She was in charge of booking all the rooms for the guests,” I said quietly, looking out at the sea of gawking, gaping faces who were definitely enjoying the show. “Natazia has all of their contact information.”

“You don’t even know that’s from Natazia!” Rupert bellowed, his face turning purple and the veins in his neck and forehead popping out like they might burst.

“Read him the next message, dear,” Aunt Tillie said to Logan.

Logan swiped the text on his phone, then read to all of us, “Rupert, you lying sack of shit. Clive just told me that you’re going to fire us even after everything we’ve done for you. I hope your wedding guests enjoy these pictures.”

Everyone’s phone dinged again. Logan swiped his phone and read out loud, “P.S. Your penis is crooked.”

Fifty people swiped their phones and looked at the screen while tilting their heads to the left to consider Natazia’s analysis. To be honest, she wasn’t wrong.

The murmurs of the wedding guests were drowned out by Rupert’s final spectacular meltdown. His normally smooth and handsome forehead wrinkled with anger, he was waving his hands like a maniac and spittle flew out of his mouth. “My penis is perfectly normal! Come on Mother, Father, we are out of here!”

The string quartet that had never gotten to play the wedding march because I had run instead of marched to the altar joined in the show. The four of them spontaneously struck up that old song from the ’60s, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” Nearly everyone on the beach—the guests, the officiant and even the beer tub girl at the tiki bar—sang the lyrics and waved.

As my now ex-fiancé who was so obsessed with appearance and propriety stomped up the beach with his parents, he yanked down his pants and mooned the lot of us.

I was the only one who wasn’t laughing. I was glad to be rid of Rupert and I was elated that he had revealed his true self before I married him. But there was one important thing I would miss about Rupert. I had been using him as my “I can’t” excuse when it came to James.

As in, “I can’t fool around with James when I’m about to get married.”

Or “I can’t explore those feelings I have for James if I’m engaged to Rupert.”

Or the biggie—“I can’t take the time to decide if James really has changed since it shouldn’t matter to me because I’m about to marry Rupert.”

I just needed time to sit down, to process and to think.

“Shell, we need to talk.”

Shit.

I turned to James and took a long look. He was the same old person on the outside. Impossibly gorgeous. Strong, sexy shoulders that were almost too wide to get your arms around. Dark brown eyes with that thick fringe of black lashes.

The only difference I could see was the expression. The cocky, conceited, arrogant smile was gone, replaced by a tentative, hopeful one.

“Maybe later, James,” I said, “Right now I just need a little…”

“Booooo!”

I whipped my head around to the back row where my cousin had his hand cupped to his mouth, booing me.

“What the hell, Shawn?”

“Give the guy a chance! He just saved you from marrying that prat. At least talk to him.”

“I agree!” Aunt Tillie shouted.

“Even I think it’s a good idea, and I don’t even like him,” Vina said while her husband Rhys gawked at her.

James’s tentative smile got a little bit of its cockiness back. “Please?”

“Okay, fine. But not in front of your fan club here. I think I’ve given them enough of a show for the day. Where can we find a little privacy?”

James and I looked around helplessly but the beach was crowded with guests and musicians and hotel staff.

“You two stay. The rest of us will go,” Talia said, motioning everyone away from the water. “To the tiki bar!”

Talia grabbed Logan’s hand and pulled him along while Miguel, Vina, Claire and Aunt Tillie and even Lane formed a conga line to lead people toward the bar. The violinist brought up the rear, dropping his bow and plucking out a crazy tune for them as they danced and wiggled their way up the beach.

James and I both laughed as the beer tub girl spoke into her walkie-talkie and called for reinforcements like a cop under cover on a mission. “Requesting immediate backup at Tiki Bar Four, please. Code Orange. I repeat, Code Orange.”

“What do you think Code Orange means?” James asked.

“That a load of crazy people is about to swarm. Bring me every beer and bartender you can muster,” I said, my words harsh but my heart swelling with love for every one of those idiots.

I watched them for a few minutes as they made their way along the sand, and then I turned to find James staring at me.

“Shell, you might not be ready to hear this, but there is so much I want to tell you.”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself to be ready for anything. “Like what?”

“You’ve made me a better person.”

I wasn’t ready for that.

“It’s true,” James said. “I want to be the man who is good enough for you. You’ve set those high expectations that have made me want you even more. It’s been slowly happening for a while now, but everything accelerated once I arrived here on the island.”

“James, I don’t know…one long weekend can’t change your whole outlook on life. What about when you get home to Sydney? Won’t you return to your old ways? Won’t you get the itch for a random hookup?”

“No.”

“For another notch on your bedpost?”

“Meh.”

“For a little strange?”

“What even is that?”

“I’m not sure. I heard it on TV.”

“Shell, stop. I don’t want anyone but you. No random hookups or notches or strange. I want Shell Skye and only Shell Skye.”

“That wasn’t the case just a few days ago,” I pushed, trying to trip him up.

“Yes, it was. This feeling has been building for a long time.”

“What about Natazia showing up at your door in her bra and panties? She said you invited her there. That doesn’t sound like a man who’s changed.”

“I did invite her there, but it was only to confront her about those photos. I swear it. You can ask her. She’ll tell you.”

“You want me to talk to Natazia?”

“Yes.”

“The woman who has been having sex with my fiancé…”

“Ex-fiancé.”

“Okay, fine. You want me to talk to the woman who was having sex with my ex-fiancé and who also just sent naked photos of his junk to all of my friends and my entire family. At my wedding.”

“Technically, it’s not your wedding because you’re not actually getting married,” James argued.

“What should I call it then?” I asked, trying not to melt as he took my hands in his.

“I don’t know, but I hope you’ll remember it as the day I told you that I’m in love with you.”

I shivered as he slid his hands up my arms and onto my bare back.

I barely dared to hope. “Don’t say it unless you really mean it,” I whispered.

“I mean it. I’m in love with you, Shell.”

“How could you have fallen in love with me this insane weekend where we got drugged, kidnapped, lied to, bashed on the head and handcuffed together?” I asked, giving him one last chance to reverse course.

“I don’t think I fell in love with you this weekend.”

My heart crashed into the sand. I’d given him the chance to change his mind and he’d taken it.

Or so I thought. Until he spoke again.

“I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time, but I was too afraid of my feelings. The threat of you getting married meant I had to take a long look at how I really felt. I had just been too scared to admit it, even to myself. I don’t know if you can ever love a man like me, but if you let me, I will spend every moment for the rest of my life trying to become the man who is worthy of you.”

“I love you, James.”

He looked shocked. “What?”

“I love you. I always have.”

“I had this whole speech prepared where I was going to talk you into going on a date with me,” he said.

He folded me into his huge arms, and I snuggled in. “I want to hear that speech, I really do. But right now, all I want to do is kiss you.”

I pushed up on my tiptoes and he leaned down. His lips were nearly on mine when we heard the voice behind us.

“James, I need to talk to you. Alone.”