The Maybach stopped outside the courthouse.
Brielle Sutton was already waiting on the steps.
She wore a soft white dress with a delicate pearl headband and even carried a bouquet of fresh lisianthus.
Nolan got out and smoothed the front of his suit.
He had dressed carefully today in a tailored charcoal suit, his tie perfectly knotted. A silk pocket square matching Brielle’s dress peeked from his breast pocket.
I followed him out wearing a knit sweater that had faded from too many washes.
Standing beside the two of them, who looked as though they were about to get married, I felt like an extra who had wandered onto the wrong set.
“Nolan, you’re finally here!”
Brielle rushed straight into his arms.
He caught her easily.
“What’s the rush? I’m not going anywhere.”
Brielle turned to me with an angelic smile.
“Mara, thanks for playing along with us.”
“Don’t worry. I’m only borrowing Nolan long enough to settle the bet. Then he’s all yours again.”
I didn’t answer.
Fighting the stabbing pain in my feet, I headed inside.
The uncontested divorce went through with shocking ease.
A clerk confirmed that we were both signing voluntarily.
Nolan signed the papers without hesitation.
“Mara, your turn.”
He handed me the pen, and I signed beneath my name.
For a moment, I was back five years earlier, on the day Nolan and I had gotten married.
Rain had been pouring that day. He’d been wearing a wrinkled white T-shirt when he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the courthouse.
“Mara, none of the ceremony matters,” he’d told me. “What matters is that it’s real. You’re the only woman I’ll ever choose.”
Looking back now, I understood.
It wasn’t that Nolan didn’t know how to make a moment special.
He had simply saved all the planning, all the effort, and all the dressing up for someone else.
Later that afternoon, the filed divorce decree came through.
I slipped my copy into my bag.
As soon as the divorce was final, Nolan took Brielle to get their marriage license.
Brielle was already pulling him away for wedding photos.
A brief civil ceremony followed. By the time they came back out, they were legally married.
Nolan walked over to me, holding up their signed marriage paperwork with a victorious grin.
“Mara, I win again.”
To him, the divorce and the new marriage were just trophies from a game he’d won.
“Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
He reached for my shoulder as if nothing had changed.
I stepped away and headed for the car.
I had barely reached for the passenger door when Brielle slipped into the seat ahead of me.
“Mara, I get carsick in the back. You don’t mind if I sit up front, do you?”
She blinked at me innocently, already adjusting the seatback with practiced ease.
Nolan glanced at me apologetically.
“Mara, take the back. You’ll have more room.”
That was Nolan’s idea of making it up to me.
He could recognize when something was unfair. He just never cared enough to change it for my sake.
I opened the rear door and got in.
The car pulled away again.
Brielle connected her phone to the stereo, and a cheerful wedding march filled the car.
She opened a bottle of water, took a sip, then casually held it to Nolan’s mouth.
He drank from it without hesitation.
“Nolan, your tie’s crooked.”
She leaned over and fussed with the knot at his collar.
Nolan didn’t pull away.
“Quit it. I’m driving.”
His tone was openly indulgent.
I leaned back in my seat. In the rearview mirror, the two of them looked perfectly at home together.
Nausea rolled through me again.
I swallowed it down and turned toward the window.
Soon, Nolan wouldn’t have the chance to make me sick anymore.
“Nolan, let’s go to your family’s estate for dinner later. Your mother said she’s making my favorite dishes.”