I’ve always wanted to marry him, from the first time I met him. What seemed impossibly juvenile and destined for failure at age eighteen, seemed…well, just as unlikely right now, at nearly twenty-seven, but the contract was a great excuse, and a big chunk of me just wanted to promise him forever and take it one day at a time.

After the mayor of Larnaka performed the ceremony (no kidding), during which we were surrounded by three other couples who’d come to get married, Mal bought me a drink at a nearby English pub.

Now we are sitting here, basking in the surreal, and it feels a little like a parallel universe I never want to step out of—one without Mom or Ryner or Callum.

I’m telling myself this could work. That it will work.

So what if we live an ocean apart? I can visit him for long periods of time. He can do the same. He works from home, for crying out loud. I might make him fall in love with New York and move in with me.

How hard is it to fall in love with New York? All the best artists did.

“Don’t you think it’s weird how we just ran into each other at Ryner’s event a few weeks ago, and now we’re married? I never actually thought I’d see you again.”

I pop my martini’s olive into my mouth. I’m sun-kissed, have a good buzz going, and I’m sexually satisfied.

“Positively mental,” he agrees, kissing my nose.

His entire face is hot and smells of sea breeze, sand, and ice-cold beer.

“It’s like fate intervened.”

Summer is going to kill me when she finds out I tied the knot with my Irish fling from a decade ago, my mom will finally have that heart attack she’s been threatening me with, and Callum…I don’t want to think about his reaction. I’m hoping he’ll never find out. It’s not like there’s anything tying us together. We hang out in different social circles and work in different jobs. He hasn’t left anything at my apartment. He’s always been weird about coming over. Come to think of it, I’m not sure he liked Summer very much.

“We haven’t discussed where we want to live. I didn’t even sign a pre-nup,” I point out.

The way Mal lives, he doesn’t really give the impression of swimming in money—which I don’t care about—but everything about his track record of selling hundreds of songs—songs I listened to over the years and thought sounded familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why until I came face to face with him again—tells me money shouldn’t be a worry for him.

Mal shrugs. “Why would you?”

“I’m officially entitled to half of what’s yours,” I joke.