Chapter 1

I didn't smash the phone.

That apparently wasn't in Queenie Gibbs's predictions.

She watched me, tapping her fingers on the table three times as if she were waiting for an emotional reaction. Crying, yelling, demanding answers, slamming the door.

But I just pushed the phone back to her. "Tomorrow's premarital checkup is canceled."

Queenie finally frowned. "Why?"

I looked at her. "You're asking me why?"

She glanced down at the screen, as though she'd only just remembered the chart was still on it. "Darren, you're in an acute stress response right now. Decisions people make in anger have very low reliability."

I let out a short laugh. "Queenie, I'm not your experimental data."

She was silent for two seconds. "This doesn't change the conclusion about our marriage. Bill is just a short-term stimulus variable. You're still the optimal solution for a long-term partner."

Bill Hutley.

The first time I heard that name, she'd mentioned that her company had brought on a new project consultant. She said he was impulsive and careless, someone who made every decision on gut instinct.

She'd also said, "People like that aren't suited for long-term relationships."

So even later, when she started bringing up his name over dinner, saying he didn't drink coffee and didn't like sitting by the air-conditioning vent in meetings, I didn't think much of it.

Even the first time she canceled dinner with me for a coworker, saying Bill's proposal had problems and she needed to stay late to fix it, I still believed they were just ordinary coworkers.

Only now did I understand. Not being suited for long-term relationships meant being suited for testing physical attraction.

I stood up and went to the bedroom for my suitcase.

Queenie followed me to the doorway. "Where are you going?"

"A hotel."

"There's no need for that." She reached out to stop me. "I already told you, you don't have to interpret this as a betrayal. My core objective hasn't changed. You're still the one I'm marrying."

I looked at her.

She was wearing the pajamas I'd bought her, and her hair was still damp. Half an hour earlier, she'd come out of the shower and asked if we could go to the premarital checkup a little earlier tomorrow, since she had a meeting in the morning.

I had even blow-dried her hair for her.

Now she stood in front of me and, with that same face, told me she'd slept with someone else seven times just to eliminate the margin of error before our wedding.

I took the engagement ring box out of the drawer.

Something flickered in her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Giving it back to you."

Queenie held the box, and for the first time, she showed a hint of impatience. "Darren, can you not express your hurt in such an inefficient way?"

I froze. "Even my pain has to be efficient for you?"

She looked at me as if she were working out how to answer without escalating things. In the end, she said, "At the very least, you should hear my solution first."

"Go on."

"The premarital checkup goes ahead as scheduled, and so does the wedding. I'll suspend contact with Bill for two weeks. If his overall score hasn't surpassed yours after two weeks, we'll get our marriage license as originally planned."

I zipped up my suitcase. "And if he does surpass me?"

She didn't answer. Her brows only slowly knit together.

I dragged the suitcase toward the door. Behind me, she said, "Tomorrow at nine-thirty, I'll still be waiting for you at the screening clinic."

I didn't look back. "You can take Bill."

Just before the door shut, I heard her say very quietly, "He isn't suited for marriage."

I laughed.

She still didn't get it.

It wasn't about whether he was suited for marriage. It was that she was no longer suited for me.