Tequila and Bad Idea

Late night, I’m at a beachside club with a glass of tequila in front of my face and a bartender looking at me like I’m an expensive potted plant that had suddenly started smoking.

His name was probably Kai. Or Koa. Or something very Hawaiian and very undeserving of being dragged into the Bernadi family’s moral crisis.

“Ma’am,” he said carefully, “are you okay?”

I lifted my glass. “Fantastic.”

He did not look convinced.

“I might sleep here,” I said.

His face tightened. “At the bar?”

“Under the bar, if necessary. I’m flexible tonight.”

“Ma’am…”

I pointed at him with my glass. “Don’t use that tone. I’m just trying to have fun because my life is currently turning into air-conditioned hell.”

He shut his mouth.

The club music pulsed softly, not the kind that made people sweat on the dance floor, but enough to make rich couples feel young for three minutes. Low amber light fell across the wooden tables, over the bare shoulders of beautiful women, over the jaws of men with too much confidence. The dark ocean stretched behind them, vast and cold, while everyone laughed as if the world had not just proved that even safe men could carry small knives behind their backs.

My eyes stopped on a couple in the corner.

The woman was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, laughing as she touched his chin. The man looked at her like he had just discovered a religion better than money. At another table, a man kissed his girlfriend’s shoulder. Near the open window, an older couple shared dessert with one spoon, disgusting and sweet in a way that made my chest feel folded in half.

I swallowed the tequila.

The heat went down my throat, but it was not enough to burn Ricky’s name out of my body.

My boyfriend. My fiancé. The man who called when I was scared. The man who sat in the car with me until my breathing went back to normal. The man who had once taken that disgusting note from my hand and said, “He’s not going to touch you.”

That was then.

Now, he was touching someone else.

Fuck.

I closed my eyes and lowered my head, pressing two fingers to my temple.

“If you lower your head any farther, I’ll have to check whether you’re praying or throwing up.”

I opened my eyes and turned.

Rhysand Bernadi was sitting on the barstool beside me, as if he had grown out of the dark, out of whiskey, out of bad decisions in a black T-shirt.

Naturally, he is here.

Because apparently the universe had finished kicking me in the face with an Italian leather shoe and decided to add my ex-future husband’s older brother as garnish.

Rhysand was not wearing a suit. Just a black T-shirt that fit his body in an indecent way, dark pants, an expensive watch, black hair messy like he had run his hands through it himself because he knew the world would forgive anything on a man with a face like that.

A tattoo peeked from his upper arm, half hidden beneath the fabric. His eyes looked dark in the club lights, but when the bar light cut across his face, the blue came through. Deep. Calm. Unfair.

I stared at him. “I was trying to summon the devil. But apparently you showed up.”

“Close,” he said. “But I’m more expensive.”

“I don’t have the energy for expensive men right now.”

“Pity.”

He ordered whiskey without looking at the bartender. The bartender moved immediately, looking relieved because now there was a big man who seemed capable of handling the woman in white who might sleep under the bar.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in your room? Meditating. Fasting. Performing some kind of bridal pilgrimage. Whatever brides do the night before they get married.”

I spun my tequila glass with one finger. “I tried tradition. Turns out it’s boring. Now I’m exploring alternative paths.”

“Alternative paths to what?”

“Minor crime, or a third tequila. We’ll see who wins.”

“And you alone?” he asked.

“I came with my personal ruin. She’s parked outside.”

Rhysand looked at my glass, then at my face. “Where’s Ricky?”

I laughed. “My fiancé?” I said. “My ex-fiancé? Your brother with the rare talent for humiliating two families at once?”

Rhysand went quiet. Something shifted in his face. “What happened?”

I leaned in slightly, very sweet. “I went to his villa.”

Silence.

“Then I found him and your girlfriend in bed together.”

One second.

Two seconds.

“My girlfriend,” Rhysand repeated.

“Camille. Blonde model. Silver dress. Patiently stood beside you yesterday because, apparently, sometimes the view is nice.” I pressed the label down like a heel on a cigarette butt.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“She’s also not a very good wedding gift.”

Rhysand set down the whiskey that had just arrived without touching it. “Are you sure?”

I stared at him.

He lifted one hand slightly. “Not about Ricky. About Camille.”

“Even in my own scandal, the other woman still gets an identity verification.”

“Maya.”

My name in his mouth sounded like a warning written in expensive ink.

I took my phone out of my bag. The screen was full of missed calls, messages, digital chaos. I opened the video, then handed it to him.

“You should have seen it by now. I sent it to the family group chat.”

“I’m not in any group chats.”

“Of course you’re not. Too many emojis. They’d damage your mafia aura.”

He did not answer. He looked at the screen.

I did not watch the video again. I had seen enough. I watched Rhysand’s face instead.

In the first second, there was no reaction.

In the second, his thumb stopped moving.

In the third, something very cold passed through his eyes.

But, well, he was very calm.

Rhysand stopped the video before it ended and set my phone down on the bar, screen facing down.

“He said that to you?”

I took my phone back. “No, he recited poetry.”

“Maya.”

“What?” I finished the rest of my tequila. “Do you want to defend him? Tell me that he was stressed. Tell me that weddings make men do stupid things. Tell me that I should calm down because all of this can be handled elegantly. I’ve already gotten that version from thirteen people and one cousin who should not even have my number.”

“I don’t defend men who blame women because they don’t know how to keep their pants on.”

I blinked.

Damn.

That made me laugh.

The bartender came over to refill my glass, but Rhysand covered the mouth of it with his palm.

I looked at his hand. Then his face. “Move your hand before I turn it into a coaster.”

“You’re done.”

“Excuse me?”

“With tequila.”

I let out a laugh. “You’re ordering around the wrong girl.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still choosing danger?”

“Because you’re angry and sad, and this bartender already looks like he’s about to call either the police or a priest.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m fine.”

“You said you might sleep at the bar.” Bartender exhaled.

“Women are allowed to have ambition.”

Rhysand leaned in a little. “I’m not letting you blame tequila tomorrow for anything you do tonight.”

My chest moved slowly. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Yet.”

I looked at his mouth.

Big mistake.

Rhysand’s mouth did not look like something a woman should be looking at right after canceling her wedding. His mouth looked like the reason women lost cities, inheritances, and their common sense in a single night.

I forced my eyes back up. “Are you always this arrogant?”

“No.”

“When are you humble?”

“When I’m asleep.”

“Well, I have no proof.”

His eyes moved over my face, down to my lips, then back to my eyes. “Careful.”

I smiled. “Is that a threat or an instruction?”

“A warning.”

“For me?”

“For both of us.”

The ocean crashed outside. The music shifted slower. A couple laughed near the door, then disappeared toward the beach. I realized my knee was touching Rhysand’s. I had no idea when that happened. The heat of his body reached me through that small space, clean, warm, too real.

I should have left.

I should have called my family.

I should have cried in my room, wiped off my makeup, let my family surround me like a fragrant living fence full of legal threats.

But all day, everyone had been trying to manage my collapse. Don’t be reckless. Don’t respond. Don’t talk. Don’t ruin reputations.

I looked at Rhysand. “I want to do something stupid,”

Rhysand did not smile. “Revenge?”

“Maybe.”

“Pick something else.”

I tilted my head. “Are you refusing to be my bad choice?”

“I’m refusing to be the reason you use to punish Ricky.”

“I don’t remember asking your permission to punish anyone.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I had two tequilas in two hours and four canapés from this overpriced hell. I’m more sober than I was when I accepted your brother’s proposal.”

His eyes flickered.

Hit.

I leaned my elbow on the bar. “Don’t look offended. I’m offended, too.”