“Not in Finland. It’s nearly one in the afternoon in Helsinki.”
“Right. Was that your agent?”
“My adoptive father. I wanted them to hear from me the news of the wedding before word reached them via the press.”
“And…is he happy for you? Is he sad to have missed the wedding?”
“My aunt is devastated,” he replies, taking a seat on the couch opposite me. “She made me promise to bring them all to Finland this summer.”
We sit in silence for a moment, the pulse of the music thrumming against the wall. I get the feeling something’s bothering him. We’ll call it the particular angle of his scowl.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
He clears his throat and shifts.
“Mars—”
“I fear I may have made a decision in haste,” he admits. “I am regretting it now immensely.”
My stomach drops out. “Ohmygod. Mars, are you having second thoughts? ‘Cause if you walk out on Rachel after three hours of marriage—”
“What? I’m not talking about Rachel—”
I gasp, my hand covering my mouth. “Then is it the guys? If you think you’ll pry her away from them—”
“No,” he says more forcefully. “Will you stop guessing and let me speak?”
“You just said you made a decision in haste,” I counter. “Married after only four months to your doctor and two of your teammates feels pretty hasty to me, Mars.”
“There was nothing hasty in my decision to make them mine. If you would stop talking, and let me speak, I will explain myself. Christ, you’re worse than Jake.”
“Rude.”
“Prove me wrong,” he counters with a glare.
I lean back, crossing my arms over my chest. “Will you just tell me already? Before I freak out or get tired of waiting and jump to the bottom of the pool—”
“I’m afraid I made a bad investment,” he says over me.
Well, that takes the wind right from my sails.
“A bad investment?” I echo. “This is about money?”
He nods.
“Well…how bad of an investment? How big was your risk?”
“Not that kind of investment,” he replies. “A few months ago, I invested in a nonprofit,” he explains. “Rachel warned me not to, but I was feeling…generous.”
I get the feeling the word ‘generous’ is not what he intended, but I say nothing. “How generous were you?” I ask instead.
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What kind of nonprofit?”
“They do sea turtle nest monitoring,” he replies.
I sit back and blink, confused. “You donated half a million dollars to a group that monitors sea turtles?”
He nods.
“Well…why?”
“It’s complicated,” he replies.
“Try me.”
He just shrugs. “Call it guilt.”
“Guilt? You donated half a million dollars to a sea turtle nonprofit out of guilt? What, did you murder a family of sea turtles? Did you mow them down in a yacht or something?”
“No,” he replies with a frown.
“Well, then I don’t get it. Why would you give so much money away?”
“Consider it my vain attempt to rebalance the cosmic scales,” he replies.
“What?”
“I live wholly unsustainably,” he explains. “Private jets, private busses, hotels, single-use containers for every meal—to say absolutely nothing about the scourge of stadiums on the environment. I just felt like I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do something…anything.”
“Holy fuck,” I say on a sigh. “You’re telling me you look and sound like that, you play hockey the way you do. I’m sure you fuck like a god,” I add. “Our Rachel doesn’t settle for anything less than the best. And you’re environmentally conscious?”
I’m not even surprised when he just nods. Yep, he’s the whole freaking package. No wonder Rachel and her boys locked him down so fast.
I shift forward on my lounge chair. “Okay, Mars. Walk me through it. Why do you call it a bad investment?”
He raises a brow at me. “Are you genuinely interested in this? I didn’t mean to unload my burdens on you—”
“I asked,” I remind him gently. “And of course, I’m interested. Nonprofit management is kind of my jam.”