Months ago, I would have been drinking whatever Miles preferred, wearing whatever Miles thought appropriate, and staying by his side like the perfect accessory.
"You're making a lot of assumptions based on a drink order," I said.
"Not assumptions. Observations." He tilted his head slightly. "Am I wrong?"
The quartet shifted to a new song, the opening notes of the wedding march.
Around us, guests began moving toward their seats.
"Saved by the bride," I murmured, finishing my scotch.
His smile was slow and knowing. "For now."
As we joined the flow of guests, he stayed beside me, close enough that I could smell his cologne—something woodsy and expensive.
I should have moved away, found Zoe, sat with the friends I was supposed to be with.
Instead, I let him guide me to an empty row near the back.
"I didn't catch your name," he said as we sat.
"I didn't offer it." I watched the groomsmen take their places at the altar.
"Let's keep it that way."
He raised an eyebrow. "Anonymous encounters not typically your style?"
"What do you know about my style?"
"I'm learning." His gaze trailed from my face down to where the silk of my dress draped over my thighs. "Rapidly."
The bride appeared at the end of the aisle, radiant in vintage lace, and the guests rose.
As we stood, his hand brushed against the small of my back—the contact brief but deliberate.
Electric.
I held my breath, waiting for the guilt or discomfort to follow.
It didn't come.
Instead, something reckless unfurled inside me—a wildness I'd kept carefully contained since the day I met Miles Reid.
Maybe even before that. The knowledge that this man, this stranger, saw me more clearly in five minutes than Miles had in years.
When we sat again, I was hyperaware of the inches between us.
Of every shift and adjustment that narrowed the gap.
Of his profile in my peripheral vision and the steady rhythm of his breathing.
The ceremony passed in a blur of vows and music and applause. I registered none of it. My entire focus had narrowed to the electric current running between me and the silver-haired stranger beside me, who had said and done almost nothing to warrant the chaos he'd created in my carefully ordered world.
As the newlyweds recessed down the aisle amid cheers and flower petals, he leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear.
"I'm going to get another drink," he said, his voice a low rumble that I felt more than heard.
"And then I'm going to find somewhere quiet in those gardens. You can join me. Or not. Your choice."
