“You can get to the rest of my list tomorrow morning. Bye!”
“Tomorrow morning?” Cindy spoke to the dead air, tears of frustration welling.
“What’s the rest of her list?” Jack asked.
“You really don’t want to know.”
Without asking for permission, Jack turned her open laptop to read the screen.
His eyebrows climbed, then knit, then his mouth twitched, fighting a laugh. “Seventeen point five seconds?”
“I know,” she whispered helplessly.
“And a neon sign?” he asked gently. “I thought we didn’t do neon.”
“We don’t,” she said. “Apparently, we do tomorrow.” A sob caught in her throat. “Why am I doing this, Jack? Why am I letting this become about work and not us? It makes me feel like I can’t do either one right—I’m a lousy manager and an even lousier bride. I just wanted this to be about our second chance and now…it’s work. The one day I don’twantto work!”
Tears dribbled down her cheeks as he took her hands in his much stronger, more capable ones.
He listened with the stillness that she loved so much about him, occasionally wiping her tears or squeezing her hands.
“Cin, you are an amazing businesswoman,” he said quietly. “You built something beautiful, and you take care of people better than anyone I know. But we’re getting married and we get to make the day what we want it to be. Not what somebody on the internet thinks will trend. Tell her to fly a kite and film that instead.”
She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say yes and delete the list and run outside with him and laugh all the way to their rehearsal dinner. Instead, she stood to gather her thoughts, fast and sudden, her shoulder slamming into the floating shelf and rattling it?—
Jack sucked in a breath just as she saw the snow globe teeter. On the edge of the shelf, her beautiful glass gift tumbled sideways, falling through the air.
Time stretched, thin as ice, and the globe moved in slow motion—the tiny bride and groom under the trellis frozen in their forever, glitter suspended around them like a promise about to shatter on the hardwood floor.
She and Jack lunged in the same instant, hands colliding in midair with a gasp. Their fingers wrapped the cold glass together. It shocked her—the weight, the suddenness, the simplicity of catching the treasured gift before it hit the floor.
They stood there, both breathing hard.
Cindy looked up at him, her eyes burning. The globe felt heavy and pure and…saved.
“Jack,” she said, and her voice cracked on his name. “I almost wrecked it. I almost lost…everything. I almost did the same thing that broke us up the last time—putting work before us.”
He looked at her, a storm of emotions in his dark eyes. “But you didn’t. We caught it just in time.”
Still holding the snow globe, they slowly straightened, as if the weight of the moment pressed on their shoulders.
Gently, like it was made of, well, glass, they set it on her desk.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the words tumbling with the same speed as that near-miss. “I’m so sorry I got so wrapped up with Dominique and social media that I forgot what this is. I’m sorry about the trellis. I’m sorry I let her make me feel like we had to trade our story for a reel. It’s our wedding, and I let it become her show. I’ll call her now and cancel.”
Jack’s face softened, lines of worry and humor and love etching deeper in ways she wanted to memorize.
“I have a better idea.”
She looked up at him. “What is it?”
“A surprise.”
She inched back. “I almost just broke the last one you gave me.”
“You won’t break this one,” he said. “Here’s what I want you to do, okay? Leave this office right now and go to the cabin that MJ prepared for you. Do not stop in the kitchen, do not talk to anyone, do not look at your phone, your laptop, or anything but your mirror. Do whatever you want to do to get ready. Hair. Makeup. Your favorite dress and a glass of wine. Do not leave that cabin until I knock on the door.”
She drew back, baffled and intrigued. “Then we’ll go to dinner.”
