Normally, Nat wouldn’t think twice about dragging Asher upstairs and into her room while she changed, making him zip her up without question. But now, with this weighty attraction between them that had never been present before, she knew they stood on shaky ground, and making him watch her change probably wasn’t the smartest idea right before they were supposed to get fake-married.
Knowing they didn’t have much time, she shoved those thoughts out of her mind and stepped toward the main floor bathroom. “I’ll just be a sec,” Nat said, holding the garment bag up so that it didn’t drag on the floor.
Last night, after an emergency call to Will’s best friend, Avery, with a plea to borrow a dress appropriate for a courthouse wedding—“Something nice, but nottoonice. Dressy but still kind of funky. ItisNat, after all.”—her sister had dropped it off, and Nat hadn’t even unzipped the bag to peek. It wasn’t like she had much choice in the matter. She hadn’t exactly brought wedding apparel with her to Argentina, and there hadn’t been time to swing by Portland to raid her closet when she’d dropped everything to fly home to Havenbrook. No matter the dress, she’d wear it because she didn’t have any intention of showing up to marry Asher looking like a bum while he looked like he stepped out of the pages ofGQ.
She hung the dress on the hook at the back of the door before unzipping the garment bag and spreading it wide. Her breath caught as she took it in. The dress was long and flowy, a mix of pale pink, lavender, and teal all woven together to look like unicorn cotton candy. The front plunged low—thank God her breasts were small enough that she wouldn’t need a bra, because there was no way she could wear one with this—the dress held up by tiny straps topped with draped cap sleeves.
Nat undressed, stripping down until she wore only a pair of pale-pink lace panties, all too aware that Asher was just on the other side of the door. She slipped the dress over her head, the soft fabric gliding over her body as if it were tailor-made for her. She zipped it as much as she could before accepting she wouldn’t be able to finish the job by herself.
She opened the door a crack, and Asher’s head snapped up from where he stood, braced against the wall opposite her.
“You need help?” His voice was low as his gaze dropped, though she knew he couldn’t see anything since she stood just behind the door.
“Yeah, do you mind?” she asked, no idea why she sounded so damn breathy.
She opened the door the rest of the way and turned her back to him, holding in a shiver at the change in temperature when he stepped close. His fingers grazed a path up her spine as he secured the dress on her, and her nipples peaked at the featherlight touch.
Holding her breath, she watched him in the mirror, his chin tucked to his chest, eyes downcast as he kept his focus on his task at hand. When he’d fastened the zipper all the way, he lifted his gaze to meet hers in the mirror, that newly present electricity arcing between them.
After several silent beats, he finally said, “You’re gorgeous.”
And she couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t do anything but stay snared in his gaze as he looked at her like she was everything. Like he wished he’d been taking this dress off her instead of putting it on. Like he wanted a replay of this morning, but without the interruption, just to see how far things would go. Like he wanted to kiss her again as a lead-up to a hell of a lot more.
She swallowed and tore her eyes away. “I bet you say that to all your almost-wives right before you’re about to get fake-married.”
He laughed, a low, throaty sound, his breath gusting across her bare shoulders. “You caught me.”
“Knew it.”
“I know you were kiddin’, but I need you to know I wouldn’t be doin’ this with anyone but you, Nat.” His eyes bored into hers, and she read every ounce of sincerity he’d intended in the look.
Licking her lips, she nodded. “I know. Same goes.”
His mouth ticked up at the side. “You ready?”
She took a deep breath, pressing her hand to her stomach that had, for some ungodly reason, become infested with butterflies, and nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”
He stepped back and offered her his hand, smiling when she interlocked their fingers. With how long they’d been friends, she’d been on the receiving end of his smiles thousands of times, which meant there was no reason for her stomach to flip like it was. It was probably nerves. This was a big day—real or not—made all the more so thanks to her mom’s insistence on their showing up there first.
“I shouldn’t be surprised my momma wanted us to take pictures, but I’m gonna feel like an idiot out there smilin’ when we both know this isn’t…” Her words trailed off as they stepped outside, her brain not quite comprehending what she was seeing.
“What the fuck,” Asher breathed just loud enough for her to hear.
Well, that was good. At least now she knew she wasn’t having some sort of psychotic break where she imagined an intimate wedding wonderland in her parents’ already immaculate backyard. A backyard that, just yesterday, had been totally and completely normal.
Now, though, it’d been transformed into something out of the pages of a magazine. Strings of bulbed white lights hung across the pergola above the deck, as well as throughout the plethora of trees on the property as far back as she could see—hundreds…maybe thousands of them.
Will and Finn, Mac and Hudson, Nash, her nieces, as well as her parents and Gran, sat in the scattered white folding chairs.
“Where’s Rory?” she asked Asher, because, yeah, that was what really mattered right now.
“Right here,” her sister said from Nat’s left and thrust a bouquet of wild flowers into her hand. “Just go with it. There wasn’t any way we were talkin’ Momma out of it.”
“Out ofwhat?”
