She was every wish I never dared to speak out loud. Every prayer I’d ever sent up to the man in the sky, now being answered. Like Heaven had gotten bored of angels and sent me one instead.
But the look on her face?Crìosd. That’s what wrecked me. Her eyes, those beautiful golden-green eyes that had captivated me from the very start, were full of tears and the kind of love that leveled a man.
And her fuckingsmile. It landed in my chest like a Russian missile, straight through the ribs. A direct hit to everything I’d tried to brace for.
I thought I’d be calm and composed because of how certain I was—of her and us andthis.
But I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready for the way my hands trembled harder.
I wasn’t ready for the way my knees nearly gave out.
I wasn’t ready for the fuckingneed—not lust, not hunger, not even love. Just that bone-deep,achingknowledge that she was it for me. That this wasn’t the finish line. It was the beginning.
She wasn’t walking toward me like an angel. She was walking toward me like she already knew what we were going to survive together.
Auri paused halfway down the aisle. One barefoot step—pink-painted toenails pressed into the ground—and then… nothing. Her shoulders bunched, her chin trembled, the bouquet in her hands wobbled just slightly.
I saw the moment the emotion caught up with her. The weight of everything she’d survived to get here. Everything we’d fought through—the secrecy, the crash, the loss, the politics, the grief, the fear. It was all there in the rise of her shoulders and the way her lashes fluttered with unshed tears.
And I didn’t ask or wait orthink. I just moved, the way I had my whole life. But this time the movement wasn’t running from anything. I was runningtoher.
Each step was quiet but certain, my shoes—matching sandals with Maro and Kimi because“it’s two millionaires eloping, we’re all rich and hot, we can wear whatever we want, the Grecian sun is no joke, and none of us want to die of heat stroke”—brushing over the ancient earth like this was my final test. One last chance to prove I’d show up. That I’d meet her where she was, every time. That I’d catch her if she broke.
The wind brushing my back like a confirmation that this was what I needed to do. Lucy’s voice floated around us, soft and melodic.
She looked up when I reached her.
And I swear to God, the moment she met my eyes, I broke. Tears shimmered in her hazel depths, catching sunlight like they didn’t know whether to fall or stay suspended. But it wasn’t just the tears. It was the way she looked at me, wide open and unguarded. All the walls she’d ever built around her heart, torn down and handed to me. I saw it in the way she stood still but trembling. In the way she let me see her.
“Hi,” she whispered on a breath that broke me.
The sound of it hit me right in the chest. I let out a breath and shook my head once, slow and helpless.
“Christ.” I grinned, slow and lopsided. “That’s unfair.” Her brow creased, confused through the tears. “You can’t look like that,” I explained quietly, eyes dragging over her like I wasimprinting her into my bones, “and say hi like we’re bumping into each other at the market.”
A laugh broke free of her, soft and surprised, and something unspooled in her shoulders. The tension eased. The tremble steadied. And there it was:thatsmile. The one that always felt like a win. A smile that was earned.
“Auri,” I murmured, needing to say her name, needing to tether myself to something real before I floated clean off the ground.
She blinked up at me, took a shaky breath. “I was okay until I saw you.” Her voice cracked again. She looked down, then back up, her gaze misty again. “I didn’t expect it to hit me like this. Not the nerves. Just…” She inhaled through her nose. “You. The weight of us. It just… hit all at once.”
I said nothing. She needed me to listen right now, to understand her needs.
Her hands tightened on the bouquet, the stems creaking from the pressure. She hesitated. “Cal… we’ve done all of this together. Every stretch. Every crash. Every goddamn battle. I don’t want to walk this last part alone.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t need grand or perfect. I don’t need a moment to be remembered by strangers. I just need you. Safe. Steady. Beside me.”
In the background, Lucy’s voice tapered, but she continued strumming her guitar in a gentle, romantic melody.
Auri’s eyes were the softest they’d ever been. “I want to start this together. I want to walk into our marriage the same way we’ve endured everything else—together.”
And that was it. That was the moment the dam broke inside me. I pressed my lips together, hard, trying to force the burn in my eyes back down my throat. It didn’t work.
I reached up and brushed a knuckle down her cheek. “I’ve got you,” I told her, steady and certain. “Every step.”
I stepped beside her, close enough she could feel that if she stumbled, I’d catch her.
Then I saw the back of her dress. Or rather, Ididn’t, because the dress didn’thaveone. Just a criminally scarce drape of silk that teased the curve of her spine, dipping low. Scandalously, fuckingblasphemouslylow. It gave every single goddamn inch of her sun-kissed skin back to the wind, tan lines on full display like they were framed.
