My new dress hugs my curves, lace-trimmed and simple. Nothing like the elaborate gown I wore the first time.
That one was destroyed. Even if it hadn’t been soaked in Harper’s blood, I never could have worn it again. Some things can’t be cleaned, no matter how hard you scrub.
This dress is different. It belongs to this moment, this man, this life I’m choosing with clear eyes and a full heart.
Matteo stands across from me, and God, he looks devastating in a tuxedo. Broad shoulders, sharp jaw, those ice-blue eyesthat have thawed so much since the night we met. He’s actually smiling, and the warmth that floods through me has nothing to do with the California sun.
This man. This grumpy, protective, secretly soft man who taught me to shoot and ride a motorcycle and trust again.
We’re the only ones here. Just us and a minister in flowing robes, her voice gentle as the breeze when she speaks the words that will bind us together.
My family wasn’t thrilled about missing another wedding. Ma was disappointed too. But they understood when I explained that I needed this to be simple. Intimate. Just the two of us after everything that happened.
What matters is that this time, there’s no audience. No performance. No ulterior motive lurking beneath the vows.
Just love.
Matteo takes my hands, and his thumbs trace slow circles across my knuckles. The rough calluses against my skin make me shiver.
“I, Matteo, take you, Sierra...”
His voice is low. Steady. The same voice that’s growled orders and whispered filthy things against my neck and told me I was safe when I needed to hear it most.
When it’s my turn, my throat goes tight. These are traditional vows, the same words spoken at a million weddings before ours. But they mean something different when you’ve already lived them.
In sickness and health. We’ve done that.
Good times and bad.Done that too.
For as long as we both shall live.
I believe it. For the first time in my life, I believe in forever.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Matteo cups my face in his hands, tilting my chin up. The kiss is soft at first, tender in a way that always surprises me from a man with so much violence in his life. Then it deepens, just for a moment, just enough to remind me what’s waiting for us tonight.
The wind picks up, scattering loose petals from my bouquet across the cliff. I chose every bloom myself. Peonies for romance, lavender for devotion, baby’s breath tucked in because I couldn’t resist the name.
Afterward, we walk along the beach. I kick off my shoes and let the cool sand squish between my toes, my dress gathered in one hand while the other stays locked with Matteo’s.
I don’t feel the need to fill the silence with chatter. That’s new for me.
Julian would tease me about it. My brother’s always said I could talk the ears off a statue. He’s not here to give me a hard time, though.
I wish he was. But after everything, keeping this small felt like the kindest choice.
He’s doing better, at least. His traumatic brain injury has mostly healed, though the insomnia still lingers. His leg’s in a cast for another few weeks, but the doctors expect a full recovery.
His marriage is another story.
There’s still a pang when I think about Harper. There probably always will be.
But I’ve made peace with it. She was desperate, terrified, trying to protect the man she loved. I understand that impulse now in a way I didn’t before. If someone threatened Matteo, I don’t know what lines I’d cross.
Julian and Harper are in marriage counseling now. He’s having a hard time moving past what she did, and I can’t blame him. Finding out your wife handed over your sister to a human trafficker isn’t exactly something you work through in a weekend.
But I think they’ll make it. They love each other, and love is stubborn.
