“Just sister stuff,” I tell him while tucking my free hand into the crook of his elbow.
The puzzlement on his face clouds a bit with concern. “So everything is okay?”
Tucking my hand into the crook of his tuxedoed elbow, I nod. “Everything’s fine,” I lie, giving him the serene,unflappable Milliesmile that’s been my armor for as long as I can remember.
For a moment, he looks like he wants to argue with me. Like maybe he knows I’m lying, and it almost breaks me. Almost has me dragging him into the vestibule he just pulled Gwen and me out of so I can tell him everything, but before I can crack and ruin everything, Paige turns from her place ahead of me in the procession to give me a sugary smile while she mouthsare you ready?
I feel those insane laughter bubbles popping against the back of my throat again.
Over her shoulder, I watch the wedding coordinator shoo my little sister and her chastised husband through the doorway. Into the sanctuary and the full view of the church’s three-hundred guest list.
Giving her my practiced smile, I nod my head while my fingers dig into the sleeve of my father’s jacket. It isn’t until Paige and her escort disappear through the double doors leading from the vestibule into the main sanctuary and my father and I step into their place that I realize how uncertain I actually am.
Are you sure about this, Millie? There are easier, more dignified ways of handling this. Ways that don’t include setting fire to the bridge you’re presently standing on.
Directly to my left is the front entrance to the church. The limo is waiting at the curb, per my instructions. I don’t have to do this. I can just run. Tell my father I’m sorry, let go of his arm and run. Through the doors and down the steps. Into the back of the waiting limo and away—it would take less than a minute and I could be gone.
All of this would be behind me.
Stepping into the doorway, we’re held in queue by the wedding coordinator who watches Paige glide flawlessly down the aisle with a practiced, critical eye while her team of assistants fluff and straighten the heavily beaded, cathedral-length train attached to my couture, custom-made wedding gown.
Shit.
I suddenly see myself tripping on my own dress while I make my getaway, tumbling down the aisle like a sparkly snowball, rolling through hell.
“Take it off.”
Behind me, the team of dress fluffers freeze while their boss gives me the stink eye. She makes fifteen hundred dollars an hour to ensure every wedding she oversees is the picture of social media perfection and an abandoned, twenty-foot, jewel-encrusted, slipper satin train was not what she envisioned. “Pardon?”
Before I can argue or let myself be bullied into keeping it, my father reaches for the hand tucked into the crook of his elbow and smooths my frantically clawing fingers. “You heard my daughter—take it off.” He narrows his gaze slightly when the wedding coordinator hesitates. “Now.”
Within seconds I’m free, the team of dress fluffers working with the speed and precision of a Nascar pit crew to unhook the train attached to my dress and hustle it away.
“Better?” My father asks quietly, his hand still smoothed over mine.
In front of me, Paige passes the row of back pews, directly in front of Dean who’s seated himself on the aisle like he’s been thinking about making a fast getaway too. Catching my gaze, he gives me one of his asshole smirks before flicking a look at the back of Paige’s head.
Want me to trip her?
Hand going lax beneath my father’s, I feel my chest expand and my shoulders relax. “Yes.” I look at my father, offering him a relieved smile, right before we step into the sanctuary. “Better.”
SIXTEEN
Iwas going to leave.
Tapping out a quick text to Paige, I let her know that there was a fabricated, reception-related emergency at the hotel that needed my attention and that I would meet her there. Right before I hit send, Millie’s little sister appeared in the vestibule doorway, blocking off my escape route.
Trapped, I tucked my phone into the breast pocket of my suit without hitting send and resigned myself to 90-minutes of catholic wedding hell.
Slapping a bland, polite smile on my face, I watched as Millie’s tense-looking little sister minced her way down the aisle on the arm of her husband who had the slightly dazed look of a man who’d just had his ass chewed out. Dalton’s a decentguy. We talk baseball sometimes when we happen to get dragged to the same social functions. He’s privileged and has no idea how the real world works but he hates the Yankees and always tips my bartenders well at family events, so he’s tolerable. When he sees me, he offers me a flat,hey mansmile on his way to the altar.
As soon as they’re past me, Paige appears on the arm of some generically handsome guy I imagine is probably one of Allister’s frat brothers from college or someone he used to work with before he landed his job at Blackwell Investments. When she sees me, Paige gives me a pretty little pout—her way of letting me know she’s still mad at me for turning down her offer of pre-wedding sex in Millie’s suite at the Hawthorne.
I’m at the Hawthorne, all alone… you want to meet me here instead of the church? We can fuck in Millie’s bed before the ceremony.
Right now, I’d rather slam my dick in a car door.
Looking past Paige without acknowledging her, I catch sight of Millie, standing in the doorway of the sanctuary and watch while a bunch of women in black, fitted trousers and color-coordinated blouses work to unhook her train from her dress, half folding, half dragging while they hustle it out of sight. Staring straight ahead, Millie’s gaze is trained on her cousin, watching her make her way down the aisle with the kind of shell-shocked look you’d see on someone who’s just survived an earthquake or a hurricane.
