But the bigger part of me? The bigger part warmed at feeling so cherished.
“And the rest of you?” I asked.
He finally turned to look at me.
“The rest of me,” he said slowly, “is waiting for the universe to notice we’re happy and take a swing at us.”
I opened my mouth to tell him not to be so dramatic. Then I remembered whose life I’d walked into.
Fair point.
“Well,” I said instead, “if it swings, we swing back. Harder.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up.
“You planning to punch my stepmother in the face when she shows up?”
I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together.
“Yeah,” I said. “You bet your happy ass I’ll punch her in the face if it comes down to it.”
His laugh was low and startled, the sound going straight through me. He pulled me closer, hand sliding to my waist, and brushed his lips across my forehead.
“For tonight,” he murmured, “I just want it to be this. You. Me. No tests. No challenges. No games. No drama. Just us, enjoying our first night together as husband and wife.”
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
We stood there in silence, watching the light fade, our reflections faint in the glass. For the first time in a long time, I let myself feel hopeful. Married. Chosen. Not as a prize, not as a test… but as a partner.
Maybe, just maybe, we could have something resembling a normal life after all of this. Maybe the worst was behind us.
We were halfwayup the stairs to the master suite when Henry’s voice echoed up from the foyer.
“Ben!”
There was something in his tone that made every muscle in my body tense.
Ben’s grip on my hand tightened. We traded a look — Are you hearing that too? Yeah, I am — and turned to peer over the banister.
Henry stood below, phone in hand, his face grim.
“What is it?” Ben called down, his voice hardening.
Henry hesitated for half a second, eyes flicking from Ben to me and back again.
“Sorry to crash the honeymoon, kids,” he said. “But we just got word from my guy at the airport in Mobile.”
My stomach dropped.
“What kind of word?” I asked, dread coiling low and cold inside me.
Henry’s gaze locked on Ben.
“Vivian’s jet just landed,” he said. “She’s here early.”
The fragile, hopeful future I’d just started to picture in my head shattered like thin ice, and I remembered, very clearly, that marrying the man who thought of himself as a beast had never guaranteed that we were safe from the evil witch in his life.
Chapter
