Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Rory, hesitating by the entrance. She was a vision in violet silk, her hair hanging in loose waves over her shoulders. My heart leaped.
I didn’t care about any of them buther.
“See? That’s it right there,” Cousin Andrew said, pointing at me. “The look on your face when you see her. That’s what I want.” He put his martini back on the bar, as if dismissing it. “Life is too short. I’ll have some ofthat, please.”
I glanced at him. “You know if you ever check her ass out again, Iwillend you.”
“Exactly.” He nodded. “You’re proving my point. I want to feel like that about someone.”
Something quite unusual happened, then: I smiled at him. “Good for you, Andrew. Every journey starts with a single step.”
With that, I left my cousin at the bar and took a step toward Rory. At the sight of her, my darkness started to subside a little.
When she caught my gaze, worry crept into her eyes.Fuck. She’s still upset.But I went to her anyway. Not because everyone was staring at us, though they were.
I went to her because she was the only person I wanted to stand next to.
“Good evening.” I bent and chastely kissed her cheek. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you.” She smiled tentatively up at me. “Philips did it. He’s really something with a curling iron.”
“I’ll have to compliment him.” I took her arm. “There are people here—lots of them. We need to mingle, unfortunately.”
She nodded. “I know. That’s what we’re here for.”
Her tone gave nothing away. Her expression was frustratingly neutral.
I needed to clear the air. “I’m sorry about the scene with Gigi earlier.”
Rory looked around nervously. “Is she here?”
“No, thankfully. I had Philips serve her several bottles of Veuve, and no one’s seen her since.”
She nodded. “That’s good. I talked to Maria a little while ago. She said Luke took a long nap, which isn’t normal for him. I’m sure he needed a break after what happened.”
“Of course he did. And I’m sorry that I didn’t handle it well?—”
“You handled it, which is the important thing.” Rory nodded. She was so damn beautiful it almost hurt to look at her. “Both Gigi and my mother are nuisances, but we managed them.”
She squared her shoulders and looked out at the vast crowd, taking a deep breath. “Do you want to get this over as much as I do?“
I straightened my shoulders, too. “Absofuckinglutely.”
I depositedRory at my suite at the end of the too-long night. We’d survived round after round of smiling, discussing our origin story, lying about Rory‘s background, and saying how excited we were for the wedding. Once dinner ended, we snuck out undetected. Abigail Furst was not able to make newlywed jokes, at least not in front of us; I couldn’t have borne it.
Rory stayed by my side all evening, but her mood was unreadable. She wasn’t outwardly cold, but she wasn’t warm, either. The easy camaraderie we’d shared seemed broken. It felt as though I’d lost her even though she was right next to me.
“I’m going to be old-fashioned and suggest we don’t share a room tonight,” I said outside the door. “I don’t want to see you before the ceremony tomorrow and jinx things.”
She nodded slowly, as if perhaps she’d been expecting this.“If that’s what you want, fine. As long as you think it looks okay.”
I tried to mask the disappointment rising inside of me. She was perfectly agreeable. She wasn’t rocking the boat. I had noidea what she was thinking. “I’m actually less concerned with appearances than I am with tradition.”
Rory raised her eyebrows. “Really? You’re superstitious?”
“I never have been before.” I shrugged. “But maybe it’s not a bad time to start paying better attention.”
“Because you really don’t want to jinx things?”
