Her chin lifted a little, that stubborn streak coming through clear as day. “My dad was mad when I wasn’t a boy. Will you be mad at my mom like my dad was if you don’t have a boy?”
Good Lord.I did my best to hold it together, but what the fuck had that man done to them?
I reached for her little hands slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted, but when she didn’t, I folded my fingers gently around hers. “Girls are more fun. I like watching princess movies and buying sparkly, girly boots for you, and frankly, I’drather play with Barbies than with trucks. If your mom decides that she wants another baby, I hope it’s a girl. Just like you.”
Her suspicion of me eased just a fraction. “Are we going to live in Wisconsin again?”
“We’ll spend time there. For vacations and school breaks. We could even go some weekends, but we’ll live here. In Chicago.”
She looked around the library again. “In this house, right?”
“Only if you like it,” I reiterated. “It’s close to your new school, so I could run beside you if you want to ride your bike to school in the mornings. It’s up to you, obviously, but it’s a possibility.”
“Would I get my own room?” she asked thoughtfully.
“You’ll get first choice,” I said. “In fact, you could have Uncle Theo’s room if you want. It has the best windows and probably a ghost or two.”
A smile finally broke through. “Do you think he’d let me have it?”
I shrugged. “He might be going on vacation for a while, so he won’t mind, but there are tons of rooms for you to choose from if we do decide to live here.”
Lu let out a broken laugh and looked around again for a few long moments before she nodded. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Zach.”
I grinned, relief inching in where previously there had been uncertainty, worry, and more than a little skepticism about how she was going to react. If I had Lu’s seal of approval, that was already a huge leap in the right direction.
CHAPTER 46
ADELINE
Asingle week after Zach and I had finally saidI love youand got engaged on our own terms, I wasn’t sure whether or not I would ever have a wedding again. But it turned out that Douglas Westwood and my grandfather didn’t care what Zach and I wanted.
“Absolutely not,” Douglas had declared when we’d the mistake of mentioning we might just elope. “You deserve a wedding.”
“Agreed,” my grandfather had barked. “I’m paying for the champagne and we’ll have an open bar too. No expense will be spared.”
After that conversation, everything had started moving very, very fast, which was how I’d ended up standing on a raised platform in the middle of one of the massive dressing rooms at Westwood Manor, my future home, while a terrifyingly elegant stylist helped me into my sixth wedding dress of the afternoon.
I stared at myself in the mirror, layers of ivory silk settling around me. “Oh, no.”
Jane gasped from the couch as she looked me over. “I think what you meant to say is,Oh, yes.”
Kate, seated beside her, nodded enthusiastically. “You look unbelievable.”
Jacqueline pressed a hand to her chest, also peering out from behind Jennifer’s shoulder, who was sitting sideways across her lap. “Zach will probably pass out when he sees you in that.”
“Are you sure that’s what we’re aiming for?” I asked mildly. “Making the groom faint just seems like a one-way ticket to spending our wedding night in the emergency room.”
“It’s an acceptable casualty,” Jane replied. “We’ll make sure there are doctors on standby in the ER. They’ll have him back to you, good as new, in plenty of time for?—”
“Your wedding night,” Kate finished over her, giving a pointed look toward Lu and Jennifer. “In time for their wedding night.”
They burst into laughter, and while I chuckled with them, it still startled me how easy it had become to laugh with them. The Westwoods in general were loud, opinionated, and invasive, and the women they’d chosen were just as bad, if not worse, but somehow, they’d wrapped themselves around me and the girls so naturally that it felt like we’d always been part of their family.
Louis had a small family. He’d been an only child and so had I, which had meant that holidays had always been quiet and tense. Family events hadn’t been events so much as lunch with his parents or coffee with my grandpa.
This, however, was not that. The Westwood women were a force of nature, and with them,everythingseemed to be an event. They’d insisted on being with me every step of the way for the wedding planning, and so far, they hadn’t flaked once.
Over the last couple days, we’d gone to choose flowers and décor and argued about the vital importance—or otherwise—of napkin colors. We’d met with two bands and a DJ, interviewed several photographers, and nixed a whole host of offers from vendors who were trying to get in on a Westwood wedding.
