She'd laughed. Embarrassed, genuine, with her whole face. He'd noticed her hair first, brown curls escaping from whatevershe'd done to pin them back, and then her eyes, brown, warm and completely transparent. And then the fact that she was looking at him like a person, not a last name.
He'd gotten her number. They'd had dinner. She was easy to be with. Warm, funny, self-deprecating. Interested in his work without being interested in his money. She taught fourth grade. She loved her students: she knew which kid was struggling with reading, which one had a parent in the hospital, which one drew pictures of dragons during math. She talked about them the way other women in his circle talked about portfolios.
She was kind. She was beautiful. She was, in his mother's language,suitable. Good-natured, nice, middle-class family with no scandals. Charlotte herself warm, genuine, she'd never embarrass you at a business dinner, she'd raise children who said please and thank you, and she'd fit.
He'd thought:This could work.
He'd proposed at four months because the municipal contract timeline demanded it. He'd taken her to the restaurant where they'd had their first date. He'd gotten down on one knee, and she'd cried and said yes before he finished asking. He'd slid the ring onto her finger and thought:Good. This is handled.
Then he'd gone home, poured himself a scotch, stood on his balcony and thought about Jacqueline. But he'd pushed the thoughts down. The way he always pushed them down. Filed them somewhere deep and told himself that what he'd had with Jacqueline was in the past. Charlotte was the future, and the two things didn't need to touch.
A knock on the door. One of the groomsmen — Trent, from the firm — leaned in. "They're starting to seat. Fifteen minutes."
"Thanks." Dominic checked the mirror one final time. Everything in place. Everything where it should be.
He stepped out of the suite. The hallway was carpeted and hushed. He walked toward the elevator with Maxwell fallinginto step beside him. They rode down in silence. The doors opened onto a corridor that led to the back entrance of the ballroom, and Dominic could hear the murmur of three hundred guests, a string quartet playing something he'd approved on a spreadsheet but couldn't name.
He turned the corner toward the staging area, and that was when he saw her.
Jacqueline.
She was standing near the entrance to the ballroom with a tall, sandy-haired man. David, her husband, whose hand rested on the small of her back. She wore a dark green dress, understated, no jewelry except her wedding ring. Her hair was shorter than he remembered. She was laughing at something David said.
Dominic stopped walking. He had no idea what she was doing here. He certainly hadn’t invited her, and Charlotte didn’t know her.
The ache hit him like a door swinging open, everything he'd buried for months flooding up at once. Her laugh. He knew that laugh. Had heard it across pillows, dinner tables and crowded bars, aimed at him, because of him, and now it was aimed at someone else.
She turned. Their eyes met across twenty feet of hallway.
Jacqueline didn't flinch. She gave him a small nod: polite, measured, as if they were old colleagues. Then she turned back to David, and they walked into the ballroom together.
She looked settled. Complete. Like she'd found whatever it was she'd been looking for. It wasn't him, and she'd made peace with that so thoroughly it didn't even register on her face.
The ache deepened. He stood there, let it carve through him and told himself this was just the day, just the pressure, just the proximity. He'd be fine once the ceremony started. He'd stand atthe altar, look at Charlotte and the Jacqueline noise would quiet down the way it always did. Submerged, managed, controlled.
Maxwell’s hand landed on his shoulder. "Dom. You ready?"
Dominic blinked. Rolled his shoulders. Adjusted his cufflinks one final time.
"Let's go."
They walked into the ballroom through the side entrance. He took his position at the altar: mahogany arch, white peonies, candles in glass hurricanes. Everything tasteful, expensive and selected from a mood board Charlotte had shown him that he'd approved without looking at closely. The officiant nodded. The guests hushed.
The doors at the end of the aisle opened.
And there she was.
Charlotte. On her father's arm. Her brown curls pinned up with a few loose around her face, her brown eyes bright even from this distance, her smile wide and trusting. She was radiant. She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the dress or the hair or the makeup. It came from somewhere inside her, some reservoir of genuine feeling that she'd never learned to hide.
She was looking at him like he was everything she'd ever wanted.
His chest tightened. Emotion swelled, tangled up with the Jacqueline ache, threaded through it, impossible to separate. Charlotte was walking toward him, she was glowing and she believed in this and she believed inhim. He couldn't tell where the guilt ended and the feeling began.
He smiled. The public one. The one that worked in boardrooms and at galas and in photographs.
She reached the altar. He took her hand.
CHAPTER 3
