Their attention turns toward me all at once.
It should terrify me, and maybe it does on some level, but there’s something powerful in knowing I’m not walking into that wedding alone.
“All right,” I say, my voice unsteady but real. “We’re doing this.”
Corey cracks his knuckles. “Best wedding I’ve ever been to and I haven’t even offended a relative yet.”
Jakob offers me his arm. Brody steps to my other side. Corey falls in beside us. Katie blows me a kiss and backs toward the parking area. “Good luck.”
I stare at the entrance, at the glow of lights and the sound of laughter and the life I was afraid to walk back into.
Then three Alphas move with me. My hands are trembling. My chest is tight.
I push my glasses up my nose. Lift my chin. And we stroll through the doors.
9
CLAIRE
The chapel room is packed, and we’re late.
An usher in a waistcoat gives us a look that could curdle milk as we slip through the doors. The ceremony hasn’t started yet, but the room is full, rows of white chairs lining a long stone aisle scattered with petals, and every seat up front is taken. Candles flicker in iron brackets along the walls, casting the vaulted ceiling in shifting gold. Garlands of white roses and trailing ivy frame the altar, and the late sunlight cuts through three arched windows at the back, throwing long amber shafts across the congregation. It’s absolutely beautiful.
“Back row,” Brody murmurs, his hand finding the small of my back, guiding me into the last row of seats. Brody on my right. Corey on my left. Jakob at the end.
The stares come immediately in our direction. A woman two rows ahead turns, eyes widening, mouth forming a small O before she whispers to the man beside her. A couple across the aisle do a double take so synchronized it’s almost choreographed.
I sink lower in my seat, push my glasses up my nose, and pray for invisibility. The thing about Mistberry Cove is that gossip is less of a hobby and more of a town-wide sport. People hereknow when Mrs. Delly changes hairdressers, when the butcher over-orders lamb, and when someone’s husband spends too long talking to the woman who runs the florist shop.
“Breathe,” Brody whispers, barely moving his lips.
So I drag in a slow breath and glance at him, only for my lungs to pump furiously. He’s stunning beside me, and for the first time since this disaster began, the reality of it truly settles over me.
There are three gorgeous Alphas sitting with me. Every time I glance over at them, they’re already watching me with a smile. My heart is definitely too large for my chest at this moment.
The music shifts and the congregation stands. We rise with them, my clutch bag pressed to my stomach, and that’s when I spot Louis escorting the maid of honor, down the aisle. Deep brown hair. Porcelain skin. The soft green dress of the bridesmaids, and she might have stepped out of a spring garden. She’s beautiful, delicate.
My stomach turns hard, rejection rushing through me all over again.
Louis glances across the room, and his gaze finds mine almost instantly. The glare he gives me hardens his expression, almost accusing, as though I’m the one who has no right to be here. He’s in a fitted suit with his brown hair swept off his forehead in that way I now find nauseating. He’s smiling at others he passes, performing the role of supportive best man, and from here he looks exactly the same as he did the morning he stood in our living room and took back my engagement ring.
I expected the sight of him to crack open the old wound. To bring back the tightness, the shame, the hollow certainty that he’d been right about me.
It doesn’t.
Or rather, all that’s left is the ghost of everything I used to feel, a faint echo behind glass. Now, he’s just a stupid manin a suit, and I’m standing with three Alphas who dropped everything to be beside me, and the contrast is so sharp it steals my breath away.
Louis and his match reach the platform where the groom waits, then he glances toward the back of the chapel, back toward me, his smile faltering.
I flinch, just enough that my shoulder bumps Brody’s arm, and he stares down at me instantly.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
His gaze follows mine to the front of the chapel. Then his hand lifts, warm fingers brushing along my jaw with such quiet tenderness that my breath catches. He turns my face back to his, thumb resting beneath my chin, and leans close enough that the rest of the room seems to fall away.
“That’s him?” he whispers.
I nod.
