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Sterling’s dress shirt fit him like sin beneath his vest, the shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal those inked forearms I loved to trace. His dark waves were tamed just enough to pass for respectable, but his eyes gave him away. Stormy blue. Glassy with a thousand emotions. Locked on me like I was the only thing left in his universe.

When we reached him, Hattie stopped and leaned in, her voice low and pleasant in the way that meant danger. She placed my hand into his and said, “Congratulations. You’re responsible for her happiness now. If you mess it up, I will make it my life’s mission to ruin your peace in small, creative ways…including sawing off your dick.”

Sterling swallowed hard, a breath breaking out of him that might’ve been a laugh or a small scream. I couldn’t be sure. “Understood.”

Hattie patted his chest once, satisfied, kissed my cheek, and stepped back.

The second she moved away, Sterling’s hands closed around mine, and he brought them to his lips, brushing a kiss across my knuckles. We stared at each other, and my heart was beating so loudly I was sure everyone could hear it.

“You’re stunning,” he murmured. “I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

I smiled, unable to speak because of the emotion clogging my throat, but…me, too.

Ryder cleared his throat loudly.

When that didn’t work, he clapped his hands once. “All right,” he said, a grin tugging at his mouth as he glanced between us. “As touching as this is, I am legally obligated to point out that if you keep staring at each other like that, we’re never getting through the vows. And I skipped lunch for this.”

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd.

Ryder’s gaze softened as he looked back at us. “Seriously, though. We’re here today because, against all odds, against better judgment, and probably against several laws I’m choosing not to think about…” He paused, his smirk deepening because no one but the four of us understood the reality of that joke. “These two found each other.”

Sterling grinned at me.

“And that,” Ryder said warmly, “is something even Blackwood believes in.”

Ryder shifted his stance, the smirk easing as he glanced down at the paper in his hands. “I was told to keep this short,” he said as his eyes flicked to Sterling. “By you. Repeatedly….and there may have been some threats.”

Sterling didn’t even blink. “I meant every word.”

Ryder shook his head, amused, then looked back at me. “Sienna,” he said, and his voice softened in a way that caught me off guard. “You crashed into Blackwood by accident. Turns out, you were the missing piece.”

Sterling’s grip tightened on my hands like he was thinking about a reality where I hadn’t turned off that exit.

“And Sterling,” Ryder continued, turning to him, “you’ve been a lot of things in your life. Some of them…concerning.” That earned a snort from Jett. “But loving her? That part you got right. You showed up. You stayed. You chose her, every single day.”

Ryder looked between us, his expression open now, sincere. “I’ve been told that marriage isn’t about being perfect. It’s about choosing the same person, even when things get dark. Especially then.”

My throat burned as I thought about all the ways Sterling and I were choosing each other.

Ryder lifted his chin. “So let’s get to the part everyone’s actually here for. Let the vows begin…”

I used to think love was just another word for endurance. Something you survived with your teeth clenched and your heart bruised, something that always came with a cost you paid in advance. I thought it meant shrinking and bracing for the moment it would hurt.

I was wrong.

The music softened around us, the crowd blurring into warmth and laughter as Sterling pulled me close. My bare feet rested on his boots, and my head was tucked against his chest, where his heart beat strong and steady.

Fairy lights twinkled above us, catching in his dark hair, glowing soft against the night. His arms wrapped around me like they had always known the shape of me, like this was where I had been meant to land all along.

“This okay?” he murmured as he brushed a kiss against my temple.

I smiled against him. “Perfect.”

He swayed with me, slow and unhurried, like time wasn’t something we had to fight anymore. Like love wasn’t a battlefield but a place to rest. I listened to his breathing, felt his warmth…and something inside me finally unclenched.

Love wasn’t pain, love was this.

Being held without fear.