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I weighed my options, which took almost no time at all because, after a lifetime of being forced to choose between the lesser of two indignities, I was a pro. But before I could answer, Damon cut in with an air of authority that had me feeling very swoony.

“She’ll stay with me.”

It was so abrupt it quieted the room. I looked at him, incredulous. He looked at me, entirely unbothered, and then at the assembled crowd, my aunt, his mom, and my cousin, as if daring anyone to challenge his decision.

Damon didn’t just double down—he went all in, the way only a man with nothing to lose and the world’s most punchable smirk could.

Before anyone could object, he slid an arm around my waist and reeled off a story so polished it had to be premeditated. “I said she should stay with me from the start,” he announced to the room at large, his tone mournful and gallant at once, “but she’s so considerate she didn’t want to disturb me with her workload. Looks like the fate was on my side.” Then, with a little squeeze of my hip that sent my brain into a flatline, he looked at me to cosign. “Isn’t that right, Mickey?”

Let the record show I have never in my life gone by Mickey. Not with friends, not with exes, and definitely not with the one person who knew exactly how to push my buttons.

I clenched my jaw, pasted on the kind of smile you reserve for a cop holding a speeding ticket and relatives who want to discuss your biological clock, and nodded with just enough conviction to sell the bit to the crowd of relatives. “Absolutely, yes,” I said, managing the words through a tight-lipped grimace.

Damon, of course, didn’t miss a single beat. He beamed at the assembled matriarchs, then at me, and started issuing instructions as if he’d been the resort’s de facto cruise director for years. “Let’s get you packed up.” He gave my waist a brief, possessive squeeze, then peeled off toward the bathroom, tallying my toiletries for optimal bagging and transport.

The commotion that followed was a masterclass in coordinated chaos. Auntie Bev commandeered my suitcase and began dumping my remaining clothes into it with the ruthless efficiency of a TSA agent on a power trip.

Scarlett filmed everything, occasionally narrating the action for her invisible audience—“And here we see the CEO being forcibly relocated by her family’s love and a catastrophic plumbing incident, hashtag #KayKayGate”—while Selma Lockhart floated in the background, like a silent ninja packing up my things.

I barely had time to process what was happening before my entire existence was packed up and ready for transit.

My belongings, such as they were, ended up in a series of canvas totes, a laundry bag, and my suitcase. Damon carried the whole lot as if he was training for a strongman competition, and I trailed behind, my dignity only partially restored by the Lockhart Ranch robe, which Scarlett helpfully assured me looked “super retro-cute.”

Our exodus drew a crowd. As Damon loaded our haul into a golf cart reserved for staff, half the wedding party watched from the veranda, drinks in hand, waving. I kept my chin up, a trick I’d learned as a kid: if you look like you’re walking the runway, people might just forget you don’t have the newest clothes or no father.

I slid into the passenger seat, and Damon started the cart with the kind of flourish reserved for getaway cars in heist movies. We peeled away from the scene, tires crunching over gravel and the engine whining in protest as our full cargo weighed it down. The wind was sharp and clean, tinged with pine and salt from the ocean, it cut through the last of my panic and left only a strange, simmering possibility.

We crossed a wide stretch of open meadow, the golf cart bouncing over divots and hidden rocks. I focused on the horizon, on the orderly rows of vines that stretched into the distance, on the yellow lights glowing in the main house’s windows. Anything but the fact that Damon, of all people, was at the wheel, and I was sitting beside him, close enough to feel the warmth rising off his skin.

He didn’t say much. Neither did I. The silence was surprisingly comfortable.

After a few minutes, Damon slowed the cart and steered it off the main path, following a rutted gravel drive that curved around a stand of cypress trees. The house rose up on the other side—white clapboard, black trim, and a wraparound porch straight out of a magazine. It was so picture-perfect I wanted to hate it, but instead, it made my chest ache. There was a porch swing, and a row of potted lavender, and a faded welcome mat that made me think of one word, home.

10

BONNET MEETS BAD BOY

Mikayla

Istarted to climb out of the golf cart, but Damon stopped me.

“Wait.”

I froze with one foot hovering over the pavement. “What?”

He didn't answer. Instead, he walked around the front of the cart, bent down, and scooped me into his arms like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold.

Which, coincidentally, was exactly what he proceeded to do.

“What are you doing?” I squeaked.

“You don't have shoes on.”

Right. My shoes. I'd forgotten about those. Along with my ability to breathe, think, or perform any of the basic functions necessary to sustain human life.

My arms automatically wrapped around his neck as he carried me toward his front door like I weighed nothing. I was five foot seven. I wasn't a tiny woman. But Damon didn't so much as grunt under my weight. I felt petite in his arms.

And for some deeply disturbing reason, that made my ovaries want to throw a parade. A parade with floats. And fireworks. Possibly a marching band.