Out the window, a string quartet was halfway through an arrangement of Clair de Lune—our cue that the wedding march was coming up next.
I turned to Megan and gave her hand a squeeze. “Ready?”
My friend’s eyes shone. “Let’s get me married.”
I carried her train as we made our way to the wedding processional and allowed her dad to take her arm. The last of the bridesmaids had just started their walk down the lavender-lines path to the ceremonial space. Derek was waiting for me atthe door, looking smug, yes, but also admittedly handsome in his tuxedo.
“Laney,” he murmured as I took his proffered arm as lightly as possible. “You look a dream, squirrel.”
I fought the urge to recoil at the sound of the familiar endearment. Somehow, I had been attracted to that. I’d even considered the possibility that this would be us one day, even if I had turned down his first proposal.
Now, the idea was nauseating.
Apparently, people really can change. I had.
On Darla’s cue, Derek and I started down the path. As we approached the guests, all two hundred of them seated in linen-sheathed chairs adorned with jasmine, I offered polite smiles to those I knew.
“You’re tense,” Derek murmured. “What’s wrong, hubs couldn’t make it?”
I opened my mouth to say that no, my problem was thathehad. But before I could, I spotted Ronan seated on the aisle in one of the middle rows, looking gorgeous and rich and impossibly handsome in a charcoal suit that had to be bespoke. “Actually, he’s right there, waiting for me.”
As we passed, Ronan winked and offered a cheeky grin that brought out his dimples. Derek’s arm tensed under my hand, but I didn’t even bother to look at him. I was more focused on trying to calm the blush quickly rising up my neck.
“I still can’t believe you actually married that guy,” Derek muttered. “Have you looked him up? He’s basically a gigolo. Different model every night. TMZ doesn’t lie about shit like that.”
And just like that, the light in my chest shuttered. Before I could come up with even a simple retort, we parted to stand on either side of the arbor.
The first notes of “The Wedding March” sounded, and everyone stood to watch as Megan and her dad exited the house.
Again, I wasn’t particularly sentimental about weddings. But I did catch the look on Kevin’s face when he saw Megan. His mouth fell open, his jaw slackened, and his eyes shone wet with a mix of pride and love that eventually bubbled over into a few tears.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t help crying a little too when my best friend exchanged vows with her beloved. I was thrilled for her, yes. But I also wouldn’t mind a man looking at me like that at least once in my life.
More perturbing was why I couldn’t stop myself from glancing down the aisle to where Ronan sat. Or why I actually liked the feeling of my heart picking up a few beats when I found him staring at me instead of the bride and groom. When our eyes met, one side of his mouth lifted into an expression so sweet, so kind, so obviously reserved for me, a part of me wanted to walk back down the aisle myself and claim him in front of all these people.
I wondered if he was remembering bits of our own wedding ceremony that had possibly come back to him.
I wondered if he was still regretting it. Or if he was wondering, like I was, what would happen if we just… stayed married?
No. That was crazy.
And yet, as Kevin tipped Megan backward in a kiss that elicited hoots from all across the lawn, the thought wouldn’t go away.
Nor would the persistent question of what, exactly, I might say at a wedding to Ronan Black if I could do it again… and would actually remember it.
12
QUICK RETORTS AND WEAK DRINKS
RONAN
Iliked weddings a lot.
It would have been a surprise to anyone who knew me (and I’d admit it to my brothers when I was dead in the ground), but there was something about a celebration of love that was so innocent and unabashedly earnest, I enjoyed them.
Most of the world was a shithole. Most people were garbage to their core. But most of them also enjoyed at least one day of their lives where they stood in front of someone—a justice of the peace, a group of two hundred, or maybe an Elvis impersonator—just to say “I love you.”
This wedding was nice for a lot of reasons. Laney’s friend clearly had money. Not Black family money, but enough to pay for the view, the house, approximately ten tons of jasmine, and a reception for two hundred people in their finest spring wear. I needed a Zyrtec, but beyond that, I was enjoying the reasonably skilled string quartet and the panoramic views of mountains, city, and sea.