Like at the ceremony, I’d felt him before I even let myself look. I’d known where he was, in the far back, giving me distance, and the way he looked at me wasn’t in a way that was asking for forgiveness. He wasn’t trying to make me feel guilty, even though I could see the regret clearly in his eyes.
Somehow that made it even harder, though, because his being so careful and considerate made me want to throw something at a wall.
Or kiss him.
Or maybe both, though not in that order. Probably.
Across the room, Peter stood near the bar with Alec, and when I saw him I felt…nothing. Nothing gut-stabbing, anyway,and not with the pull he’d exerted over me for so long. I could look at him now as just a man in a suit beside someone else, someone from my past that I’d moved on from. I was more bothered by the fact that Beckett had told me he was leaving than by Peter’s being only a few feet away with another man.
That was wild.
I’d told Beckett I needed space, but that hadn’t meant “go back to the cabin, pack your shit, and call a car.” Knowing him, he thought leaving quietly was somehow noble or that disappearing was what I wanted him to do. Why, then, did it hurt just as bad as the lie?
I took another sip of the champagne without meaning to, forgot my stomach was rioting, and grimaced.
“Honey, the champagne didn’t do anything to deserve that expression,” Mama said, shaking her head as she and Mom made their way over, finally free of the long line of huggers.
“You’re right. I should apologize.”
“Or I’ll just take it off your hands.” Mom plucked the glass from my fingers and took a long sip.
“I’m feeling some déjà vu,” I said, not sure now what to do with my hands and tugging at my sleeve.
“If you’re referring to my margarita that we caught you sipping when you were eighteen, you’d be right,” Mom said.
“Uh, legal drinking age in Europe is eighteen.”
“Manhattan is not in Europe.”
“Well, we’d just gotten back from France. You can’t just change the rules that fast.”
“Sweetheart.” Mama reached for my hands, holding them in hers, and for a moment I was grateful she’d given my fingers a purpose…until I looked at her. She was smiling softly, but her eyes were far too knowing and I felt my stomach drop. She gave my hands a squeeze. “Your brothers told us.”
Of course they had, the traitors.
“How much?” I asked.
“Enough,” Mom said.
I waited for the inevitable questions.Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you hire someone? Sawyer Montgomery, have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?And, to be honest, yes, clearly I had lost my head several times over.
But neither of them asked, and Mama still held my hands while Mom reached up to straighten my boutonniere.
“You look so handsome,” she said.
I narrowed my eyes. “That feels suspicious.”
“Telling my son he looks nice on our wedding day?”
“What are you buttering me up for?”
She and Mama exchanged glances—damn that whole reading-each-other’s-minds thing—and then they slipped their arms through mine and walked us away from the crowd.
“Where’s Beckett?” Mom asked.
“He went back to the cabin.”
“To pack?”