Page 121 of Bombshell

“I’ve had some time to think about this,” I admit. I fell in love with her years ago, but today she’s going to be mine at last.

* * *

Adair

Ava steps in so that Poppy can perform her maid of honor duties when it’s time for the ceremony. She lines us up with a grim determination that feels more like she’s sending me out to a firing squad than to get married. I wait to the side as Sutton exits the back door followed by Trish. Poppy gives me one last squeeze, smiling from ear-to-ear, that I’m about to see all her hard work finally achieved.

“Okay, it’s your turn,” Ava orders Ellie, who’s clutching her flower girl basket tightly in her tiny fists. She looks up to me with wide, terrified eyes.

“I want to go with you,” she whispers.

“The flower girl goes before the bride,” Ava tells her, but I step closer as her hand closes over the door knob.

“It’s fine. She can walk with me.”

Ava gives me a look that says I can explain this to Poppy later, but, honestly, it’s better this way. Today, I’m not just marrying Sterling, we’re becoming a family. It’s more than I ever dreamed of and I want her by my side. Outside the music shifts from Canon in D to the Wedding March, and I smile at Ellie.

“You ready, baby?” I hold out my hand.

“One more second,” she says, holding up her index finger, all her nerves suddenly gone.

“I think we better…” I trail away as Sterling comes into the room, Zeus on a leash at his side. The man can wear a suit, but he owns a tuxedo. It fits his body perfectly, showing off all the assets I’m getting in this merger. His dark hair is combed to the side, his face clean shaven for the first time in months. A wicked smile curves across his lips, matching the cocky glint in his eyes.

His eyes skim over me with approval, but before he can get too distracted, Ellie hurls herself at him. “Daddy!”

He catches her with his free arm, his shocked eyes looking over her shoulder to my smile, before he buries his face against her. Ellie turns a familiar grin on me. “Were you surprised?”

“So surprised,” I admit with a laugh. Apparently, her stage fright was only a ruse to keep me here long enough for Sterling to sneak up on me.

“Not doing this without me, right?” he says.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Shouldn’t you be…”

“Poppy mentioned how you didn’t have anyone to walk you down the aisle,” he says, “but you do, Lucky. Me.”

This one detail had bothered me since we began planning the wedding. I hadn’t known until then how much I would wish Felix was with me today. I’d obsessed over my lack of escort for weeks before gathering up the conviction to do it myself.

“Isn’t it bad luck?” I ask as he draws closer.

“Nope,” Ellie pipes up. “Daddy says we’ve got all the luck in the world.”

“Does he now?” I repeat, my eyes never leaving his handsome face. I don’t know how we made it. The road that led me to him is twisted and rocky. It hides behind blind curves in spots. It runs along narrow, terrifying cliffs. It winds through darkness. Navigating it is an act of faith, a test, but what’s waiting here at the end is worth the risk.

A family.

A future.

A forever.

Sterling opens the door, steps through onto the porch, then turns to offer his arm. Our eyes meet as Ellie and I join him. I take his arm carefully, looping my small bouquet of magnolias around it. Ellie’s hand is warm in mine, and she looks up at us with adoration as our friends and family cheer over the music.

A pathway of magnolia petals blankets the ground leading to an archway that drips with creamy white roses, lilies, and more magnolias. Large pillar candles set in hurricane glass light the way to our friends, waiting for us to join them at the end of the aisle to make our vows.

“You ready?” Sterling asks.

We’re finally here. Past the darkness and the despair and the deception, emerging from it into the brightness of endless possibilities.

“I’m all in,” I say.