Page 163 of The Wrong Groom

“Only with you.” I catch her hand and lead her toward the empty space that serves as a dance floor. “Everyone else is out of luck.”

She laughs as we stop in the center of the dance floor, her arms sliding up around my neck. “Lucky me, then.”

“This time, I might even dip you.” I grin as I settle a hand at the small of her back and start us moving. “In front of everyone. Even my mother.”

She laughs again, and the sound of it is like a balm to every scarred part of my soul. “You’re such a deviant, Mr. Thorne.”

We sway to the music, and after a moment, she rests her cheek against my chest. I rub my thumb over the small of her back idly, thinking about the first time we did this at a wedding neither of us chose, both of us stiff as strangers—because that’s what we were. I held her at arm’s length that night, scared somehow of every place we touched.

“You were so far away the first time we danced,” she says quietly, as if she’s read my thoughts. “I remember thinking I’d never get past all those walls.”

“I was trying to protect you,” I admit, letting out a sigh. “I had myself convinced I’d ruin you. That a man with a heart as wrecked as mine had no business reaching for someone like you.” I lean back just enough to look at her. “I was sure I’d take all that light of yours and put it out.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. You did the opposite to me.” I reach up to trail my fingertips down the curve of her cheek. “My beautiful, perfect sunshine.”

Her eyes turn glassy, and she blinks hard, swatting lightly at my chest. “You can’t say things like that to me when I’m pregnant and so full of hormones.”

I chuckle and spin her out, then bring her back with a twist of my wrist. “There’s still time, you know. If a chapel and lilacs and Peyton holding the rings wasn’t enough, I’ll give you the whole circus. The church, the orchestra, a dress with a train down the block. Whatever you want.”

She shakes her head before I’ve even finished, looping her arms around my shoulders again. “It was perfect exactly the way it was. I didn’t want a circus. I wanted you, and Peyton, and us promising each other something real.” Her blue eyes shine with sincerity. “I wouldn’t change a single second of it.”

My heart swells, but before I can answer, a small body crashes into both our legs.

“Can I dance too?” Peyton tips her head all the way back to look up at us, the shoulder strap of her dress drooping again. “With both of you?”

“Of course you can, Bug. Get up here.”

I scoop her up onto my hip, and Alexis laughs, looping her arms around both of us as the three of us turn in a slow, clumsy circle that isn’t really dancing at all. Peyton hums along to the music, off tune but very enthusiastic. Alexis and I share a secret smile, and I adjust my grip so that I can pull the two of them just a little bit closer.

People talk about someone bringing light back into their life, but that’s not quite what happened to me. Alexis didn’t just brighten things. Before her, I was running on routine and stubbornness, going through the motions of a life I’d stopped expecting much from, and I hadn’t even noticed that the organ in my chest had gone quiet.

She did so much more than bring light back into my world.

She brought my heart back to life.

Epilogue Two

Beckett

I’m standing with Gabriel and Alexis, halfway through giving my brother hell about how long it took him to come to his senses, when I spot something across the room that kills the rest of the joke in my throat.

It’s Ivy. She’s over at the bar that runs along one wall of Liora waiting for a drink, and there’s a guy next to her leaning in way too close, crowding her.

“Excuse me for a second,” I tell them, but I’m already moving, not caring much about the niceties.

I cut through the crowd toward the bar, keeping my eyes on the two of them the whole way. The guy is someone I don’t know well, the son of some friends of my mother. He’s talking low, right up against Ivy’s ear, and she’s doing the thing she always does, smiling to be nice and easing back a couple inches without even seeming to notice.

I’m sure if I called out the fact that he’s actively hitting on her, she’d be surprised. She has no clue the effect she has on men, with her soft blonde hair, wide eyes, and curvy figure. Ivy turns heads everywhere she goes, but she somehow doesn’t realize it, waving off compliments like they’re jokes she doesn’t get.

As she shifts her weight, the guy’s gaze rakes over her body like he thinks he’s being slick about it. He isn’t. Between Jackson and me and my brothers, there’s always been a wall of us around Ivy, going all the way back to when she was a kid, running off the assholes who looked at her like this. It’s habit by now, and tonight, I’m just the one who was standing closest.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

I step up next to her as I reach the bar, as if I came over for a drink and nothing else, sliding into the space between her and the douchebag so that he has to shuffle backward a little to make room.

“Yamazaki, neat,” I tell the bartender.