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“Let them,” he answers with an unwavering tone. “Let them. I don’t care. I can’t play these games anymore.”

“I care.” I tug my hands free. “You are marrying my sister in two weeks.”

“I can’t.” At this, his voice cracks, and his gaze veers off toward the curtain and Olivia beyond. “I can’t marry her.”

“But you are so perfect together,” I remind him. “Like you always say, ‘Cupid shot his arrow.’”

“No, Dolos shot his arrow and set me on the path to misery,” he says, his voice hard. “Do you know what it’s like to be with her? Do you have any idea what it’s really like to be with her, Savannah?”

“I mean,” I say, taken aback, “she can be a bit overbearing—”

“Overbearing?” Ferris laughs. “Overbearing was months ago. I dream about the days of overbearing. Now my life is nothing but logging what I eat, how many tasks I get accomplished before noon, how many steps I take. How many steps I take! Do you know the last time I had actual food in a restaurant? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten steak? And the wedding!” He throws his arms up in the air. “On and on and on about the stupid wedding! Do you know how many bakeries I’ve been to in the past nine months?”

His voice is rising, taking on an I’ve-lost-my-mental-stability tone. People backstage are starting to look, and, to my surprise, he really doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Six?” I venture.

“Thirty-two. Thirty-bloody-two.”

He’s looking at the floor, but then his gaze shoots up as if he remembers where he’s at and the aim of his message. “But you.” He takes a step toward me. “You were a treasure. Letting you go, Savannah, was the biggest mistake of my life.”

There’s silence, and then he moves in closer, his voice lowering as his chin tips down toward me. “Let’s get out of here. Now. We can go anywhere. Do anything. Shoot, we can fly all the way to Vegas right now and get married. Just please, please forgive me for what I’ve done. And I promise . . . I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

I stare at him. Vaguely I hear the hum of activity beyond the curtain and the clinking of glasses. But mostly I’m looking into his eyes. His desperate, tired, eager eyes locked onto mine.

Ferris wants to leave Olivia.

Ferris is sorry for leaving me.

Ferris wants . . . to marry me.

Right now.

And my head feels like a ship full of various packages has exploded, and I’m trying to sort through the wreckage, discovering new and overwhelming emotions and memories at each turn.

But as I do so, one single point does come to mind. And it lingers.

In this moment, I’m getting everything I’ve dreamed of.

In one succinct moment, all the secret hopes and dreams I’ve held over the past year are happening all at once. Olivia is going to get her heart crushed, just as mine was. Olivia, for once, has been rejected, despite her perfectly sculpted jawline, despite her unrelenting tenacity, despite her Energizer Bunny lifestyle and row of neatly framed accomplishments. And I . . . could . . . be back with Ferris.

Marry . . . Ferris.

Finally get my own happily-ever-after.

How long have I dreamed, even in the quietest way, of marrying him? A third of my lifetime.

And yet.

More than anything else, the biggest thought in my head—the strangest part of it all—is the words of Will Pennington. Not Sam, my mystery editor. Will.

And the words he said while he looked into my eyes outside the courthouse: “You deserve the same kind of happiness you wish to bestow on them.”

And he’s right.

And that isn’t Ferris. It was, for a long time, the dream of Ferris. The longed-for idea of what we could be. But it was never him. Never truly.

It’s Will.