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And then —

She's there.

At the far end of the aisle. White. Not bright white—the soft kind. The kind that looks like it was made from light. The dress surprises me. I was expecting something architectural. Layers of perfectly placed construction.

But this? This is something entirely different. It's elegant yet ethereal. The fabric moves with her body... it catches in the breeze. She looks like some kind of angel. Her hair is down—dark auburn and loose over her shoulders in a way I've never seen on her before.

Henry is beside her. His good hand gripping her arm. His back straight. His steps slow and deliberate and exactly the pace she's matching without thought. His cane gripped in his other hand to help keep him steady on the uneven ground.

I lose the thought.

Somewhere between the observation and the analysis, my brain stops cataloging. Stops measuring. Stops doing the thing it has done every day of my professional life—the disassembly, the risk assessment, the contingency planning.

She's halfway down the aisle and I have no plan.

I don't have a plan.

Damien's hand lands briefly on my shoulder. And then it's gone. He was right. I wasn't prepared for seeing her like this.

I don't look at him. I don't look at the board members. I don't look at Sienna or any of my brothers in the crowd. I don't look at the three hundred people in chairs who are watching to see if Everett Kauffman can perform this convincingly enough to satisfy a dead man's clause.

I watch her match her father's steps.

Henry delivers her to me like a man handing over something sacred.

His grip on her arm loosens. He turns to her. Cups her face the way he did last night at the rehearsal—rough-handed but gentle.

"I'm proud of you, sweetheart," he says. Not quietly. He wants people to hear it. He wants the world to know.

Her eyes are wet. She blinks once, hard.

He turns to me. Those sharp-on-a-good-day eyes land on mine and hold.

"You already know," he says.

I nod. "Yes sir."

He clasps my shoulder—a single, hard squeeze—and then he takes his seat.

Aria steps forward. Her hands are wrapped around a bouquet of peonies that trembles faintly. She's looking at me with an expression I can't decode and that fact alone is unusual because I can always read her. Her mood by the sound of her footsteps approaching my office. The exact threshold at which her carefully placed professionalism while dealing with me as my assistant for the last six months would turn to irritation though she'd try to hide it with painted on smiles, biting back curse words I'm sure she had to keep in her head. Now I know all of that was because she didn't want to lose her job. Her father's place at Brookhaven depended on it.

Now we're here. Miles away from a boss/employee relationship with failed coffee attempts and her perfectly curated reports done to please me and keep her job.

Now she's minutes away from being my wife.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Hi."

The officiant begins.

I hear approximately forty percent of what he says. Something about commitment. Something about partnership. Something about the bonds we choose and the ones we're born into—ironic, given the nature of ours.

She and I both repeat our vows to one another as the officiant instructs. Through sickness and in health… until death due us part.

It’s not what our secret prenup says but saying them to her doesn’t feel like a lie either.

The officiant asks for the rings.