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Sabrina and her dad paused at the top of the steps as the music changed and a spotlight faded up on them. Then they began to descend the stairs.
Vicky yelped.
Then she clamped her hand over her mouth and ducked. She hunched low, hidden from the rest of the audience by the backs of the empty seats beside her. She looked around. Fortunately between the fading sunlight and everyone’s focus on Sabrina, no one seemed to have noticed her.
* * *
All eyes were on Sabrina, but Ryder was looking for the source of that yelp.
He’d have recognized the comical squeal anywhere (though it helped that Vic had made a very similar noise clamoring down from the fountain that day at Lincoln Center).
She was there. She’d come.
Not that it meant anything. So she’d come to see her friends get married. That wasn’t surprising. And it didn’t mean she’d come to see him.
Though the yelp was strange. Had she been coming in late and stumbled on her way to her seat? Was she okay?
He scanned the crowd for her, looking for her sleek, black hair. She was taller than average and, of course, drop-dead gorgeous. It ought to have been easy to spot her. Where was she?
Noah noticed his distraction and nudged him, but Ryder ignored him. His attention was caught by a movement off to the side.
There!
She was crouching behind a row of seats, wearing . . . Was that his baseball cap?
Their eyes locked.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
He was looking. Right. At. Her.
Even from thirty yards away she was pulled in, drowning in his deep-brown eyes. God, she missed him.
* * *
Noah hissed. “Ryde, what in the name of—” He stopped when he glanced in the direction Ryder was looking.
Vic looked both ridiculous and adorable, hiding behind the seats in what looked like it could have been her high school gym outfit.
The corner of Ryder’s lips curled up in a lopsided smile.
Slowly, she started to smile back. Then she stopped, her mouth flat, her brow knit.
Then she bolted.
* * *
She had no idea what she’d been thinking. She’d almost smiled at him. What was she going to do next? Wave? Run up on stage and throw herself at him so that he had to call security to pull her off? He was probably laughing at her right now. Showing up at the wedding like some kind of stalker. And she was dressed like a lunatic. Although that was really his fault. Him and his stupid witness-protection gimmick.
She had to get out of there. She didn’t have a plan other than run and pretend this never happened. Admittedly, it didn’t feel foolproof, but now wasn’t the time to iron out the kinks.
Since the audience was to her left, a wall to her right, and the bride above her (and headed slowly but surely in her direction, along with a spotlight and everyone’s attention), Vicky opted to flee down the stairs and into the first opening she could find, which turned out to lead backstage.
She almost immediately came face-to-face with an enormous and terrifying puppet, draped in yards of raggedy fabric.
She screamed.
Her mind supplied the useful but not so important information (dredged from her freshman Shakespeare class no doubt) that there was a ghost in Hamlet, and this was probably him.
