Prologue
It doesn't make sense. I read the certificate in my hands again, my eyes skipping over the boxes where someone typed up the vital statistics. Four entries stand out to me:
Adair Anne MacLaine.
The woman standing across from me. The woman I didn't know before this moment. The woman I'm not sure I'll ever know.
November 1.
The day after her birthday. Four years ago. A day I was drunk on leave with Jack and Luca.
Elodie Anne MacLaine.
Her niece. They have a club for Sagittariuses. Sagittari? She likes hot chocolate.
Unknown.
But I know what name belongs in that box. Adair knows. More importantly, Adair knew, even then. It should have been my name in the box next to Adair's name—the box marked father.
Adair
The Past
We make our way back down the thickly carpeted steps of the Valmont Country Club. If I look away for a moment, my heart swells like a wave cresting at high tide when I see him again. And his eyes? They crash over me, pulling me under until there’s only him and the promise of a life I was sure I’d never reach. I’m lost in him, and I never want to be found.
Thankfully, no one seems to have noticed we were gone. I’m even more thankful that I can feel my tipsiness wearing off. We practically float into the Valmont Country Club ballroom, anchored to the earth only by our clasped hands and make our way to the dance floor. Sterling’s eyes glint, catching the last, dying ember of sunset streaming through the large windows
God, he’s handsome. God, I love him.
“Are you ready to dance, Lucky?” he says, but before I can answer he spins me against his body, catching my hand in his and pressing the other to the small of my back.
“If you put your hand any lower, we’ll have to find another closet,” I tease.
The adoration on his face transforms to something darker, sending my own mind to thoughts of another stolen moment alone. He pulls me even closer to him, twirling us between two other couples, and bends down to kiss me.
Pop.
The energy in the room changes, and I sense the people around us stop dancing as though we’ve actually become the center of the world instead of just feeling like we are.
Pop. Pop-pop-pop.
Flashes of light fill the ballroom, and this time, even I stop. I look around, half-expecting to discover some well-intentioned, but soon-to-be-unemployed server has turned on a strobe light.
Boom!
A shower of sparks ricochets over the lake outside, and a split second later, another loud boom fills the room. Orbs of pale pink and champagne bloom in the night sky, the water doubling the effect of the fireworks. The ballroom lights dim above us as the next firework goes off bathing everyone in flashes of pastel light. Around us, the people ooh and ahh as the flashes keep coming, now without any big, booming explosions.
The piano in the corner, unused all night, begins playing. I know everything about the wedding plans—and this isn’t part of them. My eyes scan the crowd, hoping to find a glimpse of Ginny. There’s no way she okayed this. I would know.
“There,” Sterling says, guessing who I was looking for and pointing to a spot by the glass wall.
Ginny’s brow is crinkled, her mouth agape. For a second, I’m sure she hates the disruption, as her gaze flies around the room, from DJ to wedding planner, finally coming to rest on Malcolm’s face beside her. For an anguishing second, I think she’s about to widow herself until my brother gives his new wife a sly grin. She softens into a swoon, and he bends down to whisper something in her ear. As he does, a small group of violins and cellos start playing next to the piano, sending another titter through the audience. I’m not into classical music, so I can’t place the composition. But it’s lovely—soft and rich, with big swells that take my breath away.
“Debussy, I think,” Sterling says, his face dancing almost as much as Ginny’s.
It’s pure magic.
A man dressed in a black-on-black suit stands in front of the musicians, cupping his hand over a black earpiece. He must be coordinating between them and the fireworks people. When the next swell hits, it reveals another surprise. An entire small orchestra has filed into the back of the room as everyone looks out on the fireworks, and they all begin playing as an incredible flurry of fireworks burns the sky nearly as bright as day.
Two huge fireworks soar above the others, and when they explode I can feel my breath catch, waiting for the sound to make its way to us. Crashing cymbals join in time with the thunderous boom of the explosions, and the surging triumph of the music sends a collective ahh through the crowd.
I see Ginny looking up into my brother’s eyes, her face a portrait of adoration.
“Being here with you—I feel like I’m in a dream,” Sterling says softly. We watch, his arms wrapped around me and his chin on my shoulder, the music rising and falling as the lights of the fireworks burn arcs in the sky before collapsing towards their reflections. They match the swell and crash of my heartbeat. With each, I become more aware of him. With each, I fall a little more in love until I no longer want to see the fireworks themselves—only how they are reflected in his eyes.
“Count on my family to go big,” I say, and for once I’m nearly proud of my brother. As far as I know, he has never had to plan so much as what to eat for lunch—and this definitely took a lot of planning. Of course, he might have done it just to impress people. It’s the kind of thing our father would do for a party. But I’d rather believe he did it for love. I’m proof that even a MacLaine can fall head over heels.
“I’m beginning to see what you meant when you said you wanted a big wedding,” Sterling says, an easy smile stealing across his face.
“I knew you’d come around,” I pull his chin towards me and kiss him, his stubble lighting my skin on fire.
The final crescendo is intense, the horn players discarding their stops and playing at full volume as the cymbals crash over and over again. Two final booms bring the orchestra to its final flourish, and the strings draw quickly to one last, soft run of the melody, bringing the room to silence.
By the end, my ears are ringing from the noise. I see Sterling’s mouth move but can’t make out what he says. Although his lips seem to form the word champagne before he releases me to disappear into the sea of people, all applauding with the same contented grin he wears.
“And he had a hell of a time,” says a young man a few feet away, talking as loudly to his date as only the recently deafened can. I recognize him as one of my brother’s friends from prep school.
“She couldn’t make up her mind about the colors until just a couple of weeks ago, and he had to send them to China so the fireworks would match exactly,” the man explains. His date looks rapt, like she would have his children on the spot if he promised to do something like this for her. “He hired the company who did last year’s Fourth of July fireworks over the White House to deal with it. I guess he didn’t dare upset the bridezilla with the wrong color scheme.”
So much for romance. It seems my brother bitched about having to wait on his wife, then made a phone call. I wonder how many minutes it took him to arrange this. Five? A whole ten? Not that it stopped him from bragging to his buddies. It’s just another wealthy pissing contest between billionaires. If he couldn’t use it to make himself look good, it would be a bad investment.