He nodded, and jogged up to the house, leaving me alone with my sister.
I turned my back on her, prepared to return to my room, and simply focus on breathing for the next few hours.
“Sephie,” she said, stopping me. “Wait.”
I paused, turning toward her. “What is it, Anne?” I sighed. “Want to get a few more jabs in before I put on my dress?”
She stumbled toward me, her navy pumps sticking in the lush grass. “No,” she said, chewing her bottom lip. “I wanted to apologize. About the toast, about the fitting…about everything, really. I’m sorry. At first, I was happy to hear you’d gotten hitched in Vegas, it meant you were human. Like me. But then with everyone so excited and amped up and throwing this big wedding for you, I was jealous. No one has ever made that fuss over me and my marriages.”
I arched a brow at the plural use of that word, therein lied the reasoning for no one getting excited.
“I know,” she pressed on. “None of mine have been serious. All on a whim like everything else in my life. I thought this thing between you and him was the same thing. I didn’t realize…” She sighed. “I didn’t realize how much you truly love that man.”
I swallowed hard, nodding at the truth I couldn’t possibly deny.
“He’s the best person I’ve ever met,” I said.
“And he brings out the best in you.” She smiled. “Not that you could get much better than you already are.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Seriously, though, Sephie,” she continued. “I’ve never seen the fire in you like I have since he’s been around. It suits you.”
“Thank you.”
“And,” she continued, swallowing hard as her eyes filled with tears. “I know you still hate me for not getting tested—”
“I don’t hate you,” I cut her off. Severely disappointed? Exhausted from trying to help her and getting my hand slapped away? Sure, but never hate.
“It’s okay. I…I’m trying to do this thing where I tell the people I trust the truth.” She laughed darkly. “Only thing is, I don’t trust many people anymore.” Something distant churned in her eyes, and I reached for her hand. She let me take it, brushing away some tears with her free one. “I did go to the doctor,” she said. “But it was…well, it was for something else. And he told me that some of my nightlife activities—and my dependency upon them—made me an unfit match for Mama. Not only that, he said if I kept up with my ways, I’d be dead in a year. Something about my liver levels—”
“Anne,” I gasped, throwing my arms around her. “We’ll get you help. You could’ve come to me. Why didn’t you—”
“Because I didn’t want you to see me like this,” she said, squeezing me harder. “I’m a fucking mess,” she admitted. “More than you’ll ever know.”
“Let me help you,” I pleaded, breaking our embrace to meet her eyes.
“I hate myself because what if I could’ve been a match? What if I could’ve been the one to save her, and I couldn’t because of what I’ve done to myself.”
“You can’t think like that,” I said, my voice soothing. “She’s getting what she needs now. So, we’ll have to focus on you.” I raised my brows, a desperate, silent question.
She nodded. “I’m ready. To get help. If you’re willing.”
“Always,” I said, already thinking of the best rehab and therapy clinics I could enroll her in. And, selfishly, I hoped she’d let me in on what fueled this decade of madness in the first place.
Anne opened her arms. “Sisters?”
I wrapped her in a hug. “Sisters.”
She blew out a breath and wiped under her eyes. “Good, now that that is done with,” she said. “All I have to do is get back in Father’s good graces. I suppose not drinking at your wedding will be the first step.”
“Sounds like a good one to me.”
“You ready?” she asked. “For today?”
I took in a slow breath, checking my heart. I hated that I didn’t know if Cannon would decide to leave me to walk toward an empty altar, but I knew in the depths of my soul that I loved this man—for better and for worse. And when you love something that deeply, you show up for them. Every day. Even if you don’t know if they’ll show up for you.
So, I’d show up.
And I’d keep loving him, keep showing him he was worthy of love until the day he told me to stop. Until the day he told me he didn’t reciprocate.
Which he hadn’t.
Despite all the drama we’d gone through, he’d never, not once said he didn’t love me.
And for now, that was all I needed.
“I’m ready,” I said and turned toward the house where I had a wedding dress waiting for me.
21
Cannon
I was convinced that the VanDoren women were really undercover secret operatives. That was the only logical explanation to the way they’d intercepted me each of the seven times I’d tried to see Persephone since that shit had gone down in the front yard. If this place actually had a designated front yard.
“You sure you want to do this?” Logan asked as we flattened ourselves against the wall in the upstairs hallway.
“Do you think I’d ask you to come up here and play Mission Impossible if I didn’t?” I challenged.
He tilted his head. “Okay, that’s reasonable. But you really don’t think this can wait forty-five minutes until you see her?”
I narrowed my eyes at my best friend. “You honestly think that standing at the altar in front of all our friends and family is a good time to have a heart to heart?”
He mulled it over and nodded. “Again, reasonable.”
“Can you please just open that fucking door so I can talk to my wife?”
“On it.” He stood tall, adjusted the tie of his tuxedo, and knocked on the door between us.
There was a faint sound of rustling before it opened.
“Oh! Logan! How can I help you?” Mrs. VanDoren asked.
Logan turned on the charm with a regretful smile. “I know these minutes are sacred, but Cannon just sent me up. There’s apparently an issue with the flowers at the altar—”
“The peonies?” she gasped.
I held my breath and prayed that she didn’t look through the crack in the door that would show me doing a shit job of hiding.
“Right, the peonies,” Logan continued. “It turns out he thought you said posies?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Mama, is everything okay?” I heard Persephone ask, and my heart jumped.
“It’s fine, darling. Don’t you worry about a single thing.”
“Right, so the florist said that Cannon is wrong, and they’re supposed to be posies, and they’re still down there arguing—”
“They are most certainly supposed to be peonies. Of all the silly things to go wrong today. Honey, I’ll be right back. You just stay right here, and we’ll get your dress on in a few minutes, okay?”