“Here comes the groom!” Hunter said, reaching over to punch me in the arm. “Never thought I’d see you getting hitched. Sure as fuck never thought it would be a Constantine!”
“Anyone would want to marry Elaine,” I assured him with a smirk. “Even if she is a damn Constantine.”
None of them disagreed with me.
We still had a few hours before the ceremony. The guys started on the whisky as soon as we were dressed up and ready for the service, but I was still sticking to mineral water, very much enjoying being in their company as they enjoyed being in each other’s.
The caterers and wedding planners had already been at work on the manor for hours. The marquee looked even more incredibly grand than I’d expected as we set off in the limo for the local church, and it should. I’d invested the very best into the very best celebration life could offer.
The church only had a few guests in their seats when the four of us arrived and made our way inside. Clark and Hunter took their positions at the entrance, ushers standing proud, and I gave them a thankful nod as I left them to their duties.
It was Devon I’d chosen to be my best man, his place feeling very natural at my side as we stepped into the front pew.
“I’m weirdly fucking nervous,” I confessed to him, and he did his best guffaw laugh.
“Never thought I’d see you nervous, Lucian. It’s a damn novelty.”
The nerves only heightened as the benches filled up. Elaine’s friends were filling up her side of the aisle just as mine were filling up mine.
Yes, the room was most certainly filling up.
My father ushered my mother down the aisle, to a seat in the front. Family power struggles were private. They wouldn’t show the world any weakness in our family.
My siblings were next. Leo came in with Eva, delighting at the way people turned their heads to look at him. To see what he’d do. Nothing, at my wedding. Sit quietly and clap at the end. He turned back once to keep a protective eye on Daphne and make sure the rest of them followed. They filed into the row behind my parents.
They were one reason I was glad to be back in Bishop’s Landing. I would have left them for Elaine, but I would have felt terrible about it. Already, they had taken too much abuse when I was younger. Because I couldn’t feel pain, my father saw no amusement in beating me. He would beat them instead, no matter how much I tried to stop it. When I failed to protect them, I tried to harden my heart against them, to distance myself from them. Ultimately the reason why I want Morelli Holdings isn’t for myself. I can take care of myself. It’s for the family. I may not care about my bastard father, but the company also cares for my mother and my sisters.
The church was almost full when I saw them. Elaine’s sisters. Vivian and Tinsley, looking spectacular in pastel gowns. My heart thumped even harder when I saw Harriet, her cousin, stepping in to join them.
Still, my thumping heart had nothing on the fucking speed it thumped when Caroline Constantine, Elaine’s utter bitch of a mother, came into view and took a seat alongside them.
She truly was a bitch, loud and clear, and had remained that way since we’d come home, but she was there. Staking her claim on public appearances in the most powerful of ways.
I’d have stepped right on over to begin a pretty terse dialogue with her if the harpist hadn’t started up the beautiful music for the bride’s entry. My whole body heated up in the most incredible of ways as I strained to get sight of the church entrance, because even now, after months of imagining it, I couldn’t quite believe it. I couldn’t believe my love, Elaine, was walking up the aisle.
She’d taken my breath countless times since the very first moment I’d laid eyes on her, all the way back at Tinsley’s ball, but my breath was ripped right from my chest as I saw her there, nervous, her blonde curls swept up behind her, and her pure white veil positioned so perfectly underneath her tiara.
Her dress was the most intensely beautiful thing I’d ever seen on her. It framed her figure in such a way that would burn itself into my heart forever, flowing around her feet in the most divine of ways with every step. Elaine was walking up the aisle. To me. My love was walking up the aisle.
Every step was getting closer.
Every step had my whole soul desperate, insane.
It was the guy who still utterly despised me that was standing next to her with his arm in hers, all set to give her away. The best friend she’d known since she was a teenager, who I’d knocked out cold when I was hunting her down months ago. Not exactly the best of introductions to your future wife’s bestie, but it was what it was. He hadn’t quite forgiven me for it yet. Can’t say I blamed him.
As it turned out, Tristan wasn’t hissing fits at me when he delivered her to my side. He managed a smile, and I managed the briefest of smiles back. Her bridesmaids, Francesca, Raven, and Cara—all fresh in from London—were grinning bright as they took their seats, but I barely saw them. My eyes were fixed all on Elaine. She was shaking like a leaf as she joined me at the head of the aisle, her beautiful blue eyes pools of perfect love.
“I have no words,” I whispered to her. “None that could do you justice right now.”
That’s when her innocent girly smile lit up her face even brighter.
“Ditto,” she said.
Elaine was so focused on me that she had barely cast a glance around the guests before the service started. The ceremony started right up, every word etched into the fabric of time, vows of declaration that people had lived by and loved by for hundreds of years before us.
I took Elaine to be my lawfully wedded wife with a lump in my throat because it meant so much to me.
She took me to be her lawfully wedded husband with a lump in her throat to match, eyes welling up because it meant so much to her.
Devon handed me the rings when they were called for and I slipped the gold band onto Elaine’s finger with surprisingly shaky fingers of my own, to which she returned the favor, and there we were. Officially declared. Husband and Wife.
“You may kiss the bride,” the vicar said and how I fucking kissed the bride.
I took her face in my hands and I kissed her with all the love in my heart, except it wasn’t all the love in my heart. Not anymore. Not now there was the slightest hint of a bump under her wedding dress.
The room cheered, and the exit song sounded out, ready for us to walk back down the aisle as a couple, and that’s when Elaine stopped in her tracks, mouth dropping open as she first caught sight of the blonde row of family members, her mother positioned right on the end of a pew.
Her mother still had frosty eyes as she clapped for her daughter, but she was there. Even if just for appearance’s sake, she was there.
I coaxed Elaine forward but she struggled to look away from her family. There were a whole fresh set of tears in her own eyes as we reached the church porch and the confetti started up around us, a whole new set of cheers sounding out loud.
The limo ride to our new manor was a happy one, hand in hand, both of us staring at our wedding rings. I was bursting with pride when the driver let us out, pulse racing, ready to walk my bride through the manor grounds to our wedding reception and the waiting crowd.
“Let’s do this,” I said, and she nodded with a smile.
“Yeah, let’s do this, husband. I’m ready.”