“Well, I’ve got that going for me I suppose.”
She smiles and walks over to hug me. “Look, I know today is…”
“The worst?”
She sighs. “Yeah, basically. But I do think it could actually be worse.” I wrinkle my face up, and she laughs. “It could always, always be worse, Sienna.”
“Elaborate.”
She giggles and pushes an errant strand of auburn red hair away from her face. “Well, Nick is a tool, and kind of a prick. But he could be, like, abusive or something.”
“Hey, the day is young,” I mumble. She smiles a small smile and strokes my arm.
“It’s not your dream wedding, and I know it’s not your dream man.” I shrug nonchalantly, and she smiles. “Oh, don’t even play that game. I know you were always mooning over…” she frowns and looks away. She doesn’t have to say his name. We both know who she’s talking about.
“Anyways, I just came to check in. You doing okay, relatively speaking?”
“Relatively speaking? Meh,” I shrug grumpily. “It is what it is.”
“I’ll drink to that. Alright, I’ll check before we do this whole thing, okay? I’m going to go check in on your mom.”
“Thanks, Aurora,” I say with a small smile of my own.
“You bet. And hey, chin up, girl. It’s going to be okay.” It’s not, but I smile warmly anyways as she leaves.
So, mom and I realized that my dad hadn’t left anything for a rainy day. And that’s when Christopher stepped in with the outstanding debts. We could sell the house, the cars, my grandmother’s jewelry, and I could drop out of school, and we still wouldn’t come close to paying him back. A rational person would see the struggle we’re in and cut us some slack, but Christopher Passanté isn’t a rational man. Or a very nice one. But he is opportunistic.
His offer is simple: if I marry his son, Nick, the debt goes away, and he doesn’t take us to court for what he’s owed. It’s a disgusting, medieval arrangement, and I want nothing to do with it or with Nick. But mom and I are out of options. The worst part of it is, I know what Christopher and his son are really after, and it’s not me. My dad had one asset left that we could possibly trade on: a patent for a type of car brake system mechanism that’s gotten a lot of buzz from major carmakers. That’s what Christopher is really after, and we all know it.
I’ve even offered to just give it to him and settle things that way; skip the fake wedding and the pageantry. But Christopher has dug his heels in, and he’s insistent that I marry Nick. And then, through the marriage, he’ll get his hands on the patent. I could fight it, but like I said, mom and I are out of options with dad gone, and with Carter, my older brother, gone these last few years—MIA in the Middle East.
My dad, Carter, and him. Luke.
My eyes close in the mirror, and I look down at my hands. Damnit, I told myself I couldn’t cry today, and here I go down this old road. Losing my dad was hard. Losing Carter hasn’t gotten any easier in the years since he went missing, presumed killed in action. But losing Luke at the same time was maybe the hardest of them all for me. Years later, it’s still just as raw, and on my wedding day, it’s even worse.
It was supposed to be him. Well, not actually, but he’s who I always envisioned being at the end of the aisle I walked down on this day, ever since I was a little girl. What can I say? Luke Crow is and always has been the love of my life. Even if I never told him.
He was my first crush, and my first secret fantasy. I mean how could he not be? He was four years older than me and all the snotty, immature boys my age. He was beautiful in this rugged, almost haggard way. He was tall, built lean and muscled from football, and had those eyes that make a girl go a little crazy.
But he was beyond forbidden. Forget the fact that he was lightyears out of my league, he was Carter’s best friend. And that made him a forever fantasy and nothing more. Besides, he never even really saw me; certainly not as anything more than Carter’s annoying little sister. I kept it a dirty little secret, even if I always sort of could tell that Aurora knew. She was the one with zero trouble telling me about her crush on my brother, but it was the same situation. He was so much older than her, and I think we both know he always saw her as his kid sister’s friend.
There’s a knock at my dressing room door, startling me. My head turns and I clear my throat. “Yes?”
“Sienna, hon, how are we doing in there?”
It’s Lisa, the wedding planner. And I think the woman has a sixth sense for brides with cold feet or who want to make a run for it, because she’s been on me like a hawk all day.
“Fine… I’m still fine,” I answer. It’s the third time she’s checked on me in maybe twenty minutes.
“Okay, just trying to keep on schedule! It’s almost time!” she squeals gleefully.
“Okay, great.” My voice is totally bland, but I don’t even care. Who cares about trying to fake it at this point? Nick knows we both know the deal here. He knows why I’m marrying him. My nose wrinkles as I think about our last interaction the day before. Nick made one of those “it’s just a joke but it’s not really” lines where he insinuated that as my husband, he could finally “get in my pants.”
Oh that is not fucking happening, believe me. Not with Nick fucking Passanté, and not when I’ve waited this long to… well, you know. To not have done it yet. How pathetic is that? Twenty years old, and still firmly holding onto my v-card. It sounds even lamer to say that I’ve been saving myself for Luke. But deep down, that might be true. There’s just never been a guy I’ve met who was even close to measuring up to him.
Luke and Carter went off to the Marines together, managed to get deployed together, and then also managed to get kicked out together. I can remember how pissed my dad was about that; for both of them. Luke’s mom left when he was really young, and his dad was pretty much a full-blown drunk by then who didn’t really know or care where his son was.
They joined Fortress Security after that, which was just a nice name for a mercenary group. But somehow, wherever he was, Carter would find a way to send a letter or an email. If I was lucky, he’d get time at a computer station with a webcam, and I could say hi that way. And if I was especially lucky, there’d be Luke in the background.
He’d be half a world away, and I didn’t even know if he knew that he’d stolen my heart years ago.
Lisa knocks on my door again, and I grit my teeth. “What!” I bark.
“Gentle reminder!” she says brightly. “We doing okay in there?”
“Just peachy!” I yell back. I listen for her heels to click away before I slump back in my chair. The dress is gorgeous, my hair is great, and I even love the theme of this whole thing. But it’s all wrong, because I’m marrying the wrong man.
The knock comes again, and I almost lose my shit. I groan and drop my face into my hands. “Please fuck off!”
The knob turns, and I can hear the door opening behind me. I groan into my hands. “Seriously, can you please just give me some fucking time?”
“I have, but I can’t any longer.”
The voice—his voice—takes my breath away. It sends my heart into my throat, and has my head spinning as I whirl around. And there, standing tall with wide shoulders filling the doorway to my dressing room, is Luke.