I ducked around a corner, pressing myself into a darkened alcove. “Isaac?” I whispered.
“Dude, what just happened?” he said. “Do you have the dress?”
“No. The dress doesn’t matter. I have to find Alex.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just get out of here. Call Chase and let him know. I’ll get Alex and meet you back at the hotel. I’ll explain everything there.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Alex
I paced around Alicio’s study and watched the clock. He’d returned from the golf course, I knew that much, and had agreed to speak with me, but he wanted to dress for the wedding first. His timing couldn’t be more terrible. I’d told Dani to move on the dress, assuming that now that Alicio was back, I could confront him immediately. The delay might be the undoing of our entire plan.
The study door opened, and I turned, but it wasn’t Alicio standing in the door, it was Gabriel.
“Gabe,” I said. “Hey.”
He was already dressed, at least. “Alex,” he said. “So you came after all.”
“I don’t know why everyone expected me not to show. I told you I was coming.” I didn’t even try to hide the irritation in my voice. I was tired of pretending it didn’t hurt to have his family cast me aside.
Gabriel’s face softened. “Alex, I think I know why you’re really here.” He glanced at the folder sitting on the coffee table in front of me. I willed my eyes forward, keeping them trained on his face. If I followed his gaze, he’d know for sure he’d figured me out.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. I’m not going to stop you, but I do think you should reconsider. The situation—it isn’t what you think.”
“It isn’t Sasha embezzling millions of dollars from LeFranc?” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. I was done playing it safe.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” Gabriel said. “As a friend, Alex, I’m telling you. Don’t get messed up in this. Walk away.”
“Walk away when I was right about Sasha all along? How can you stand for this, Gabe? How can you let her do this to your family?”
“Alex, he’s right.”
I turned back to the study door. Dani stood there, her hand resting against her chest and her breathing heavy. Had she been running?
“He’s right,” she repeated.
I stilled. “What?”
She took a few steps into the room. “It wasn’t Sasha embezzling the money. Or at least, it wasn’t only Sasha. Alicio knows, Alex. He knows Solomon Rivers.”
I looked at Gabe.
“Like I said. It’s not what you think,” he said. “If you go public with what you think you know, Dad’s going to have a lot of reasons to make your life miserable. Walk away now? Nobody has to know you had plans to say anything at all. You go on with your life, and we’ll go on with ours.”
Dani was in front of me now. “Alex. Let’s go. You don’t need this. You don’t need Alicio’s approval.”
I closed my eyes, her words cutting like knives. Because that’s exactly what I wanted. And the realization made me sick.
She reached up and cupped her hand around my cheek. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “Look at me.”
I forced my eyes open, my heart instantly swelling at the warmth I saw in her expression.
“You don’t need them, Alex. I’m your family now, okay? Me. Isaac. You aren’t alone if you have us, right?”
“I know, Dani. I know. But this is—”
“Alex, I’m still in love with you.” She closed her eyes for a moment and took a long, slow breath. Then she looked at me again, her eyes so full of love and hope I nearly lost my breath. “I never really stopped being in love with you. I don’t need LeFranc. I don’t need New York. I don’t need Paige’s dress. I don’t need anything but you.”
Before I could even process what she’d said, Alicio pushed into the study, a wide smile on his perfectly tanned skin. “Well isn’t this a nice family gathering,” he said.
I reached for Dani’s hand, her fingers gripping mine with an intensity that kept me grounded. “Actually, we were just leaving.”
“You aren’t staying for the wedding?” Alicio said. “Isn’t that why you came?”
I looked at Dani, love and hope and courage reflecting in her gaze. “Something came up,” I said. “We’ve got to head out early.”
I reached forward and grabbed the folder of information off the coffee table, still holding Dani’s hand, then walked to the study door. I paused, turning back. “You were never good enough for my mother,” I said to Alicio.
His eyes narrowed, but then his face fell into a frown. “I agree with you on that point.”
“I think she’s probably happy to be rid of you now,” I said. “I wish you and Sasha the best. You two deserve each other.”
I walked through the house and toward the back drive without slowing, though I could tell Dani was struggling to keep up with me. Still, she didn’t complain. She just clung to my hand, running every few steps to keep up with my long stride. When we arrived at the car, she hesitated beside the passenger side door I held open for her.
“Alex,” she said, still short of breath. She bit her lip. “Will you please just say something?”
I couldn’t, actually. What would I say? Speaking would require me to make sense of what I was feeling, and I was too much a mess to do that.
Instead, I leaned in and kissed her. She responded immediately, wrapping her arms around my neck, pulling me closer than I would have thought possible.
“I’ve missed you,” I finally muttered into her hair.
She hiccoughed a laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Sorry you didn’t get the dress.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving with something much more important.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dani
Six months later
Alex and I walked down King Street in downtown Charleston. We stopped in front of a small fashion boutique, where an employee was resetting the window display with what looked like samplings from a spring collection: a knee-length dress with tiny cap sleeves and a pencil skirt in pale rose, a cashmere sweater set in the same color, trimmed with gold, and a pair of skinny-fit trousers in a loud, floral print, navy with oversized roses in varying shades of pink. A handbag in the same print hung over the shoulder of the mannequin wearing the dress.
“What do you think?” Alex said.
I shrugged. “A little on the safe side, but the print on the pants is great. I’d cut the sweater set. It feels a little too 1997. The dress could work, but I’d add a gold belt, and recut the neckline into something a little more daring. Something asymmetric, maybe.”
“You sound like an expert,” Alex said.
I grinned. “More like someone with big opinions and nothing to back them up.”
“You graduated from one of the top design schools in the country, Dani. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as credentials.”