Her body relaxes in my arms, soft breasts pressing against my ribs as her fingers dig into my back. But only for a moment before she pulls away. The hug went on long enough that it was more of an embrace. It was toeing the line.
But I still want to pull her back in.
“Well, it is.” She stares down and brushes at the sleeve of her pale green dress, silky and shimmering in the shadowy light. “My dad and I agreed it was best to move forward with the wedding in the fall rather than drawing it out.”
That comment has my teeth clamping down because the mere mention of Robert Winthrop sets me on edge. And him taking part in her decision to get married has all sorts of alarm bells going off.
“Why?” My brow knits. I should know better. I should walk away. I should let her be happy.
I shouldn’t be this bothered. If she actually seemed happy, I wouldn’t be.
Or maybe I would.
She waves a hand and glances over her shoulder into the restaurant, exposing her elegant neck as she does. “Multiple factors,” she replies with a defeated shrug. It’s like she knows her time with me is dwindling. I don’t get the sense that Sterling is going to be the type of husband that’s okay with her and me being friends.
“Factors? Like you just can’t wait to be Mrs. Woodcock? Because no one wants that as a last name. Or is this your dad pressuring you?”
Her blue eyes flare at the mention of her dad because Sloane doesn’t see him as a snake. Never has. She’s too busy being the perfect daughter—and now a fiancée. One who’s good on paper and doesn’t go hunting. “And what if he is? I’m twenty-eight. My best dancing years are drawing to a close. I need to settle down, come up with a life plan. He’s looking out for me.”
I huff out an agitated laugh and shake my head at her. “Where’s the wild girl I remember? The girl who danced in the rain and would crawl onto the roof so I didn’t have to be alone on the bad nights?”
They’ve molded that girl into a pawn. And I hate that for her. We’ve never fought, but suddenly my urge to fight for her consumes my better judgment.
“Your dad is an asshole. He cares about himself. His business. Optics. Not your happiness. You deserve better.”
I could do better. That’s what I really want to say. That’s what I’ve realized sitting here tonight.
That I’m thinking things I shouldn’t be.
Wanting things I can’t have.
Because I’m too late.
She lurches back like I’ve struck her, lips thinning in anger as she flushes all the way down her chest. “No, Jasper. Your dad is as an asshole. Mine loves me. You just don’t know what that looks like.”
She spins on her heel, yanking the restaurant door open with a level of violence that is unfamiliar coming from her.
But I’d rather she show violence than apathy. That means the wild girl is still in there somewhere.
She hurled words at me that should hurt. But I just hurt for her. Because my biological dad is an asshole. But the man who really raised me? Harvey Eaton? He’s the best of the best. He showed me love, and I can identify it just fine.
Plus, I remember how Sloane looks at a man when she really wants him. And she isn’t looking at her fiancé the way she used to look at me.
I’m more pleased about that than I should be.
2
Sloane
Sloane: Are you here?
Jasper: Where else would I be?
Sloane: I thought you might be mad at me. Please don’t hate me.
Jasper: I could never hate you, Sunny.
I feel sick.
The day I’ve dreamt of since I was a little girl is finally here, but it’s nothing like I imagined.
It’s snowing. And I’ve always wanted a spring wedding.
It’s in an ornate church downtown. And I wanted a cozy country affair.
It’s a spectacle with hundreds of people in attendance. And all I wanted was something small and intimate.
Worst of all, the man I’m going to walk down the aisle toward isn’t the one I see when I close my eyes. He isn’t the one I’ve wanted for the better part of my life.
I’ve given up so thoroughly that I’m settling for a person I don’t love. One who I’m sure I don’t even like, and it makes me sick.
No, this day is nothing like I imagined.
My cousin Violet fiddles with the bobby pins in my hair while I sit at a stained wood vanity with my hands clamped around each other in my lap, covering the massive diamond on my ring finger. If I keep them there, squeezing until it hurts, it will prevent me from crying.
Or doing something stupid like running.
“I don’t know where it is. I can’t see anything with the way they’ve got it all twisted up.”
“It’s there. I can feel it pulling. It’s too tight. It hurts.”
She sighs and catches my eye in the mirror. “You sure it’s the hair, Sloane?”
I tip my chin up, lengthening my neck and watching the column of my throat work as I do. “Yes.” I force my voice to sound surer than I feel and let my mind go blank, the way it does when I’m performing. When I leap and spin and the lights are bright and the audience is dark, I’m comfortable.
With a heavy sigh and a concerned glance, Violet dutifully goes back to searching for a bobby pin in my hair that she isn’t sure exists. She just insinuated that my uncomfortable updo is some parallel for my life.
I can read between the lines.
She hasn’t said much about Sterling. No one has — except for Jasper.
Jasper.
I can’t even think of his name without a wave of nausea hitting me. The guilt over the words I hurled at him the other evening has eaten away at me. Kept me up at night. And the finality of knowing my already impossible chance with him will end with me marrying someone else never fails to crack my chest open.
Jasper Gervais and I are friends. Good friends. He’s made that clear a couple times over now. And I’m not enough of a masochist to go for the hat trick.
I’m sure everyone thinks I’m over him, but that’s only because I’ve become an expert at hiding my feelings. He’s consumed every corner of me since I first laid eyes on him, and he’s never looked at me as more than a little sister.
I grimace when liquid trickles into my hands. I turn them over and peer down. A manic laugh bubbles out of me as I stare down. Blood pools languidly into a perfect, shiny droplet in the middle of my palm, almost like it defies gravity, just by existing.
The puncture from where the pointed claw of my engagement ring dug in taunts me, like the universe knows this marriage will make me bleed in ways that no one else will know or see.
Sterling wouldn’t lay a hand on me, but everything else about him—about this life—drains me.
“Oh shit! Sloane! You can’t get that on your dress.” Violet’s hands pull away in alarm before she rushes over to the en suite bathroom, black satin dress swishing against her.
Black. Again, I laugh. I’d never have chosen black dresses for my wedding. I’d choose something light and whimsical. A celebratory color.
But then, this isn’t really my wedding, and it isn’t really a celebration either. Maybe funeral colors make perfect sense.
I haven’t been able to muster the energy to complain about the things I don’t want. And I realize now, watching the small orb of blood trickle into the center of my palm, that’s because I don’t want this wedding at all.