Page 216 of Cashmere Ruin

“Do you regret it?” I ask. “Being snatched that day?”

It’s a fair question. Even though so much has happened between us since then, I can’t let myself forget how we got here. Originally, April wanted nothing to do with me. If Carmine hadn’t gotten in the way, I might have never known I had a daughter.

I might have never known a lot of things.

For a second, April doesn’t answer. She just looks up at me with her impossibly wide eyes, until a warm smile slowly spreads on her lips. “No,” she answers, and I can hear the truth in her voice. “Because then I’d have never crashed your wedding.”

“That’s a weird reason.”

“Is it?” she laughs. “It brought me here. It brought me to you. I don’t think I need a better reason than that.”

She finds my hand and interlaces our fingers. There’s no ring, no material promise of what’s to come, but there is something else Ionly notice now. Bruised and battered and blackened by dirt, but it’s there.

The ribbon I gave her.

“You said, ‘Don’t mess with the pregnant ones,’” I echo, drawing close. “Does that mean I can mess with you now?”

“That depends,” she murmurs against my lips. “Are you going to kiss me half as good as that?”

“April Flowers,” I drawl, her chin already between my fingers, “I will kiss you until my last breath.”

Her cheeks dust with red. “Good answer,” she whispers. “Now, prove it.”

So I do. But when I kiss her this time, it’s different from all the others.

Because, for the first time, I kiss her in the light of day.

EPILOGUE: APRIL

I burst out of the limo in full wedding gear. “Sorry! I think I’ll walk after all!”

I don’t stick around to hear the driver’s apologies—I just run.Like the motherfricking wind. Which isn’t a simple feat, considering the five-inch stiletto heels June shoved my feet into, but I’ve beaten worse odds.

After all, what’s one more wedding to crash?

I leave behind the traffic jam and hoist up my white skirts. Some dudes wolf-whistle at me from the sidewalk, but I don’t have the time to give them a piece of my mind. New York traffic has already robbed me of half my prep hour—I’m not sacrificing any more.

Besides—if there was ever a day to run, it’s this.

Thank God we did hair and makeup at home.

I get to the venue with my heels in one hand and my skirts in the other. My feet look like I’ve been walking on coals, and frankly, the sensation isn’t all that different.

“There you are!” Petra scolds me as soon as she sees me running up the stone steps. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry,” I heave. “There was a last-minute hold-up.”

“See, Nugget?” June croons to the bundle in her arms. A verybigbundle, but a bundle nonetheless. The tulle certainly doesn’t help. “Your mommy’s a total sleepyhead, too.”

“I wasn’t sleeping!” I say. “I just forgot something, that’s all. I had to go back home and grab it.”

“What could possibly be that important?!” Petra hisses, her own white dress puffing around her like an angry prairie chicken.

I fish around my pockets—because if there’s one advantage to designing my own wedding dress, it’s that I get to have those, thank you very much—until I find the offending object. It isn’t much to look at: a simple piece of blue satin. Cornflower blue, to be exact.

“Can you tie it to my wrist?” I ask.

“Now?!”

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