Page 55 of First Comes Marriage

“Don’t you dare.”

She laughed again, this time tilting her head back, her hair swaying around her shoulders. Christ, he liked making her laugh.

But the laughter died on her lips, her eyes shuttering themselves as they locked on something across the lawn. He looked over his shoulder, following her line of sight, to see Maryann making her way towards them with two older women, clearly intending to make introductions. He moved next to Sabrina and rested his hand on her lower back, a silent reminder that they were in this mess together.

“Sabrina, there you are!” Maryann said, exasperation coloring every flutter of her hands. “I’ve been looking all over for you. You remember Mrs. Prindiville and Mrs. Connolly.”

“Of course,” Sabrina said, her body swaying ever so slightly closer to Baz. “It’s nice to see you both again.”

“And this must be your husband. Baz, was it?” the one on the left—Mrs. Prindiville?—asked. “Maryann, he’s even more handsome than I remembered.”

“Sebastian Graham, ma’am. Nice to meet you,” he said, holding out his free hand to shake hers and ignoring the implication that this woman had been at his almost wedding.

“Have we met before?” Mrs. Connolly asked, squinting her eyes as though that would help her place him. “You’re not one of the Wellesley Grahams, are you?”

What was he supposed to say?Yeah, we probably met back when I was engaged to my current wife’s sister.

“No, the Aster Bay Grahams.”

As if sensing the potential for a social faux pas, Maryann grabbed Sabrina’s left hand, holding it out to the other women, who were immediately distracted by the sparkling rings on her finger. Baz raised an eyebrow in Sabrina’s direction, as if to say,See, new rings were a good idea. He might as well have said it out loud for the way Sabrina pursed her lips in response.

“Good job, young man,” Mrs. Connolly said. “Maryann wasjust telling us about your wedding.”

“She was?” Sabrina asked, glancing at her mother.

“It sounds lovely. A small, intimate wedding out of town,” Mrs. Connolly sighed dreamily. “So much more personal than these flashy weddings young people are having now-a-days.”

“I know exactly what wedding you’re thinking of, Karen,” Mrs. Prindiville replied. “No daughter of Maryann’s would be so gauche as to throw the kind of wedding the Hanley girl threw last spring.” She dropped her voice conspiratorially and leaned towards Baz and Sabrina. “I hear her father had the flowers flown in on a private jet to make sure his daughter got the right color lilies.”

“Oh,” Sabrina said, glancing at Baz.

“Sounds…expensive,” he said.

“I’m sure that was the point,” Maryann replied with a smirk towards her friends.

“Your mother was telling us you’re opening a new gallery in your husband’s hometown. How enterprising of you,” Mrs. Connolly gushed.

“I’m not sure I’d call it a gallery,” Sabrina said, glancing at her mother.

“Of course, it’s agallery,” Maryann laughed stiffly, her eyes bulging as she tried to communicate something to her daughter. “Sabrina specializes in ceramic sculptures.”

Baz bit back a smirk. “She makes many of the sculptures herself.”

Sabrina shot a panicked look his way as her mother’s face paled.

“My Rebecca wanted to be an artist, you know. Loved to throw paint around like Jackson Pollock. Thank heavens her father talked her into going to law school with Holly instead!” Mrs. Connolly burst into laughter.

“Speaking of Holly,” Mrs. Prindiville said, tilting her head towards the back of the house.

There, at the edge of the perfectly manicured lawn, was Baz’s ex-fiancée. He braced for the anger he expected to come, the disgust, the hurt that had hollowed him out and left him devastated a decade before. Instead he found himself studying her, this woman he’d almost married, a woman he hardly knew—even then.

Her hair was dyed an almost-white blonde and cut into a short style that hung around her chin. She was as beautiful as she’d always been, in a severe sort of way, her tailored, apple-green jumpsuit emphasizing all the angularity of her form, as though she were the physical embodiment of some geometric ideal, all elbows and straight lines. Nothing like the woman at Baz’s side, whose softness invited his touch and whose curves fit against him as though their edges could blur until the line between them disappeared completely.

“Holly!” Mrs. Connolly called, waving a hand above her head. “Over here! Come say hello!”

Holly’s narrowed eyes searched the lawn for the summons, finally landing on Mrs. Connolly. Her expression pinched even further as her eyes moved over Baz and Sabrina. Baz’s hand flexed on Sabrina’s back, pulling her tighter against his side.

With a word to the nondescript man at her side—her husband, presumably—Holly made her way across the lawn to their little group. If she noticed the frantic way her mother glanced between her two daughters or the smug expectant expression on Mrs. Prindiville’s face as the distance narrowed between them, she made no indication. By the time Holly reached their group, she wore the same practiced smile that Baz had seen a thousand times. Had he ever noticed how disingenuous it was before? How it didn’t reach her eyes?

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