Page 36 of Kissed and Missed

21

JULIAN

Amuffled chorus of women’s laughter sounds through the door of my office, and I have to bite back a smile.

Apparently, Honor is not so against using my money that she can’t be convinced on occasion. Panic outweighed her independence for today, anyway, and I was allowed to make a call. An hour later, stylists were pulling rack after rack of ball gowns through the door of the suite, where an overwhelmed Honor was already halfway through a haircut, tiny trimmings of blonde hair falling around the salon chair set up in the suite’s kitchen area as she talked on the phone to the hotel’s kitchen about a shortage of miniature egg rolls.

Not long after, there was yet another knock, and I opened it to allow Sophie inside, followed by Honor’s dark-haired sister Lenora, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. I expected to hear a lot of oohing and ahhing over gowns, but there’s been laughter instead, and I feel my spirits—which were previously at what I thought to be a record high—lifting even further.

I hadn’t allowed myself to believe it would happen.

Even as I felt us growing closer, felt Honor’s defenses slipping away and the tiny ember of “what if” growing to awildfire of hope, I half expected her to run for it. Christ, I wouldn’t have blamed her. She didn’t though, because somehow, the beautiful young woman who swept in out of nowhere to change my whole life, fell in love with me too. And, after tonight, the whole world will know it.

Never have I been so excited to put on a tuxedo. I dress quickly, glancing at my watch as the sky darkens, interspersed with flashes from cameras on the street outside the hotel. Guests have been arriving for fifteen minutes now, and we need to get downstairs, but when I open the door into the living room to ask Honor if she’s ready, time stands still.

The staff are all packing up, chattering warmly, and the atmosphere in the room is calm and happy. Lenora is the first to notice me, glancing over her shoulder, she catches sight of me, frozen in the doorway.

“Thoughts, Ballard?” she asks cheerfully, nodding toward the woman in the center of the room, the one who has robbed me of all cognitive function.

Jesus. It’s faintly ridiculous how gone for this woman I am. Already, I’m deducing that if we could come this far in six days, I doubt I’ll make it two months before I’m putting a ring on her finger.

Maybe less, if she keeps smiling at me the way she is right now.

“What do you think?” Honor calls, a sweet smile curving her bright-red lips.

I step forward, eager for my first unobstructed view of her in that dress, and I’m not disappointed.

The garment is bright red and simple, a corseted bodice which meets a full, dramatic skirt. Her hair is arranged in some kind of meticulous, old-fashioned waves andI can’t fucking believeshe’s mine. We love each other. We’re going to have a life together.

“You’re perfect,” I croak, realizing there are at least seven women in this room, watching me and waiting for my reaction. The corners of Honor’s eyes wrinkle as she beams at me, glowing brighter than anything or anyone else in the room.

From the couch, Lenora and Sophie start up a round of golf claps.

“I’m pretty sure this is as good as it’s ever going to get,” she teases, gesturing to herself. “You’ll be dealing with frizzy hair and sweatpants more often than not.”

“Has he seen the ones with the eggplant on the butt?” asks Sophie, fanning herself. “Because those are pretty hot.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Honor squawks, raising her voice above her friend’s cackling. “There are no sweatpants with an eggplant on the butt!”

I’m filled with something almost too large to contain as Honor steps toward me, raising a hand to flip off Sophie over her shoulder. “Are you ready?”

“Ballard?”

We all look around to find Grey standing at the edge of the room, his expression grave. Having worked with the man for so long, I know what that look means, and he doesn’t have to say a word. Nodding stiffly, I gesture toward the office, and he heads through, leaving me to turn to Honor, offering her my hand in wordless invitation.

“Are you sure?” she asks quietly as she breaks away from the other women in the room, coming to stand at my side. “That looks important.”

“It probably is.”Definitelyis, or Grey wouldn’t be here. “There are no parts of my life I don’t want you a part of, Valentine.”

Her hand slips into mine, and I barely have time to appreciate the sweet, soft look that crosses her face at my words before we’re turning toward the office where Grey is waiting infront of the desk. As soon as I close the door quietly behind us, he clears his throat gruffly.

“I just got off the phone with your attorneys. They’ve finally managed to get a hold of the hotel security footage from two days ago, and we have the name of who took those pictures.”

My hand tightens on Honor’s. “Anyone we know?”

For a moment, Grey seems to struggle to find the words, until finally, they burst from his lips. “It’s my fault. I missed something. I had the room swept for any other entrances, and there was only one. It was locked, so I moved on. I meant to have someone cover it, but it fell through the cracks. The photograph was taken by a maid, who happened to be sitting on the stage during her lunch break. She sent it to a friend, who sent it to a friend, whose husband is some kind of influencer and, well.” He winces. We all know what happened next.

All the fight goes out of me. In the days since those pictures came out and changed our lives for good, I’ve thought a lot about who might have been responsible. Business competitors, angry former employees, and even my ex-wife crossed my mind. I never imagined it could be something so mundane as a nosy, gossipy maid who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

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