Page 110 of Sexy as Sin
“Brett,” Willow said. She couldn’t stop smiling. “Of course.”
It had happened the night before. He’d knocked at the door of her room in her aunt and uncle’s house in Brisbane a half hour before dinner, then come in and sat on the bed beside her, where he took a flat velvet box, black this time, out of a lavender bag. She eyed it and said, “Graff, hey. I don’t know this one. Never tell me you’re cheating on Harry Winston.” It came out a little breathless, because shewasa little breathless.
He smiled, but it looked hard-won to her, like this mattered too much. What, he was worried? Why? She needed to fix that, and she could. She put a hand on the side of his face and said, “Don’t you know that I love getting pretty things, but I love you more? You can’t disappoint me. It’s not possible, because you’ll always give me your best.”
His face worked, then steadied, and he said, “Open it, then. The groom’s gift to the bride.”
She did. And gasped. It was a headband of diamonds, with a bow made of diamonds placed to one side. An extravagant bow that was so fluid, it looked real. Except that it wasdiamonds.And, on either side of the headband’s curve, shining bright against the black velvet, two earrings that were the same bows. Made of dozens of diamonds.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
He said, “It’s not a tiara. I didn’t think you’d wear a tiara. But it looks a little like one, and maybe it’ll make you feel like a princess.” He smiled, though it looked shaky to her. “A mermaid princess, who’s come to live on land instead of staying in the place she knows, because that’s how hard she loves. I looked it up, you see. Princess Ariel.”
She touched the bows again now, headband and earrings, one-two-three, like a talisman. No matter what Azra said, she was going to touch them. They were solid, and you could believe in them.
Last night, she’d set the velvet box on her desk. Carefully. She didn’t close it, though. She wanted to look at her almost-tiara. She said, “I may sleep with it. I’m nervous, mate.”
He took her hand. “So am I. I guess we can be nervous together.”
“The bride’s gift to the groom isn’t quite as flash.” She got up and retrieved the card from her desk, then sat beside him and waited. She’d meant to give it to himafterdinner, but now would do. Now would be perfect. “I hope you like it. I hope it’s what you want.”
He was smiling when he opened the envelope and drew out the card, and then he wasn’t.
The front of it was the lighthouse at sunset, a shot she’d taken. Not the sea, but the promise of safe harbor. Of arms that would always open to take him in, and a heart that would always have room for him.
It wasn’t the card, though. It was what was inside. A flimsy piece of photo paper, printed in black and white. A black cavity shaped like an aubergine, and a gray-and-white blob inside it. An almost-circular thing that was a head, a smaller oval that was a torso, and some tiny appendages with buds on the ends. And in the center, a brighter dot of white. A heart.
“That’s your baby,” she said. “Congrats, Dad.” And held her breath.
“Willow.” He sat dead still, holding the picture. One second. Two.
“You knew I was getting the IUD out. Do it early, we said, to be sure we were all good.” She was rushing into speech, because she had to dosomething.“You’retoogood, though. It must’ve happened in about a week, because they say I’m eight weeks gone. That’s really six, but I wanted to... to... surprise you. Though I realize now I should have told you, in case you want to... to change your mind. I hope you don’t, though. I know you feel like you fell down before, but we can try again. This will work. I know it. Ifeelit. Nia had a healthy baby. Abeautifulbaby. So can we.”
He put a gentle hand over her mouth. “Could you just... stop talking? Just for a minute? I’m... I can’t...” His shoulders were shaking, his face was twisting, and he had absolutely no smoothness left. He had no words at all. Stripped bare.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want this, she realized. It was that he wanted it too much. That if you reached for the moon, if you dared to try, and you couldn’t hold on to it after all? It would hurt so badly, you’d never get over it. She got her arms around him, pulled him into her so he could feel her heart, and told him, “Mate. We can do this. You and me. I know it. You can believe it.”
Which part of this day was the best? Brett didn’t know. Maybe it was the moment when Willow, wearing a sheath dress of ivory silk that just about knocked him out, walked to him on her Uncle Colin’s arm, holding a bouquet of pink and ivory peonies, burgundy roses, and lavender orchids, and shining like every dream he’d ever had.
Some brides looked nervous. Willow smiled. She did more than that. Sheshone.
Maybe it was sliding the diamond-studded band onto her finger while the sky over the river turned to pink and gold. Saying the words, and knowing she was his. Finally, and forever. Or it could have been walking back up the aisle with his bride, into a wedding-cake space with a dome that rose above them like an embrace, with the glitter of gold candlesticks and gilt-edged plates softened by more flowers. Ivory and pink and burgundy, all the silk and fire that was Willow.
Or maybe it was this moment. When the piano played the soft overture, and a voice began to sing. When he was holding out his hand to his wife and saying, “Would you do me the honor, Mrs. Hunter?” When he saw the beam of her smile, the shine of her tears as she recognized the song. The reason they’d taken those lessons, and a plan that had begun on the night her uncle had waltzed her aunt around the terrace in this same place, and she’d thought that could never be her life.
He took her onto the floor, and then he took her in his arms, the strings swelled, and they began to waltz. On the dais, a man sang about dreaming and believing, about making the journey together, exactly as the singer had done in that film they’d watched on the plane.Enchanted.About a princess who’d come to live in the real world, because that was where the man she loved had to stay, and she’d do anything to be with him. About the moment when she made him believe in happily ever after, and she let him know that the two of them could stay like this, holding each other so close, and make each others’ dreams come true.
Forever and ever.
