Page 48 of One and Only

I snagged her finger in mine, and with a crooked smile, I pushed the rainbow-colored metal fidget past her first knuckle. It was horribly ugly as a ring. Too big for the graceful length of her finger.

“Will you still marry me next week, Greer Wilder?”

The breath caught audibly in her throat at the sincerity of my words.

I didn’t qualify it. I didn’t amend the wording or call it fake. We still hadn’t figured out how we were going to slip the marriage license from the minister, so there was a very true possibility that I’d end up with a real wife, and she’d have a real husband.

Instead of answering, I heard her suck in a fortifying breath, and then she cupped my face in her hands and leaned forward to press a sweet, close-lipped kiss to my mouth.

The quick jolt of electricity over my skin at the press of her lips had me cupping the back of her head in one hand, the silk of her hair luscious and smooth between my fingers.

But before I could deepen the kiss, before I could weigh the wisdom of pushing off my stool to bring my body closer to hers, she pulled away and let her forehead rest against mine.

Her nose brushed against mine.

“Nothing will keep me from walking down that aisle, Beckett,” she whispered. “I promise.”

Chapter10

Greer

My wedding day was beautiful.

Sunny, warm—not hot, and a perfect, gentle breeze to whisk away the terrifying whiff of mind-numbing guilt that I felt every freaking time I caught a glimpse of myself in my pretty white dress.

“You look amazing,” my sister Adaline said as she adjusted one of the soft curls that cascaded down my back. She was on hair duty, and even though she was sad I wouldn’t allow her to do anything fancy, I was just glad she’d hopped on board the wedding train without much suspicion.

“Thank you,” I told her. I kept my gaze on her face while she curled a few more pieces, gently pulling a brush through to soften them.

“I still can’t believe you’re not going on a honeymoon,” she said.

“We have time for that later,” I told her. “You know this isn’t the way either one of us would’ve planned it under normal circumstances.”

That had my sister eyeing me for a moment. “I know. The thing with his daughter makes it … unique.”

I managed a tight swallow. “She’ll be with Josie now until their wedding, and then we’ll have her that weekend. They’re not doing a honeymoon either since they leave for London shortly after getting married.”

Adaline stepped back to survey her touch-ups. “Perfect.”

“When do you move into his place?” Poppy asked.

“Technically today,” I answered. “We went over a lot of stuff when I stopped by the other day. But I’ll still be moving things from my apartment over the next couple of weeks.”

She gestured for me to pucker up, and I did, pursing my lips so she could slick a new coat of tinted moisturizer over my lips.

After much debate and pouting by my younger sister, I won the battle of not wearing sticky lip gloss or a deep, rich color for the ceremony. I was already nervous enough kissing the guy in front of my family when we’d hardly traded more than a sweet kiss in private.

There was promise in that sweet kiss, and that was somehow even more alarming.

A gentle press of lips, just to take the edge off today’s performance, and it set off a terrifying, trembling swarm of nerves under my skin.

Because all I’d wanted to do was lean in. No part of me wanted to pull back. I wanted to tilt my head, open my lips, and see if he’d slick his tongue over mine.

But I did pull back.

Beckett pulled back too. His eyes were intense and full of surprise, but because there was no leaning, no deepening, no furthering of whatever had been started there, I wasn’t quite sure where he stood on the idea of kissing his wife.

Poppy gave me a restrained smile. “Everyone’s moving away. Now it’s just Cameron and me. One, he’s not nearly as fun, and two, I can’t raid his wardrobe.”

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