The grin that spread across her face was wide. She was practically beaming. The glee that crept into her eyes made me smile back at her but also scared about what was going on in that head of hers. “I promise I won’t make you do too much girly shit with me. Maybe a spa day here and there, and shopping for my dress. Would you like me to treat you to getting your nails done before the ceremony?”
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” I wouldn’t really. Not if it truly was what she wanted, but hearing the sound of her laughter and chasing the last vestiges of sadness that had lingered away from her eyes made the joke worth it.
Tierra lifted a shoulder, batting her eyelashes innocently before turning her gaze back down to her food. “Maybe, but I really do promise to make it as painless for you as possible. I won’t even force you to come get waxed with me for the honeymoon.”
I cringed. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“Oh, stop it.” She gave me a look while trying to suppress more laughter, pointing at me with her fork. “Don’t pretend like you’re some blushing virgin who gets offended by the mere mention of sex. God, I’ve been in a relationship for over a decade, but I’m still pretty sure you’ve had way more sex than I have.”
“I’m not touching that statement with a ten-foot pole. Is this obligatory talk between a bride and her maid of honor, or can we change the topic now?”
She lost the fight against the laughter, her shoulders shaking with it as she cut another piece off her steak. “Sure, Pax. Change the topic. I wouldn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
“It’s not my sensibilities that are delicate,” I said. “It’s my ability to keep myself from punching your fiancé the next time I see him for putting his hands on my little sister.”
Tierra stuck her tongue out at me, shaking her head while still trying to get her laughter under control. I faked a scowl and pretended to pout. “I’m glad I’m so entertaining to you tonight.”
It took several more seconds before her expression sobered again and her gaze came back to mine. “Thanks, Pax. I really needed to laugh like that after the last couple of days. It’s been bittersweet, you know?”
“Mom and Dad would’ve been so proud of you, kiddo,” I said, understanding what she meant even though she hadn’t said it in so many words. “I’m so proud of you. Brett is a lucky guy. I’ll just have to make sure that he knows I’ll kick his fucking ass to the moon if he ever stops making you happy.”
“I think it might be a little bit late for that threat, but sure. If it makes you feel better, I’ll even ask him to look really scared when you tell him.” She didn’t respond to the first part of what I’d said, but I couldn’t blame her for wanting to focus on what made her happy rather than what made her sad.
We finished our meals, joking and talking until it was time to say goodbye. I walked her to her car, and she stood up on her toes and pulled my head down to brush a soft kiss to my cheek. “I love you, Pax. Thanks for everything tonight.”
“I love you too, sis.” I hugged her close. “Anything you need. Always.”
I really meant it. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Or so I’d thought. If I’d known what was coming, what it was that Tierra had been holding back and hadn’t told me, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so sure about it.
Chapter 4
COLETTE
“Waffles or pancakes?” I asked April, eyeing the dry ingredients I’d already packed out on the counter. “We’ve got enough time this morning for either one.”
She sat in the small breakfast nook in our kitchen, her chin in her little palm and her fingers drumming against her cheek while she thought. “Waffles. With ice cream?”
“Ice cream for breakfast?” I smiled as I reached for the flour. “Is it your birthday today? I can’t believe I forgot.”
“It’s not my birthday,” she admitted with a long-suffering sigh. “My teacher said it’s Erin’s birthday tomorrow.”
“I saw that on the calendar. Is she going to have a birthday party?” I mixed the ingredients together and started working on stirring the batter.
April shrugged her narrow shoulders, her loose blonde hair shifting from the movement. Thank God she looked like a miniature version of me with her wavy blonde hair, hazelnut eyes, and oval-shaped face. I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve felt like if she’d come out looking like the spitting image of her father.
It might’ve been fine by now if she had, but those first couple of years would’ve been rough if I’d seen Andrew every time I’d looked at her. I’d realized since that I didn’t think I’d ever truly been head over heels in love with him, but it had sure felt like it at the time.
The day he left… Fuck. It had hurt like hell when I realized he wasn’t coming back, but no. My heart had been battered and bruised by him but not broken.
There was only one man who’d ever really broken my heart into seventy million little pieces, and Paxton wasn’t someone I wanted to think about.
Still, it would’ve been hard to look at April and only see her father. With her looking so much like me, it was easy to pretend Andrew had never even existed. I liked pretending that. It suited me just fine not to have to think about the man who was too much of a coward to stick around or to take any responsibility at all for the incredible child he’d fathered.
“Is Uncle Brett coming with you to pick me up again later?” she asked, clearly having accepted that she’d find out about Erin’s birthday and party later.
April was a very easygoing child. She was seldom demanding, more especially so for a child her age, and was usually quite happy to go with whatever was happening. Even if she didn’t get invited to the birthday party, she’d still be sweet about it and ask if we could go get Erin a present.
There was such hope in her eyes when she asked about Brett that I seriously considered calling him up and asking him about it. “I don’t think so, honey. He’s really busy at work, and he and Aunt Tierra need to plan their wedding.”
“What’s a wedding?” she asked.
The other day when she’d come with us to get the ring, we’d had to explain the concept of an engagement and why Brett had needed a ring, but we hadn’t gotten much further than that in all of the excitement.
“A wedding is an event where two people who really, really love each other get married,” I said. “It’s like a big party where everyone celebrates how much those two people love each other and that they promised to love each other forever.”
She mulled it over while I flicked on the waffle iron and waited for it to heat up. There were so many questions flickering in her eyes, but I didn’t try to jump the gun on any of them. Making a mental note to thank Brett for now having to explain all these things to her that might just lead to many other, trickier subjects, I propped my hip against the counter and braced myself for the answers I might have to give.
“Are we married?” she asked eventually. “We really, really love each other, and you always say you’re going to love me forever and a day.”
“No, we’re not married, baby. I am going to love you forever and a day,” I said. “It doesn’t work that way for us. We’re family. Family loves each other unconditionally without being married.”
Confusion puckered her brow. “So we love each other because we’re family?”
I nodded, then noticed the light on the waffle iron had gone on, indicating that it was at temperature. Opening the top, I poured some batter onto the plate before turning back to April. “There’s lots of different kinds of love. Brett and Tierra are in love with each other, so they want to get married, and then they’ll be family.”
“Oh.” She glanced toward the window, staring out of it contemplatively before smiling. “They’ll be family like us?”
“Not exactly, because we’re mommy and baby and they’ll be husband and wife, but yes. They’ll be a family too.”
“Will they be our family?” she asked.
“No, they’ll be
their own family.” When the light popped on again, it drew my eye back to the waffle. I lifted the top again carefully, then saw the first one was ready.
Reaching for the spatula, I slid the front of it underneath the edge of the waffle and lifted it off to slide onto April’s plate. After adding more batter to the waffle iron and closing the top again, I fixed her waffle with all the trimmings we had, cut it into smaller pieces, and handed the princess plate over.
“There you go. Eat up, honey.” I glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. “We have time for a few more of them before we’ve got to go.”
For a few minutes after she started eating, I thought she might’ve put the whole wedding and marriage conversation behind her for now. Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief that I’d gotten off easy, however, she picked it right back up again.
In the worst place possible.
“Are you going to get married, Mommy?” she asked, her brown eyes soft and wide on mine. “If Brett and Tierra have to get married to become a family, how are we a family if you’re not married?”
Fuck.
“There’s a lot of different ways people can become a family, angel face. Getting married is just one of them. We became family when Mommy had you.”
“Oh,” she said again but then chewed on the inside of her lips for a moment. “Are you going to get married?”
Damn it. I’d hoped my answer to her previous questions would’ve been sufficient even if I hadn’t answered that part of it.
Evidently, I hadn’t gotten that lucky. April was an extremely emotionally astute child, so I laughed instead of making the face I wanted to make when I thought about getting married myself.
“No, sweetheart. You’re all I need,” I said, and happily, she seemed satisfied with my answer.
When my waffle was ready, I went to join her at the breakfast nook and wolfed it down before the next one I had in the machine was ready. April asked a few more questions about marriage, but it seemed I’d dodged all the major bullets for now.
The funny thing was that when I was growing up, when I’d been not much older than she was now, I’d dreamed about getting married. It was a long time before I understood the finer things like the motivations behind why people do it. All I wanted was the wedding.
The white dress, the sparkly shoes, the pretty flowers… My parents had been young when they’d had me, and so by the time I was April’s age, I’d attended lots of their friends’ weddings with them. I remembered being absolutely in love with the idea of getting married.
Oh, how times have changed.
It wasn’t just because of what’d happened with Andrew either. April’s father had been many things, but marriage material wasn’t one of them. We’d only dated for a few months, but I’d never harbored any illusions of living happily ever after with him.
Of course, I couldn’t have predicted he’d be quite as unreliable as he’d turned out to be, but I hadn’t thought we’d be getting married either. We liked each other, had a good time together, and I thought it might become a serious relationship but never that serious.
By that point, enough of my friends had been married and gotten divorced that love, weddings, and marriage were no longer the fairy tales I’d once believed them to be. But that had become known pretty much when we’d hit high school and suddenly started realizing what was going on in people’s houses.
I quickly realized that not all those so-called fairy tales had happy endings, and by my mid-twenties when I’d met Andrew, I’d seen “love” crash and burn so many times I had no intention of ever taking part in the race again.
Hell, the one time I had participated in the race, it had ended in such a fiery crash that I was pretty sure my ability to love someone romantically with my whole heart had been destroyed in the conflagration.
Burned beyond recognition at the very least. Fucking Paxton.
Deliberately shutting down my thoughts about him when I felt my brain wandering toward memory lane, I finished my waffle, then went to shut off the machine after April said she was full as well. While she gathered her things for daycare, I packed the dishwasher and met her at the front door.
All the while, Paxton was never far from my mind. No matter how hard I tried not to think about him, he clung to the edges of my thoughts like a bad smell.
I blamed Brett for this. Tierra was Paxton’s sister, and while we’d effectively managed to see them at different times for the past decade, I was almost convinced I was going to have to see him at the wedding.
If he’s even in town, I reminded myself. Brett and I had made a pact a long time ago not to talk about him, and he must’ve told Tierra because she never mentioned him either. Hopefully he’ll be too busy doing whatever he’s doing somewhere else.
Luckily for me, he was really good at running and staying far away from home. Fingers crossed.
April’s teacher was waiting for us when we arrived. She waved when we pulled up to the curb, then came over to the car.
I frowned, finally managing to shove Paxton all the way out of my head the instant I realized she obviously wanted to talk to me. Worry danced around my brain, but then she gave me a bright smile, and I relaxed.
“We’re doing career day next week,” she said after we exchanged greetings and some small talk. “Would you be able to come in, Colette? We’d love to have you.”
“I’d love to come in,” I said. “I’ll definitely be here.”
We chatted for a few more minutes before she led a small group of children into the center, and I took off. I’d barely stopped at the office when my phone beeped with a text from Brett.
Brett: Can you meet up with us to talk wedding stuff tomorrow night?
I checked with my regular babysitter before replying. Only after she let me know she was available did I type out a response to my best friend.
Me: I’ll move some things around. Veronica can make it, so I’ll make it work.
Brett: Thanks. I owe you.
Why yes. Yes, he did.
But the only thing I wanted right now was for him to assure me that Paxton wouldn’t have anything to do with this wedding. It might be his sister getting married, but he was almost as good at not being there for people as he was at running away.
The flaming fucking asshole. I really didn’t know how I would handle seeing him again after what he did, but I didn’t want to find out.
Chapter 5
PAXTON
Late-afternoon sun glimmered off the infinity pool in the backyard. There were scantily clad people everywhere, music booming from speakers set up by a DJ who was a friend of the model throwing this party.
We’d finished our shoot a couple of hours ago, and it wasn’t even dinnertime yet, but no one really cared that it might be considered too early to party like this. After the shoot, everyone had been in the mood to blow off some steam. Calls had been made to others, and by the time I’d showered and shown up here, the DJ had already been playing and the alcohol was flowing.
I was standing on a deck overlooking the pool, a beer in my hand and a girl under each arm. The blonde one, Marilyn or Madelyn or something, blinked up at me with her big blue eyes and placed her hand on my chest.
“I was so excited when Cindy said you were coming today,” she practically purred. “You haven’t partied with us for a while.”
Ah. Cindy. That’s her name. She’s the model throwing the party.
Shrugging as I took a sip of my drink, I smirked down at her over the top of my sunglasses. “You know how it goes. I’ve been busy.”
The brunette under my other arm turned into me, wrapping her fingers around the base of my bottle to pull it away from her face where I’d let it hover after taking my sip. She cleared her throat to get my attention, then flashed me a simpering smile.
“I know all about how busy you’ve been. That new jeans campaign you were part of that launched last week is hot.”
“What new jeans campaign?” Blondie frowned
before smoothing out her features and tapping my chest. “Do you wanna go dance? It looks fun down there.”
She flicked her fingers toward the impromptu dance floor that had been made out of the patio next to the pool. Having been in this situation a few times, I knew what she was trying to do and what she was hanging on me for.
Step number one of her plan was to get me away from the competition, and step two was grinding against me on the dance floor. After that, it would be a straight shot to a bed somewhere. Or a coatroom. Maybe even just a corner we could turn.
Usually, I’d be all in for it, but today, I just didn’t know. Get out of your head, asshole.
The brunette, while also incredibly attractive and who had also been hitting on me, didn’t seem quite as forward as her blonde counterpart. Her lips curved into a seductive smile when she glanced up at me.
“It looks hot down there if you ask me,” she said. “I’m okay here. It’s a little more private.”
Oh, shots fired. The situation could’ve become entertaining if Blondie had taken the bait. Instead, it was like she didn’t recognize the snub for what it was.
She leaned forward to look at the brunette across my chest. “Do you really think it’s hotter down there than it is up here?”
The brunette snorted, then arched the thin line that remained of her eyebrow at me. Clearly, she was waiting for me to make a decision. Stay up here with her, or go downstairs with the other girl. Blondie wasn’t the brightest peanut, which was a turnoff for me, but I wasn’t trying to marry her.
It was all a game, and I loved playing it. The blonde was here trying to get one thing and one thing only. The brunette, on the other hand, struck me as the kind of woman who was going to want to talk for hours, get to know me, and give me her opinions on all my latest work before she eventually invited me home with her or asked to come home with me.
That was a lot of admin, and it might also involve expectations. She looked rather fierce, though. I doubted she’d just give up unless I shut her down properly. Blondie it is, then.
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