Except that it quickly became apparent to Paige that what was really going on was simply a shopping trip.
Their first stop was at a little café not unlike the one where Paige had enjoyed countless weekend brunches with Ashley and Megan. While they fueled up on lattes and chocolate croissants, the women talked about various dress options—white versus cream, long versus short, satin versus lace, veil versus hat.
There were so many choices and so many different opinions being bandied about that Paige’s head was spinning long before they walked into the bridal boutique.
As Zach’s sisters each took off in a different direction in search of the perfect dress for Paige, Kathleen touched a hand gently to her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m just a little…overwhelmed.”
“I never thought—I was so excited about doing this for you, it didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t my place, that this was something you should be doing with your own mother.”
Paige looked away. “My mom walked out on my dad and I when I was seven.”
“I’m sorry,” Kathleen said.
She just shrugged.
“What about your dad? Will he be coming to the wedding?”
Now she shook her head. “I haven’t seen him in fifteen years.”
Though she tried to sound nonchalant, she knew that Zach’s mother wouldn’t understand, as Kathleen’s frown proved. “Why not?”
“He’s a busy man.”
“Too busy to take a few days for his daughter’s wedding?” she asked incredulously.
Paige was embarrassed to admit that he wouldn’t take a few hours for her wedding if he was in town, much less leave wherever he was currently posted to witness an occasion that had absolutely no bearing on the security of the nation.
She wished her family was like Zach’s, but they weren’t. She’d come to terms with that fact years before, but she still didn’t know how to explain the reality to her future mother-in-law.
“He’s stationed overseas right now,” she said, because, as far as she knew, it was the truth. “He wouldn’t be able to get a few days, especially not on such short notice.”
“Is there anyone else you wanted to invite?”
She shook her head again. She’d called both of her cousins to tell them of her plans, but she knew that it was out of the question for either of them to make the trip to California. “My cousin Megan just had her first child, and her sister Ashley is in the final stages of her pregnancy, so neither of them is able to travel right now.”
“Well, no matter,” Kathleen said decisively. “Because you’re part of our family now.”
The tears that she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry filled her eyes, and Paige had to swallow the lump that sprang up in her throat before she could speak. “Thank you.”
Kathleen gave Paige a quick hug.
Then Jocelyn returned, her arms full of something huge and billowy and white, and the moment was broken.
Paige eyed what looked like miles and miles of lace with skepticism, but she gamely agreed to try it on.
Several minutes later she stepped back out into the main part of the dressing area.
“I feel like the abominable snow monster,” she said, following the signal of the saleslady and climbing onto the dais in the center of the room.
“You look like an abominable snow monster,” Hayden admitted.
“Who picked that out?” Lauryn wanted to know.
Jocelyn sighed. “I did.”
Her sisters both stared at her in shocked disbelief.
“It’s a Rodney Harbinger,” she said, tossing out the name of an up-and-coming local designer who had recently been at the center of all kinds of media attention.
“It’s a harbinger of disaster,” Hayden declared.
Jocelyn glared at her.
“But part of the fun of shopping for a wedding dress is trying on all kinds of styles,” Lauryn said, clearly trying to keep the peace between her sisters. Then she pushed another dress on Paige.
They were in the boutique nearly four hours, during which time Paige tried on eleven different dresses before she found one that actually made her think This might be it.
When she stepped out of the dressing room and all of Zach’s sisters breathed a collective sigh, she knew she was right. But it was Kathleen, who had picked out the simple, strapless column of ivory silk, to whom she looked for confirmation.
Her eyes misty with tears, Zach’s mother nodded.
Zach was a little worried about how Paige would fare on her shopping trip. Not that he didn’t think his mother and his sisters were the best, but all of the women in his family had strong personalities, and for an only child like Paige whose upbringing had been so very different from his own, he wasn’t sure she would come away from an all-day outing with the same impression.
But when he sat down across from her at the picnic tables that had been weighted down with platters of burgers and fries and salads to feed everyone who had gathered for the post-shopping feast, she smiled at him, and in that moment, he realized his mother was right.
He had fallen in love with the woman he was going to marry.
He picked up his glass of wine and took a long swallow. He was still trying to get his head around that revelation when Jocelyn spoke up from the end of the table.
“What are you guys doing about a honeymoon?” she asked.
All other conversations around the table ceased, and Paige’s panicked gaze collided with his across the table.
Obviously this was a detail neither of them had considered, maybe because they both saw their marriage as a way of giving Emma a stable family and hadn’t really looked beyond that. Not that he hadn’t thought about it, but he hadn’t made sharing a bed a condition of their marriage because he was confident that it would happen naturally.
But to his family—who didn’t understand the real rationale behind their hasty union—a wedding required adherence to certain traditions, of which a honeymoon was one.
“Well, actually—” Paige began.
And Zach decided to let her take the lead on this one because his brain was suddenly locked on the fantasy of a honeymoon with Paige. A private villa on a tropical island…or a secluded cabin deep in the woods. He wouldn’t care where they were, so long as he could spend hours making love with her.
“—we’ve decided to wait on that.”
“But why?” his middle sister demanded.
“Because Zach only has a few more weeks’ leave and we feel it’s important to spend that time with Emma.”
“I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be gone for two weeks,” Lauryn said. “But surely you could take a long weekend somewhere.”
“Maybe we will,” Zach finally spoke. “When we get back to Pinehurst.”
“But if you took it while you were here, we could look after Emma,” Hayden pointed out.
“Paige has family in Pinehurst,” he reminded them.
“So where are you planning to spend your wedding night?” Jocelyn taunted. “In separate guest rooms across the hall from one another in your parents’ house?”
“Stop teasing your brother,” Kathleen said, setting another platter of burgers on the table.
“But our opportunities are so few and far between these days,” Hayden pointed out.
“And if you keep this up, you’re going to make Paige have second thoughts about marrying into the family.”
“If Paige was that easily intimidated, she would never have boarded a plane to come out here in the first place,” Jocelyn declared.
“What about the guest house?” Hayden suggested.
“The guest house?” Paige echoed, obviously struggling to follow the circuitous conversation.
“For your wedding night,” Lauryn explained.
“I think that’s a wonderful compromise,” Kathleen agreed. “Close enough that you won’t worry about being away from Emma but with enough distance to give you some privac
y.”
Zach didn’t know what to say, how to refuse. And the truth was, a little bit of privacy would mean he could spend hours making love with Paige without worry of any interruption.
A quick glance across the table at Paige’s flushed cheeks confirmed that she was having similar thoughts and eased some of Zach’s concerns about her reasons for agreeing to marry him.
Maybe he’d been thinking of Emma when he proposed, and maybe Paige had been thinking of Emma when she accepted, but there was something more between them than their mutual love for the little girl, which gave him hope it might grow into love for one another.
After dinner, after everyone else had gone home and Emma was asleep and his parents had wandered down to check on things at the winery, Zach and Paige sat out under the stars with a bottle of merlot and Emma’s baby monitor.
“Are you sure this is your first marriage?” she asked him.
His lips curved. “I think I’d remember if I’d been married before.”
She sipped her wine, taking a moment to savor the flavor, before she asked, “So why are your parents not questioning this?”
“Do you think they should?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Especially considering all the questions they had about Emma.”
“They were understandably surprised and more than a little disappointed that I’d fathered a child out of wedlock.”
“So why are they not surprised that you’re marrying a woman you’ve known only a few weeks and who isn’t even the mother of your child?”
“Because they like you,” he said simply.
Her response was an unladylike snort.
“Or maybe they’re just relieved that they won’t lose the deposit they paid to the caterers for the anniversary party,” he offered as another alternative. “Or maybe they can just tell that we’re desperately in love with one another.”
“Could you be serious for a minute?” she demanded, annoyed that her heart had actually skipped a beat in response to the mention of “love.” He was only kidding—she knew that. And yet his words underscored her biggest concern about their impending marriage—that they were doing this for all the wrong reasons.
“I could,” he agreed. “But it seems that you’re being serious enough for both of us.”
“Ashley and Megan both had questions. A ton of questions,” she told him.
He refilled their glasses. “What kind of questions?”
“What’s the hurry? Why do we have to get married now? Why do we have to get married in California?”
“I should have realized that they would want to be at your wedding.”
Paige shrugged. “Of course, that’s not possible for either of them right now.”
“We could always have another ceremony when we get back to Pinehurst,” he offered.
“One wedding is quite enough.” She tapped her finger on the base of her wineglass.
“What else is on your mind?” Zach asked.
It was unnerving how easily he seemed to tune in to her thoughts sometimes. On the other hand, his question gave her the perfect opening. She’d debated with herself for hours about whether or not to bring up the subject, but with their wedding only a few days away, she knew she couldn’t postpone any longer.
“I think we should have a prenup,” she said.
The glint of amusement in his eyes faded. “Why?”
She was surprised that he had to ask. “Because I’ve been a family-law attorney for half a dozen years and the idea of entering into a marriage without one seems both foolish and reckless.”
“It seems to me that making provision for what will happen in the event of a breakdown of the marriage doesn’t imply much faith in the marriage.”
“The reality is that a large percentage of all marriages end in divorce, even though most couples believe—at least at the time they exchange vows—that their marriage will last forever.”
Zach looked as if he was going to say something else, but then he just shrugged. “Fine. You want a prenup, draft one up.”
“This is for your benefit as much as mine,” she told him. “So why do you seem angry?”
“Because this whole conversation just proves to me that whatever else is between us, we still don’t have trust. And without trust, we don’t have a hope in hell of making a marriage work.”
“I’d trust you with my life,” she told him and meant it. “And Emma’s life, too.”
He tossed back the rest of his wine and stood up. “Just not with your money.”
She frowned. “Is that what you think this is about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of assets you have, but I have to figure that an attorney has a better income than a military pilot.”
“What about the winery?” she challenged. “Don’t you have any interest in the family business?”
“Well, of course, but—”
“And don’t you think it would be wise to take steps to protect that interest?”
“Maybe I’m naive,” he allowed. “But it seems to me that a woman who rearranges her life to care for someone else’s child is someone inherently worthy of trust.”
Before she could think of a response to that, he’d gone into the house and left her alone with the wine and the stars and an uncomfortable feeling that her marriage-of-convenience to Zach Crawford was going to be anything but simple.
She stayed up late into the night, working at her laptop, drafting and revising a prenuptial agreement. But in the end, she realized he was right. More importantly, she recognized that what he was giving her—his name and legal standing in Emma’s life—were a lot more valuable than anything she was bringing into the union. And if, for some reason, their marriage didn’t work out, she didn’t see Zach going after her condo in Syracuse or her designer wardrobe any more than she would go after his Trenton apartment or his flight suits.
And if getting married without a legal contract felt to Paige like jumping out of an airplane without a secondary chute, it was a leap of faith and one that she was ready to take. Because somewhere between saying yes to Zach’s proposal and shutting down her computer, she’d realized that she did want this marriage to work—and not just for Emma.
Because she was falling for Zach.
And while that had definitely not been in her plans, the more time she spent with Zach and the more she discovered about him, the more she realized that he was a man she could count on.
She’d meant it when she’d told him that she trusted him with her life. She wasn’t sure she was ready to trust him with her heart, but it was already in his hands.
Chapter Twelve
Zach didn’t have any expectations about how Paige would look when she walked down the aisle. He knew she’d gone shopping with his mother and his sisters and that she’d come back with a dress, but the women had all been careful not to reveal any details about it within his earshot. Not that it mattered to him. He was certain that she’d look fabulous in whatever she’d chosen.
But in all of the conversations they’d had about their wedding and all of the plans they’d made for their marriage, his fiancée had been forthright and practical. So the last thing he expected to see was Paige looking like a bride.
A breathtakingly beautiful bride.
The moment he saw her moving down the makeshift aisle toward him, everyone and everything else faded away.
The ceremony was, thankfully, brief and focused on the exchange of vows and rings. Paige’s voice quavered slightly when she recited her part and her hand trembled when he lifted it to slide the diamond-encrusted band onto the third finger, but her gaze remained steady throughout.
She struggled a little when it was her turn to put his ring on his finger, but then it was done and Reverend Lamont finally said, “You may kiss your bride.”
Paige was the least nervous about this part of the wedding because this was a part she and Zach had done before. Not as husband and wife, of course, but kissing was kissing, and altho
ugh she didn’t make a habit of kissing in front of an audience, it still seemed less significant than the speaking of vows and giving of rings.
Or so she thought until Zach kissed her.
Because this kiss was more than an obligatory touch of his mouth to hers. It was a soft, lingering kiss that teased just a little and promised so much more.
When he drew back, she was breathless, yearning and terrified. Because while the smattering of applause from their wedding guests echoed dimly in the back of her mind, she knew the kiss hadn’t been for their benefit. It had been for her.
It was a kiss that told her she mattered, when she hadn’t expected to matter. Not over and above the arrangements they’d made for Emma. But this had nothing to do with Emma.
This was personal, and the realization shook her to the very core. It was a reminder of what they had shared. A promise of what could be.
Then Emma broke the spell, lifting her arms toward Zach and demanding, “Up.”
He picked her up, and she kissed his cheeks, first one, then the other, then she leaned over to do the same to Paige. And even those who might have impassively observed the kiss the groom shared with his bride were not untouched by the sweet innocence of her gesture.
The guests erupted into applause again, and Emma beamed.
After the ceremony, pictures were taken in the gardens outside the château. As Paige moved around in response to the photographer’s directions, her mind alternately skipped back to the kiss they’d shared and jumped forward to the night ahead with giddy anticipation.
Dinner came after the pictures, and while everything looked delicious, she honestly didn’t taste a bit of anything she’d eaten. She was aware only of Zach.
Paige didn’t see her aunt Lillian until she escaped to the ladies’ room to freshen her makeup in anticipation of her first dance as Mrs. Crawford, and when she did, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Her aunt smiled. “Congratulations, Paige.”
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