“Cannon,” Anne’s voice was soft, apologetic as we both turned at the sound of her approach. “Lillian is asking for you. She’s really upset.”
Cannon turned back to me, a battle raging on his features.
“Go,” I said, nodding toward the house. “She needs you.”
Not that I didn’t need him, but I’d never keep him from his sister. Especially after what just happened, Lord knows what she was going through right now.
He nodded, and jogged up to the house, leaving me alone with my sister.
I turned my back on her, prepared to return to my room, and simply focus on breathing for the next few hours.
“Sephie,” she said, stopping me. “Wait.”
I paused, turning toward her. “What is it, Anne?” I sighed. “Want to get a few more jabs in before I put on my dress?”
She stumbled toward me, her navy pumps sticking in the lush grass. “No,” she said, chewing her bottom lip. “I wanted to apologize. About the toast, about the fitting…about everything, really. I’m sorry. At first, I was happy to hear you’d gotten hitched in Vegas, it meant you were human. Like me. But then with everyone so excited and amped up and throwing this big wedding for you, I was jealous. No one has ever made that fuss over me and my marriages.”
I arched a brow at the plural use of that word, therein lied the reasoning for no one getting excited.
“I know,” she pressed on. “None of mine have been serious. All on a whim like everything else in my life. I thought this thing between you and him was the same thing. I didn’t realize…” She sighed. “I didn’t realize how much you truly love that man.”
I swallowed hard, nodding at the truth I couldn’t possibly deny.
“He’s the best person I’ve ever met,” I said.
“And he brings out the best in you.” She smiled. “Not that you could get much better than you already are.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Seriously, though, Sephie,” she continued. “I’ve never seen the fire in you like I have since he’s been around. It suits you.”
“Thank you.”
“And,” she continued, swallowing hard as her eyes filled with tears. “I know you still hate me for not getting tested—”
“I don’t hate you,” I cut her off. Severely disappointed? Exhausted from trying to help her and getting my hand slapped away? Sure, but never hate.
“It’s okay. I…I’m trying to do this thing where I tell the people I trust the truth.” She laughed darkly. “Only thing is, I don’t trust many people anymore.” Something distant churned in her eyes, and I reached for her hand. She let me take it, brushing away some tears with her free one. “I did go to the doctor,” she said. “But it was…well, it was for something else. And he told me that some of my nightlife activities—and my dependency upon them—made me an unfit match for Mama. Not only that, he said if I kept up with my ways, I’d be dead in a year. Something about my liver levels—”
“Anne,” I gasped, throwing my arms around her. “We’ll get you help. You could’ve come to me. Why didn’t you—”
“Because I didn’t want you to see me like this,” she said, squeezing me harder. “I’m a fucking mess,” she admitted. “More than you’ll ever know.”
“Let me help you,” I pleaded, breaking our embrace to meet her eyes.
“I hate myself because what if I could’ve been a match? What if I could’ve been the one to save her, and I couldn’t because of what I’ve done to myself.”
“You can’t think like that,” I said, my voice soothing. “She’s getting what she needs now. So, we’ll have to focus on you.” I raised my brows, a desperate, silent question.
She nodded. “I’m ready. To get help. If you’re willing.”
“Always,” I said, already thinking of the best rehab and therapy clinics I could enroll her in. And, selfishly, I hoped she’d let me in on what fueled this decade of madness in the first place.
Anne opened her arms. “Sisters?”
I wrapped her in a hug. “Sisters.”
She blew out a breath and wiped under her eyes. “Good, now that that is done with,” she said. “All I have to do is get back in Father’s good graces. I suppose not drinking at your wedding will be the first step.”
“Sounds like a good one to me.”
“You ready?” she asked. “For today?”
I took in a slow breath, checking my heart. I hated that I didn’t know if Cannon would decide to leave me to walk toward an empty altar, but I knew in the depths of my soul that I loved this man—for better and for worse. And when you love something that deeply, you show up for them. Every day. Even if you don’t know if they’ll show up for you.
So, I’d show up.
And I’d keep loving him, keep showing him he was worthy of love until the day he told me to stop. Until the day he told me he didn’t reciprocate.
Which he hadn’t.
Despite all the drama we’d gone through, he’d never, not once said he didn’t love me.
And for now, that was all I needed.
“I’m ready,” I said and turned toward the house where I had a wedding dress waiting for me.
21
Cannon
I was convinced that the VanDoren women were really undercover secret operatives. That was the only logical explanation to the way they’d intercepted me each of the seven times I’d tried to see Persephone since that shit had gone down in the front yard. If this place actually had a designated front yard.
“You sure you want to do this?” Logan asked as we flattened ourselves against the wall in the upstairs hallway.
“Do you think I’d ask you to come up here and play Mission Impossible if I didn’t?” I challenged.
He tilted his head. “Okay, that’s reasonable. But you really don’t think this can wait forty-five minutes until you see her?”
I narrowed my eyes at my best friend. “You honestly think that standing at the altar in front of all our friends and family is a good time to have a heart to heart?”
He mulled it over and nodded. “Again, reasonable.”
“Can you please just open that fucking door so I can talk to my wife?”
“On it.” He stood tall, adjusted the tie of his tuxedo, and knocked on the door between us.
There was a faint sound of rustling before it opened.
“Oh! Logan! How can I help you?” Mrs. VanDoren asked.
Logan turned on the charm with a regretful smile. “I know these minutes are sacred, but Cannon just sent me up. There’s apparently an issue with the flowers at the altar—”
“The peonies?” she gasped.
I held my breath and prayed that she didn’t look through the crack in the door that would show me doing a shit job of hiding.
“Right, the peonies,” Logan continued. “It turns out he thought you said posies?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Mama, is everything okay?” I heard Persephone ask, and my heart jumped.
“It’s fine, darling. Don’t you worry about a single thing.”
“Right, so the florist said that Cannon is wrong, and they’re supposed to be posies, and they’re still down there arguing—”
“They are most certainly supposed to be peonies. Of all the silly things to go wrong today. Honey, I’ll be right back. You just stay right here, and we’ll get your dress on in a few minutes, okay?”
“No problem.” Her voice was the only thing I’d wanted to hear all day.
Logan stepped back and held his arm out to Mrs. VanDoren, facing the opposite way from where I was hiding. She took his arm and headed down the hall. The minute they turned the corner, I yanked open the door and stepped inside.
Persephone’s childhood bedroom was pink…and not just a little pink. Really fucking pink. And frilly. The door to the ensuite bathroom was open, and as I headed that way, Andromeda stepped into the doorway.
“Oh hell no! You don’t get to see her before the weddin
g! Get out!” she snapped.
“What? Who is that?” Persephone asked.
“I’ve been trying all day to talk to my wife, and you know it.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You’ve stolen her cell phone, posted a guard at the bottom of the staircase, another guard at the tree that grows just outside her window, refused the flowers I sent up to her—”
She grimaced. “We gave her the flowers…we just kept the card from her.”
“The card was all I cared about!”
“Well, I’d certainly read more romantic notes. Call me so we can talk, certainly didn’t make the top ten in my life—or hers, I might add.” She cocked her head at me.
“You did what? Andromeda get out of my way right this minute!” Persephone demanded.
I cocked an eyebrow at my fake sister-in-law.
She grumbled but stepped aside so Persephone could come through the doorway.
Her hair and makeup had already been done, the first in an elaborate updo that had my palms itching with the knowledge that I’d pull every pin loose later, and the second a more formal version of the minimalist style Persephone favored. She looked beautiful.
She tucked the edges of the white, silk bathrobe closer around her and looked up at me with wonder, her gaze skimming over the details of my tux before coming back to my face. “Cannon.”
“We need to talk.”
Some of the light shuttered in her eyes, but she nodded. “Anne, get out, and don’t you dare come back until you see Cannon leave.”
“Are you serious? You know that seeing the bride on the wedding day is horrible luck! I might buck tradition, but even I made sure not to violate that one.” She tapped her foot under a lavender bridesmaid dress—the same one I’d just seen Lillian in as she dressed Owen.
“And look how that turned out for you,” Persephone offered with a smile. “Now do me a favor and stand guard for Mama. I’m not kidding. We need a moment.”
Anne rolled her eyes but walked out the door, muttering something about tradition.
Persephone and I stood staring at each other for at least a minute after the door closed.
“I’ve been trying to get you alone all day.” I rubbed the back of my neck to keep from fidgeting with my tie. At least it wasn’t one of those pansy-assed bow ties. “If I’d known that taking care of Lillian meant I’d lose my only opportunity to talk to you, I would have stayed outside with you.” She’d been gone by the time I got my sister calmed down and reassured that our father had been hauled off the property.
“You needed to be with her. I understood that,” she said softly, taking a few steps so she could sit on the pink-cushioned window seat. “I was really proud of you.”
I startled. “You what?”
“I was proud of you,” she insisted, gripping the edge of the cushion so hard that her knuckles turned white. “I can’t imagine the effort it took for you to stand there silent and not let your temper loose on your father. You were practically shaking with it.”
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life.” I’d wanted to rip him limb from limb for daring to come, for scaring Lillian and raising his voice at Persephone. But I’d known that if I’d moved one inch or even opened my mouth, I would have given Persephone’s father yet another reason to call me out. “Hell, it was probably the hardest moment of my life before this one.”
Her shoulders sagged in defeat, and her gaze fell from mine.
“No. Persephone, no.” I fell to my knees in front of her. “God, I fuck everything up, don’t I? I can’t even do this right.”
“Do what?” She slowly brought her head up just enough to meet my eyes. Never again, I promised myself. Never again would she wear the look of apprehension that paled her face right now.
“Tell you that I’m in love with you.”
Her eyes flared, and her lips parted. Shit. She was speechless, and I was out here hanging on a limb.
“You put yourself in front of me today. You literally stepped between my dad and me.” That moment had almost brought me to my knees.
Her expression changed from shock to confusion. “Wait, what?”
“Today, when my dad was here, you put yourself between us—”
“I remember. I was there. But what does that have to do with you being in love with me?” She shook her head.
“You don’t get it.” I braced my hands on either side of hers. “In my entire life, no one has ever put themselves between us. Mom was already too bloody by the time he’d start on me, and Lillian was always smaller, so I was usually the one stepping in. No one’s ever put themselves in the line of fire for me. And as much as I wanted to haul you over my shoulder and carry you back into the house—and away from him…” My eyes squeezed shut. “I was in such awe of you in that moment.”
I opened my eyes to find her staring at me in slack-jawed disbelief.
“Cannon Price, are you telling me that you fell in love with me on our wedding day because I yelled at your father?” Her voice rose to an almost scary level as she progressed.
I cocked my head to the side. “No, but I hadn’t seen you since that happened, so I needed to tell you.”
“Tell me that you loved me? Or tell me that you’re in awe of me?”
“Yes.” Fuck, this was not going any of the four million ways I’d planned in my head. “This isn’t going well, is it?”
“Well, it’s not going great.” Now both her eyebrows were sky-high. “You have me so confused that I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Welcome to my world,” I muttered.
Her eyes narrowed, and then her expression shifted, crumpling a little and taking my heart with it. “Cannon, you just have to tell me if you’re calling off this wedding or not because I’m dying inside. My soul has shriveled a little with every hour that’s gone by, not knowing what’s going on in your head. So tell me right now—are we getting married today?”
“That’s up to you.”
I might as well have told her that Neil Armstrong was outside and prepared to walk her down the aisle for the look she shot me.
“Okay.” I gathered up all the courage I had. “Maybe this will go better if I can just get it all out. Because I’m fucking this up left and right. So, let’s make a deal.”
“A deal?” she repeated.
“Yep. I’m going to talk, and then I’m going to leave. And you will agree not to say anything until I’m gone.” I nodded, quite pleased with my little plan.
“So I don’t get to respond?”
“Of course you do,” I assured her. “But it’s an actions-speak-louder-than-words kind of thing. I’m just worried that if you interrupt me, I’ll never get this out, and we’re kind of down to the wire on this will-we won’t-we thing.”
“Right.” She sat up straight and folded her hands in her lap as she crossed her legs. The silk split with the motion, revealing a smooth, creamy thigh that reminded me it had been days since I’d made love to her.
If this didn’t go well, it would be an eternity.
“Okay. You talk. I’ll listen, and then I won’t say a single word until you’re gone, I promise on my Mama’s life.” She swallowed, her eyes laced with fear, but she nodded anyway. My brave girl.
I took a deep breath, steadied my nerves the best I could, then yanked my tie loose.
Her eyes flared wide as she watched me pull the knot apart, and unbutton the top few buttons on my shirt, but she was true to her word and didn’t speak. I was careful to leave the edges of the shirt closed, but if all else failed, I had a visual aid.
“I love you, Persephone,” I began.
She pressed her lips in a firm line as her eyes searched mine.
“I’m never going to be the man you deserve. I’m not the man who sits quietly, sipping mimosas on a Sunday morning at the country club, listening to all the douchebags prattle on about their 401K’s. I’m not the man who spills his guts when something is bothering him. I’m not the man your dad wants or
your friends want, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never be allowed into a PTA meeting. I’ll never be the man in a bowtie or the man in the green vest. And to be honest, that kind of guy isn’t the one you fell in love with.”
She sucked in her breath but stayed silent.
“If you say you love me, and you really do, then you have to accept who I am, not who you think I can be. I will always struggle with my temper. Chances are I’ll get your name dragged through every tabloid at least once a month for something stupid I do, or they’ll just make shit up like they usually do, anyway. I can’t promise that I won’t beat the shit out of Michael—out of anyone who has the nerve to say shit about you in front of me.”
Her brow furrowed.
“When I can’t find the words to talk about how I feel, I read them. I’m not saying that I won’t work on communication, but I am saying that you have to accept the fact that I’m not the poetry and hearts guy. I travel too much. I swear too much. I’m covered in scars from shit I would rather die than have you experience, and most of those scars aren’t physical. I’m not big on tradition—I’d rather find a newer, better way to do something. My job isn’t stable—I can be traded to any team when the terms are right. I really hate jello, and it’s even worse when people stick fruit in it.”
She cracked a smile.
“Persephone, I love you. I’m in love with you, and I have been since the moment you had the nerve to throw sass at me in that hallway two years ago. I just didn’t recognize the emotion until I was staring down the barrel of losing you. And if this is really what you want, then I’m changing our rules. Four is out—because I love you and you love me. Five is out because I plan on making love to you for the rest of our lives. I can’t guarantee seven, because I tend to get into fights on the ice in at least eighty percent of the games I play in.”
I shifted forward on my knees, and my shirt fell open.
Her eyes shined, and her lip trembled as she reached for the white, crisp fabric and held it apart just far enough to see my new ink, still swollen and lightly scabbed in places.
Cannon (Carolina Reapers Book 5) Page 25