Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

  She wished she could see a shark, too, but it wasn’t realistic. It would be too dangerous. Same thing with jellyfish and the blue-ringed octopus. She’d already seen lots of kangaroos and all kinds of birds, though, and even a koala one time, and Rafe had said she’d probably see dolphins and maybe even whales. She couldn’t wait to tell Hermione about all the animals. Rafe had said that next time they came, Hermione could come, too. That would be cool. Hermione had been on a plane before, and to the ocean when she’d lived in California, but she'd never been to Australia.

  Everybody was sitting down now, she saw when she peeked out the door. In a little while, she had to walk down the aisle and drop rose petals. It was kind of inefficient, because afterwards, somebody would just have to sweep them up, but it was supposed to be like a fairy tale. This time there were two brides to walk on the rose petals, at least, so it was only half as inefficient.

  The lady who was in charge came in, which meant it must be almost time to start. She was really bossy. Even Rafe did what she said, and Rafe wasn’t scared of anybody. When he was around, everybody relaxed and smiled more. Maybe that was because he was a movie star, but people had done that even before they knew he was a movie star, so she didn’t think it was that.

  After he and Lily got married, Rafe was going to adopt her, too. He said she had to take more swimming lessons, even though she could swim over her head now, because he had swimming pools in both his other houses, the one in LA and the one here, plus the lake in Sinful and the beaches at both houses. “Besides,” he’d said, “you’ll be part Aussie then, and Aussies swim. Got to, haven’t we, to get out of the sharks’ way.” Part Aussie, he meant, because he’d be her dad. That was weird, but it was really cool.

  Hermione had said that people who had a swimming pool were sometimes rich and sometimes not, but if they had two houses and both of them had swimming pools, they were almost always rich. Also, Rafe really was famous. The kids at school all wanted to be her friend now, but her best friend was still Hermione. Plus, she was going to have a brother. His name was already picked out. Elijah Blue Blackstone. Lily had picked Elijah, and Blackstone was Rafe’s name. Blue was Bailey’s name. “That way,” Lily had said, “he’s got a little piece of all of us in him. Our whole family.”

  After Rafe adopted Bailey, they would be Bailey Blue Blackstone and Elijah Blue Blackstone, which sounded good, like you’d planned it that way. And when Elijah got older, she could teach him how to play football and soccer, and he could pick which one he liked best. It was always better when you got to choose for yourself.

  Her neck was still itchy, and one of the flowers in her wreath was tickling her ear, but she didn’t scratch it. She wished Lily would talk to her, but Lily was talking to Paige. That was OK. It was almost time. All she had to do was walk.

  The music was rising, the crowd was settling, and Paige was fidgeting. Lily said, “Stop pulling at it,” and moved her twin’s hand away from her neckline. “It’s perfect.”

  “I look stupid,” Paige said. “This was stupid. I should have worn a suit or something.”

  “You’re right,” Lily said. “Because gray-figured, structured white satin by Vera Wang is so pedestrian. Everybody’s doing it. Practically a meringue. And that antique Tiffany pearl-and-diamond necklace you’re wearing? Pfft. Piece of junk. Jace should definitely have thought twice. You should give it to me. It would look much better on me.”

  Paige glowered at her, which was a funny look on an absolutely gorgeous, gloriously pregnant bride with a white orchid in her mass of shining blonde hair. “You are not getting my necklace. You’ve got your own. And I don’t mean that. I mean I’m pregnant.”

  “No,” Lily gasped, and Bailey laughed. “Sweetie. I’m pregnant, too.”

  “Yes,” Paige said, “but you look beautiful.” She eyed Lily’s lace Reem Acra sheath with its cap sleeves, which hugged her belly with absolutely no effort at concealment. “See, yours is right.”

  Lily tried to understand, to reach into her twin’s mind and calm it. She, unlike Paige, had never felt more beautiful. Of course, that could have partly been her own necklace. It was another vintage piece, the diamond-encrusted platinum draping in graduated swags of garlands with five flowerheads between, as close as you could come to a piece of jewelry as beautiful as flowers. The flower in her own hair was a gardenia, and its scent mingled with their bouquets and the summer breeze that wafted in through the open doors. Paige’s bouquet, of white roses and eucalyptus leaves, picked up the gray in her dress, while Lily’s, cream roses and white lilies of the valley, was all softness, exactly the way she felt.

  “We’re not the same,” she told Paige. “That’s all right. You’re so beautiful. I know Jace is going to think so. He’s going to know which twin he’s got, and it’s going to be the one he wants. What’s really bothering you, sweetie?”

  Paige’s mouth trembled, and that was rare, and a little scary, too. The wedding coordinator, who’d been hovering around just out of earshot, came forward and told Bailey, “Time to go, darling. Remember—nice and slow, and scatter those petals like you’re in a fairy tale.”

  Lily told her sister, “Just a sec,” and crouched beside Bailey as best she could, between her belly and her dress. She put her arm around her daughter and said, “Just walk to Rafe. He’s going to be so glad to see you do it, and so am I. This is the day we become a family, and it’s a beautiful one.”

  “OK,” Bailey said. “I’m going.” Then she straightened her shoulders and set off. If she marched more like a soldier than a nymph, that was just fine. She was a soldier, and Lily’s heart swelled to watch her go. All courage. A starfish worth saving, over and over again. Her girl.

  She was never going to make it to Rafe without crying, and that was fine, too. It was too many dreams coming true. Sometimes, the feelings were too big, and you couldn’t hold them in. If she had to cry, there was nobody better than Rafe to hold her while she did it. The Beast, and absolutely not. Her hero.

  She saw him down there and caught her breath. Jace, beside him, looked volcanic, which Lily would bet was because he was trying to hold those feelings in. Rafe, though…Rafe was something else.

  He was always beautiful. Today, he shone like the sun. There was charisma, and then there was a man who drew everybody around him into his orbit, and made everything around him dim a little in comparison.

  Oh, no. Paige. It was time to go, and she’d forgotten Paige. She turned back fast and said, “Sweetie. What? Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. I’m right here beside you. You know I’ll always be with you.”

  Paige’s bouquet shook in her hands, and her mouth trembled as she said, “Jace is just…he’s so great. And I’m…I’m a cop. I’m not girly. What if…”

  Lily thought for a second. The music was louder, the bridal coordinator was beckoning, and Bailey had reached the end of the aisle.

  Too bad.

  “Come on,” she told her sister. “Come look at him.” She put her arm through Paige’s and drew her to the opening in the alcove. “What’s he feeling?”

  “Oh,” Paige said, and swallowed. “He’s scared, too.”

  Lily hugged her arm a little tighter. “Yes. I think he is. What do you want to do about that?”

  Jace saw them, and his face got even more still. Even more intense.

  “I have to go,” Paige said. “I have to go.”

  Cold fear clutched at Lily’s heart. She’d read this all wrong. “What?”

  “Come on,” Paige said, and grabbed her hand.

  Lily needed to say something else. What? She couldn’t think. But—wait. Paige wasn’t pulling her out of the building. She’d started to pull her down the aisle instead. “He’s scared,” she said. “He’s scared he’s not good enough for me. I need to go tell him he is. I need to go marry him.”

  She was still talking, and she wasn’t walking like any princess in a fairy tale, either. She was practically charging down the aisle, and Lily was l
aughing, tucking her arm through her sister’s, and going with her. The string quartet was playing Pachelbel’s Canon, and the notes were so beautiful, they tried to make you weep. The cello, steady and sure and calm, and the violins coming in above it, soaring to the heavens. Speaking of all the certainty, all the changes, all the sadness, and all the joy that were part of loving somebody forever, right where he was. Of being there to the end with him, and being glad you got to do it.

  At the end of the aisle, Jace’s face lit up. He was smiling, and Lily knew without looking at her that Paige was, too. Rafe’s face, though, was something else. His eyes shone as icy-blue as the diamonds in her necklace, and he wasn’t smiling at all. But she saw it there as clearly as if he were saying the word. As clearly as if his hand were already around hers, as if he were picking her up and carrying her across the threshold of the best house in the world in Byron Bay, with every bird singing and the sunset sky lit up in a blaze of color, to start their life together for real.

  Holding his hand, then, and Paige holding Jace’s. The celebrant saying the words. Hearing them, feeling them, all the way to her soul, and knowing that everybody she loved most in the world was feeling them in exactly the same way. That she was where she was meant to be, with the person she was meant to have and to hold. Forever.

  “Love is patient,” the woman in the black robe said, in a voice that rang out like a bell. “Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

  A pause, and Lily thought, Yes. Her life with Rafe, with Bailey, with the baby boy inside her—that life would be real. It would be imperfect. And it was everything she’d ever wanted.

  “And now,” the woman said, “these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

  Rafe’s hand tightened around hers, and she sent the message through to him. Solid and strong and everything she was, with no holding back. In sickness and in health, for better and for worse. For richer and for poorer, till death did them part.

  I believe, she told him, and knew he heard it. I believe.

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  The Sinful, Montana, series

  Paige’s & Jace’s story: GUILTY AS SIN

  Lily & Rafe’s story: TEMPTING AS SIN

  The Portland Devils series

  Dakota & Blake’s story: SILVER-TONGUED DEVIL

  Beth & Evan’s story: NO KIND OF HERO

  The Escape to New Zealand series

  Reka & Hemi’s story: JUST FOR YOU

  Hannah & Drew’s story: JUST THIS ONCE

  Kate & Koti’s story: JUST GOOD FRIENDS

  Jenna & Finn’s story: JUST FOR NOW

  Emma & Nic’s story: JUST FOR FUN

  Ally & Nate’s/Kristen & Liam’s stories: JUST MY LUCK

  Josie & Hugh’s story: JUST NOT MINE

  Hannah & Drew’s story again/Reunion: JUST ONCE MORE

  Faith & Will’s story: JUST IN TIME

  Nina & Iain’s story: JUST STOP ME

  Chloe & Kevin’s story: JUST SAY YES

  Nyree & Marko’s story: JUST SAY (HELL) NO

  The Not Quite a Billionaire series (Hope & Hemi’s story)

  FIERCE

  FRACTURED

  FOUND

  The Paradise, Idaho series (Montlake Romance)

  Zoe & Cal’s story: CARRY ME HOME

  Kayla & Luke’s story: HOLD ME CLOSE

  Rochelle & Travis’s story: TURN ME LOOSE

  Hallie & Jim’s story: TAKE ME BACK

  The Kincaids series

  Mira and Gabe’s story: WELCOME TO PARADISE

  Desiree and Alec’s story: NOTHING PERSONAL

  Alyssa and Joe’sstory: ASKING FOR TROUBLE

  Thank you to my alpha read duo, Kathy Harward and Mary Guidry, for their help and inspiration as they read along with this book, and to Barbara Buchanan, Carol Chappell, Erika Iiams, and Bob Pryor for their feedback.