Love Hard

by Nalini Singh

  “You got it!” Grabbing the case, Esme opened it and slid on her glasses—the frames were electric blue, the glass crystal clear. “I knew Daddy would have it!” Then she slammed her tiny body into Juliet’s legs, hugging her tight with skinny arms. “Thank you, Jules!”

  Bending down while trying not to wobble—she hadn’t had a chance to kick off her heels—Juliet picked up Esme and hitched her on her hip. Even at age six, Jake’s little girl was petite and light. Probably the smallest in her class. Just like Callie had been.

  “A girl has got to have her accessories,” she said past the sucker punch of memory, and got a giggle.

  “Sweetie, Boo! Time to put on your dresses.”

  Esme wriggled down to race off toward her grandma. Joy whispering over the sadness that had hit her out of nowhere, Juliet slipped off her heels out of respect for Charlie’s gorgeous wooden floors and wandered over to where the makeup artist was putting the last touches on Ísa.

  Charlotte’s future sister-in-law was a bridesmaid, alongside Juliet and fellow pastry-class graduate Aroha. Charlotte’s detective friend Mei Lee was the final member of the bridesmaid quartet. Matron of honor duties had gone to Charlotte’s best friend, Molly.

  “You look spectacular,” Juliet said to Ísa. “Straight out of a Renaissance painting.” All wild red hair, flawless skin, and a sense of contentment that drew Juliet.

  “Thanks for doing that for Esme.” Ísa squeezed Juliet’s hand.

  “My pleasure,” Juliet said as Charlotte floated down the hanging spiral staircase with Molly by her side.

  “Why am I nervous?” the bride said with an enormous but shaky smile when she reached this floor, one hand pressed to her chest and a flush gracing the pale gold of her skin. “I’m so ready to marry Gabriel!”

  Juliet couldn’t help her surely goofy smile at Charlotte’s giddy happiness. The other woman looked like an old-world princess in a wedding dress of ivory lace with a wide skirt and a gentle bateau neckline. The sleeves were long, the lace there and over the slope of her shoulders unlined.

  Juliet’s friend had decided to wear contacts for her wedding rather than her usual metal-rimmed glasses; her hazel eyes were gorgeously outlined by lashes that curled up at the ends, her eyelids dusted with the barest shimmer. A pop of color came from her lips. Plump and pink, they drew the eye in a way that was lovely rather than overtly sensual.

  As for Charlotte’s blond hair with its tendency to curl, the hairdresser had put it in a soft updo with enough tendrils around her face that the style made Juliet sigh it was so dreamy and romantic. Juliet could never pull off that look, but on Charlotte? Utter perfection.

  Her friend’s entire face glowed.

  “It’s happy nerves.” Molly hugged Charlotte from behind, the lush orange-pink frangipani she wore behind one ear vibrant against the wavy black of her hair.

  Charlotte had seen similar flowers in Auckland’s Winter Gardens the day Gabriel proposed to her. Her bouquet was made up of paper roses formed from the pages of romance novels, intermingled with the fragrant tropical bloom and tied with a “rope” of the same green leaves as the leis the men would be wearing.

  “Jules, your flower.” Aroha tucked a frangipani behind Juliet’s ear.

  “Thanks, babe.” Juliet took out her phone and snapped a few photos just as Mei appeared from the balcony, phone in hand and poker-straight black hair cut in a short, sharp bob against the light brown of her skin. The senior detective was currently at the tail end of a major investigation and had probably been checking in with her people.

  “We got the bad guy,” she’d said to Juliet yesterday, before their heart-thumping scream of a jump. “My team can wrap it up. No way would I miss Charlotte’s wedding.” Her uptilted eyes had met Charlotte’s as she said that, something unspoken but powerful passing between two women who’d been born a decade apart and appeared wholly unlike one another despite their matching petite builds.

  Mei was tough and confrontational, Charlotte stubborn and sweet.

  Yet that they were tight was undeniable.

  Juliet knew, however, that Charlotte’s closest friendship was with Molly. The two women had met in nursery school, might as well be sisters. As Juliet and Callie had once been.

  Now Molly reached for a flat, square box on a side table and carefully lifted out a necklace. Created of two strands of white gold that came together in a knotted waterfall, the simple piece was elegant and timeless.

  Charlotte’s hand fluttered to her chest again, her eyes wet as Molly draped the piece around her neck. “I can feel my mum hugging me.” A shaky whisper. “She would’ve been so happy to be here today, to see me marry the man of my dreams.”

  Juliet’s softer self might’ve turned to stone long ago—she’d been known to joke about her cold, dead heart—but even her eyes stung. She’d never had a loving mother figure, not one she remembered anyway, so she had no understanding of the kind of love that had Charlotte closing her hand gently about the falling strands of the necklace as she bowed her head—but she understood that love existed. She’d witnessed it multiple times in her life.

  Jake with Callie back in high school.

  Her boss Everett with his partner Rufus for so long now.

  Charlotte with Gabriel.

  “No tears.” Aroha, all wild curls and kindness and generous curves under dark brown skin, walked over to Charlotte. “You’ll ruin your makeup.” Her voice was wobbly, the hug she gave Charlotte as big and warm as her heart.

  Somehow, all six of them—Ísa included—were suddenly hugging in a wash of laughter and emotion. Juliet didn’t even care that she might catch some of this sweetness and joy and start to believe in happy-ever-after.

  Clearly the wedding virus had already infected her system.

  Then Esme and Emmaline ran out of the spare room, dressed in their flower girl outfits, and it turned into an even mushier group hug. The final person to join in was Alison, Charlotte’s future mother-in-law, her maternal touch somehow managing to enfold them all.

  They separated to find the hairdresser and makeup artist wiping away tears.

  Her gaze misty, Charlotte bent down to kiss both Emmaline and Esme on the cheek. With eyes of devastating blue, Emmaline was nearly as pale as her mum, Ísa, while Esme had Jake’s intense brown eyes but skin of a lighter brown than his.

  A mark of Callie’s genes.

  Juliet’s best friend in high school had often complained that she was so pale she burned if she even looked at the sun. Little Esme wouldn’t have that problem, Juliet thought, her chest tight at the memory of the laughing young woman with hair of silky blond and studious eyes of blue hidden behind black-framed glasses.

  Callie would’ve been effervescent with happiness to see her baby today, all dressed up and excited.

  “You look like princesses,” Charlotte said to her adorable flower girls.

  “No, you do!” both girls cried before asking for photos with the bride.

  The hairdresser and makeup artist took their leave at the same time—to profuse thanks from the entire bridal party.

  As soon as Juliet had snapped their photos, Esme and Emmaline ran over to the large standing mirror someone had propped near the balcony doors. The early-afternoon sunlight poured over them as they admired their dresses in the mirror.

  “The necklace is the something old,” Molly said into the quiet.

  “And the dress is something new.” Alison ran a hand down the lace of Charlotte’s sleeve. “I’m certain this’ll become an heirloom; it’s so lovely.”

  Two little girls danced in the light as emotion filled the room anew, the sunshine caressing their dark hair. Emmaline’s a pure black, Esme’s silkier and less manageable and with hints of chocolate brown in the black. Another mingling of two very different people. Another sign of love.

  As was this moment with Charlotte.

  “As for your something blue...” Stepping forward, Mei raised Charlotte’s hand, and Aroha slipped on a
thin sapphire-and-diamond bracelet that all of them had pooled their money to buy.

  It didn’t matter that Molly and Alison could’ve each bought it on their own—what mattered was the symbol of friendship, a memory of this time together. As delicate as the bracelet was, it perfectly suited Charlotte’s small bones. It also went very well with the platinum-and-emerald bracelet from Gabriel that pretty much never left her wrist.

  “Oh.” Charlotte’s hand fluttered to her mouth, her nails polished to a shine and coated with a shimmer of pale color. “This is so beautiful. You didn’t have to—”

  “Of course we did.” Carefully picking up the gauzy veil that had been draped over a sofa, Juliet handed it to Alison.

  Molly, both hands pressed together and eyes shining, leaned against Juliet. “Your something borrowed, Charlie,” she whispered.

  Alison’s throat moved as she secured the veil to Charlotte’s hair, using a graceful and fine tiara that flawlessly matched Charlotte’s sense of style. “I’m so glad my stubborn Gabriel convinced you to marry him,” she whispered after fixing the veil in place. “You light him up, my beautiful girl, and I see the same light in you when you look at him. May you always be each other’s starshine.”

  Juliet had to look away for a second, the lump in her throat in danger of smashing her cold, dead heart back to life. Everyone was bustling to get ready to head out to the church by the time she pulled herself together. Aroha asked Juliet to check the back of her dress to make sure everything was in place.

  “You look amazing.” Juliet fixed the shoulders of the midnight-blue A-line dress with a high waist, vee neck, and long sleeves that Aroha had chosen for herself.

  A small, warm hand slipped into Juliet’s in the aftermath.

  Glancing down, she found herself looking straight into a pair of big brown eyes framed by glittering blue spectacle frames. Callie was there in that moment, in the shape of Esme’s face, in the way her smile was a little lopsided—and in the solemn seriousness with which she examined Juliet.

  Calypso “Callie” Simpson had always had a solemnity to her, but intermingled with that had been a deep generosity of heart. Gearhead and elite athlete Jake, on the other hand, had always had a hint of the stiff-lipped Puritan in him. Just enough to make him and Juliet firm nonfriends.

  Looked like that hint had become a full-blown case of stuffed-shirt syndrome, she thought with an inward scowl just before Esme said, “You look pretty, Jules.”

  Clearly, Esme had learned her manners from relatives other than her father. “We look pretty,” she said with a grin and a squeeze of that fragile hand. “Let’s go knock ’em dead.” Especially Jake.

  It was a point of honor now. Because the boy she’d known had grown fully into those wide shoulders and long legs that had been a promise the last time she’d seen him. And in that instant when she’d first looked up from putting her heel back on, she’d wobbled internally… before her brain processed the fact that it was Jacob Esera she was ogling.

  She could hear Callie’s laughter now. Her best friend was probably rolling around the floor in heaven while tears of sheer hilarity streaked down her face. For such a nice person, Cals had sure had a wicked sense of humor.

  Anyway, it had to be all the wine last night. The fumes had clearly still been in her system during that split second of disorientation when she’d looked up and seen a hot—and built—man who’d sent a distinct “zing” through her lady parts.

  Jake “Golden Boy” Esera and Juliet “Bad Influence” Nelisi?

  Nope. Nope. Triple extra nope.

  3

  Featuring an Indigestible Mouse and Goo-Goo Eyes

  Jake couldn’t see Juliet in the audience that sat ready for the bride to make her entrance.

  Maybe she’d been held up by that run to pick up Esme’s glasses. Still, he scowled—she should’ve made an effort to be on time. It’d be just like Juliet to swan in late and cause a ruckus. He could still remember that time she strode in half an hour late into a full-school assembly. Most students would’ve scuttled into the cavernous hall with its walls and floor of polished wood, trying not to be noticed.

  Juliet had walked in bold as you please, no concern on her face.

  “Why do you look constipated?” Danny muttered to him in Samoan as the six of them got themselves sorted by the altar.

  Jake shot his brother a shut-up look, but Danny was the youngest in a brood of four boys. He’d long ago learned to ignore any such cues.

  “Seriously, bro,” he said, switching to English. “Do you need a pill?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Jake silently promised his baby brother that payback delayed was payback well thought out. “I just want everything to be perfect for Gabriel and Charlotte.”

  Grinning with the rash confidence of someone who hadn’t felt Jake’s wrath in a while, Danny slapped him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about that. As long as Charlie doesn’t ditch him at the altar, our big bro couldn’t give a shit what else goes wrong. She’s what he cares about.”

  Jake knew Danny was right, but he couldn’t still the nerves. Worrying about the people he loved, the people who were important to him, was part of his nature. He’d always been inclined that way, but it had gotten much, much worse after Calypso’s death. It didn’t matter that no amount of worrying would’ve stopped the spread of the bacterial meningitis infection and saved her life. Jake couldn’t stop his compulsive need to protect and shield his own.

  The only good thing about it all was that—thanks to the counseling sessions his parents had forced him to attend after Calypso died—he was fully aware of his overprotective tendencies and how much damage they could do to an innocent soul. So he fought against those urges every hour of every day. Esme would not grow up suffocated by his need to keep her safe.

  His daughter would grow up free and a bit wild, just as he’d done.

  Given that two weekends ago, she’d used the aftermath of a rainstorm as a chance for a gleeful mud bath, he thought he was doing okay. Especially since she’d enticed him into the mud bath with her delighted laughter. They’d lain there, two very cold and muddy people under the bright winter sunshine, and the world hadn’t fallen down.

  Esme hadn’t caught the flu or some weird mud-borne disease. No, she’d had the time of her life, and he’d taken another breath. Maybe he’d be fully able to relax by the time she reached adulthood. One could only hope. Because having to constantly battle his protectiveness was more exhausting than any game he’d ever played.

  Beside Danny, Gabe’s friend Harry said, “What are you two whispering about like little old ladies?” His voice was a deep rumble, his clean-shaven jaw as square and solid as his shoulders.

  “My baby bro doesn’t know when to shut up,” Jake muttered while Danny refused to look the least bit cowed.

  A rustling swayed through the audience before Harry could respond, a gentle wind of expectation. On its heels came the first sounds of a lilting melody, the composition done especially for Gabriel and Charlotte by Charlotte’s friend Aroha—who now sat at the grand piano at the far end of the church.

  Jake had a moment to notice that her dress was the same deep blue as Juliet’s, but no time to process that knowledge before the doors at the back swung open. Two adorable little flower girls walked in side by side, both dressed in their “girl princess” dresses—as described to Jake by his daughter. Those dresses were white and calf-length with skirts fluffed out by netting and belt sashes of a blue identical to Aroha’s dress.

  His heart squeezed as it always did at seeing Esme’s sweet face.

  The two girls wore flower crowns woven with miniature frangipani flowers, bright green leaves, and tiny white blooms, and carried little baskets full of blush-pink petals. Their shoes were sparkly and buckled securely on two pairs of tiny feet, their smiles enormous. They did their assigned task with teeth-biting-down-on-lower-lip concentration, carefully scattering the petals as they walked.

  Esme looked at
him at one point and beamed, her smile gap-toothed as a result of the loss of her first baby tooth—a lower central incisor—just a week earlier.

  He mouthed, Good job, Boo.

  Her smile expanded to cover her whole face, and his heart, it threatened to explode out of his chest. He’d done so much wrong in his life, but somehow he was getting this right. His little girl knew that she was loved, that she was the most important thing in his life.

  Movement at the doors, three adult women following the flower girls. One was family: Sailor’s wife, Ísa; the second, Charlie’s detective friend, Mei. However, it wasn’t Ísa or Mei who held his attention. It was the tall, curvy, dangerously sexy woman behind Mei.

  Jake’s mind short-circuited.

  “She wasn’t at the rehearsal,” he found himself muttering.

  “Did you forget, old man?” Danny murmured sotto voce. “Charlotte said her other friend from pastry class couldn’t come to the rehearsal but that you’re supposed to partner her today.”

  What?!

  “Anyway,” Danny continued, “pretty sure she isn’t in any danger of messing up the aisle-walk deal. In case you didn’t notice, there’s only a single lane.”

  Jake fought the lowering of his brows—the last thing they needed was for him to be caught glowering in his brother’s wedding photos. His entire family already thought he needed to lighten up; his parents were gentle in their encouragement that he go out, let his hair down, but Danny straight up called him an “old man in a young man’s skin suit.”

  His baby brother liked to live recklessly.

  As for Gabe and Sailor, they’d matured young for different reasons, so were less on his case, but he saw the concerned looks when they thought he wasn’t looking. He figured they’d ease up as he continued to be successful in his career and in raising Esme—happiness came in different forms, and his came from giving his daughter the best life he could.

  So yeah, no glaring at Danny in the photos.

  And no staring at this sharp-tongued ghost from his past.