“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.
“Don’t worry, I won’t eat anything.”
“Don’t be mulish, Thea. The wedding planner is already working to seat you with Jessica’s parents.”
“With her parents?” Thea reared back. “Oh, no. That’s not, please don’t. That’s like, way too up front.”
Her father straightened and tipped his chin toward the passenger seat. “Can I get in?”
“Don’t you have groom things to do?”
“I’ve done this a few times. I know what my job is.”
“That probably sounds funny to you, but it’s actually pretty gross.”
He gestured to the seat again. “May I?”
Thea hit the unlock button and watched him walk around the front of her car. Someone must have called his name, because he lifted his hand in greeting before continuing to the passenger door.
Silence screamed as he slid in. Sitting in a car with someone was one of those everyday acts of familiarity that could either be unremarkably mundane or incredibly awkward. This was awkward. The comfort that most people felt around their dads didn’t exist for Thea. The man next to her had never tucked her in at night, never kissed scrapes and boo-boos, had never lifted her high into bed and snuggled her while she slept. She’d never crawled into his lap for comfort, never made pancakes with him. He was a stranger. Like a distant uncle who you saw every five years at family reunions and whose only point of conversation was to say over and over again how tall you’d gotten.
Yet, somehow, this stranger’s behavior had left enough emotional scars that Thea was going to lose the man she loved. A man who loved her enough that he read, underlined, and quoted romance novels to win her back.
The scars of this stranger in her car now had made her so distrustful that she couldn’t see Gavin’s efforts for what they were—a beautiful, heartfelt, honest statement of his feelings.
“Gavin and the girls aren’t with you?” Dan finally asked.
“No. Just me.”
“Liv?”
“Sorry.”
“Well, I’m glad you came. What changed your mind?”
“I’m kicking over some logs.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up. “And are you prepared for what’s going to crawl out?”
Thea stared out the windshield. “I don’t know why I’m here, actually. I’m pretty sure it’s a mistake.”
“Only if you leave without saying it.”
“Saying what?” She wrapped her hands around the steering wheel.
“Whatever it is you think you need to say to clear out those logs.”
“I don’t have anything to say. I think I just wanted to see.”
He tilted his head. “See?”
Thea met her father’s gaze directly for the first time in years. “How you look at me.”
His features slipped for the smallest of moments, and a small crack in her chest opened up. Like a fissure spitting steam from the Earth, it threatened to release the noxious gas of years of suppressed backstory. And God, did it feel good to relieve some of the pressure.
“I wanted to see if you look at me like Gavin looks at our daughters. Have you ever looked at me like that?”
He let out an impressed hmph. “And you thought you had nothing to say.”
Thea shook her head and pressed the button to start her car. “You should go in. You’re going to be late for your own wedding, and this has clearly been a mistake. I’m going to get nothing out of you that matters.”
He let out another one of those impressed laughs. “I know I was a shitty father, and I know I’m a sad cliché for hoping that it’s not too late to make up for that.”
“It is,” she said, more steam billowing out. “It’s too late.”
“Then you should be happy to know that I suffer for it. I have to stand back and see the woman you’ve become, the woman your sister has become, and know I can’t be part of it. I see your gorgeous daughters and know I can’t be a grandfather to them.”
Thea let her hands fall to her lap as her mouth dropped open. “No, that doesn’t make me happy to know that. At all. It makes me really sad, because it didn’t have to be that way. You chose to stand on the sideline of our lives, to replace us over and over again with someone else.”
“I’ve never tried to replace you, Thea.”
The fissure whistled with fresh steam. “You let your second wife sell our house. You let her say that we couldn’t live with you. You chose her and every other woman over your daughters. Why?”
“Because you and Liv were better off without me!”
The fissure becoming an eruption. “Is that really what you tell yourself?”
“It’s what I told myself then. I was never going to be the kind of man who coached your softball team or, or—”
“Made Saturday morning pancakes?”
“I made money. That’s what I did, and I did it well, and that’s how I could be a father to you.”
“Well, while you were telling yourself that, Liv and I were growing up believing something was wrong with us. Something that made people leave us, would always make people leave us. And now I’m about to lose my husband because I pushed him away out of fear.”
Dan looked over sharply. “What’s going on with you and Gavin?”
She waved her hands to ward off the question. “I’m not here for fatherly advice, so don’t, like, pull a muscle or anything. Just tell me one thing.”
Oh, God. She was going to do it. She was going to ask the question that had haunted her her entire life.
“Do you regret . . .” She puffed out a breath. “Me?”
“Never,” Dan said, his voice rough and certain. “Never. Not once.”
Thea closed her eyes.
“Look at me,” her father ordered. And for the second time, she met his gaze directly. “Your mother getting pregnant was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was simply too stupid and selfish to know how to be the father you deserved.”
The door to the church opened, and a frantic-looking woman in a red suit emerged, her head darting back and forth.
Dan sighed.
“Is that the wedding planner?”
“Yeah.”
“She looks like she’s afraid the groom got cold feet. You better go in.”
He nodded, lost in thought for a moment. Then he opened his door. “I hope you’ll stay,” he said. “But I’ll understand if you don’t.”
Thea watched him jog across the street. The wedding planner spotted him and threw her hands in the air.
Dan soothed her, apparently reassured her, because they turned and walked up the stairs to the church. At the doors, he looked back.
And then he walked inside.
Thea wiped her hands across her cheeks. Great. Now her makeup would be streaked. Which, actually, was as good an excuse as any for leaving.
She looked at her purse on the floor, where she’d irrationally and impulsively shoved The Annoying Countess when she left this morning.
Thea pulled the book from her purse and opened it to the place where she’d stopped reading last night.
Benedict blinked. Coughed. Tugged on his coat. “I—I will have our coach brought around.”
“You mistake me, my lord. I’m going to the country.”
No. Dear God, no. “Irena, please.”
“I cannot heal a festering wound that you refuse to acknowledge, Benedict, nor will I allow myself to be blamed for it.”
“I haven’t asked you to do either.”
“You may visit when you feel you are ready for an heir, and we can negotiate the terms of—” her voice caught—“of procreation. But I can’t do this.”
“Irena, please. I love you.”
“I thought you’d
learned at least that much, my lord. Love isn’t enough.”
What bullshit. What utter molly-coddled bullshit.
Love is enough.
It’s always enough.
Thea got out of the car and jogged in her heels across the street. She walked in with barely five minutes to spare. A woman in a pink suit gave her a program and a dirty look when she quick-stepped through the vestibule. A string quartet played something soft and romantic as Thea walked in. The groomsmen had already lined up along the altar in matching dark gray tuxedos. She didn’t recognize a single man up there, save her father, who stood by the pastor, hands clasped in front and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet like a nervous, first-time groom.
Thea slid into a seat in the second-to-last pew, earning an annoyed glare from another couple, as the string quartet began to play “Canon in D.” Bridesmaids in emerald green dresses slow-walked down the aisle clutching red roses. Then the congregation rose and turned for the big moment—the bride. Her new stepmother.
Thea couldn’t see her face well behind her veil, but she looked no older than Thea. Her smile shone through the lace netting that otherwise camouflaged her face. She locked eyes with Dan, who never once looked away as she approached on her father’s arm. And when she reached the end of the aisle, Dan took her hand with a look of—holy shit, he was head over heels in love.
This was real for him.
And for Jessica.
And Thea knew it because she knew that look. She knew what it felt like.
Oh, God. What had she been thinking? She should have gone after Gavin, the man who loved her despite the many ways she’d held him at arm’s length. Not drive to Atlanta for a man who didn’t know how to love her. Thea checked the time on her phone every three minutes, earning annoyed glances from the couple sitting next to her. Yeah, yeah. She had come in late and couldn’t wait to get out of there. So what? Didn’t they know this was an emergency? Didn’t they know she had to go save her marriage?
And she was going to. As soon as the bride kissed the groom, she was going to New York to do the thing she thought she’d never do.
She was going to beg her husband to take her back.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Why are we running?” Mack yelled.
They were all running.
Mack. Del. Yan. The Russian. Gavin. Running up a crooked sidewalk in Atlanta toward the giant church in the distance.
“Because this is grand gesture,” the Russian panted. “You always run for grand gesture.”
“And because you parked seven blocks away!” Gavin yelled.
Mack protested something about the GPS on his phone being wrong, but Gavin didn’t care. He could see the church, and nothing was going to stop him from getting to his wife. So he ran faster. He’d been running since he got off the plane. He ran through the airport. Ran to his car. They picked up Mack and the Russian on the way and drove as fast as possible.
But it was now after three, and they were late.
So he sprinted. Because if he missed the vows, he missed his chance.
* * *
• • •
Finally, after what felt like an hour, the bride and groom faced each other for their vows.
Thea bounced her knee up and down, earning another glare.
Her father went first. He recited every word when prompted, though he probably had the words memorized by now. He vowed to love her. To cherish her. To be her best friend through sickness and health and all that.
Thea checked the time.
The bride quietly began to recite the same stuff as her father.
Love. Honor. Cherish. Sickness. Health. I do. I do.
Jesus, just kiss already!
The crowd clapped as her father dipped his head to kiss his bride, but a massive crash at the back of the church sent bride and groom apart. Every head swiveled, ladies gasped in surprise, and men exclaimed a creative collection of bad words.
But then a voice rose above it all. A loud, panty stammer.
“I d-d-do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Okay, so, he maybe should have thought this through.
Two hundred stunned faces stared at Gavin in the doorway. The bride’s hand flew to her mouth, and the groom—uh, yikes. Thea’s father looked like a storm.
A man from the bride’s side leapt to his feet. “What the hell is the meaning of this?” he boomed. “This is my daughter’s wedding.”
The pounding sound of running and skidding brought the congregation into a collective lean so they could peer behind Gavin.
Mack skidded to a stop next to him. “Shit.”
Del bent and panted, hands on knees. “Did we miss the vows?”
Yan and the Russian collapsed against the wall.
“What is going on?” the man up front demanded again. “Who are you people?”
Mack lifted his hand. “Braden Mack.”
Gavin tugged down on his suit coat. “Sorry. I’m, uh, I’m looking for Thea.”
“Who the hell is Thea?” the man barked.
“My daughter,” Dan said, pointing toward a pew in the back. Gavin could’ve sworn that Dan was smiling now.
Every head followed Dan’s point, and that’s when he finally saw her. Sitting no more than twenty feet away, mouth agape, chest rising and falling with labored breath. She stood slowly. A thousand emotions danced across her face—surprise, embarrassment, amusement. Love.
“Hi,” she breathed.
Gavin wiped sweat from his brow. “Hi. Can w-we—” He motioned to the door behind him.
Thea scooted down the pew, bumping into knees, murmuring sorry, excuse me, sorry until she made it out. She looked up the aisle at her father. “I’m going to, um . . . I’m going to go now.”
“You’re staying for the reception, right?” the bride asked.
“Not sure yet?” Thea squeaked.
“I hope you do, because we haven’t even met yet.”
Heads in the congregation swiveled back and forth during the conversation.
“Right,” Thea said. “Nice to meet you. Sorry. I’m going to just go . . .”
Thea walked stiffly on quick steps toward the door. Gavin waved as he backed up. “Sorry for the interruption.”
He pulled the door shut as he backed out, turned around, and—
“Damn you, Gavin,” Thea said. “I was going to do the grand gesture.”
Then she grabbed his lapels, yanked him forward, and kissed him. Oh, how she kissed him. She kissed him with her hands in his hair, her heart on her sleeve.
She kissed him as she spoke. “I was going to go to New York.” Kiss.
“I was going to find you.” Bigger kiss.
“I was going to walk in and tell you . . .” Deeper kiss.
“I love you.”
Gavin cupped her face and pulled back. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Gavin. I love you. And I’m so sorry. You were right about me. I was scared and stupid.”
“So was I.”
“We’ll probably be scared and stupid again at some point.”
“But we’ll get through it,” he vowed.
Mack cleared his throat. “Speed this up. They’re almost done with their vows.”
Right. He wasn’t done. Grand gesture wasn’t over. Gavin dropped to one knee and took Thea’s hand.
“What are you doing?” Thea laughed.
“I didn’t get a chance to do this right before, so I’m doing it now. Thea Scott, will you marry me?”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Right now. We’re in a church.”
Thea laughed as Gavin stood. “Russian,” he panted. “Come here.”
“His name is Russian?”
“My name is Vlad. Sorry about your bathroom.”
&
nbsp; “So you guys . . . you’re the bromance book club?” Thea said.
Mack nodded slowly, then quickly. “I like that. The Bromance Book Club.”
“Just do it,” Gavin said.
He took Thea’s hands and faced her.
“Repeat after me,” Vlad said, unfolding the paper Gavin had given him. “I, Gavin Scott—”
“I, Gavin Scott.”
There was applause inside the church.
“Promise you, Thea Scott.”
“Promise you, Thea Scott.”
Music blared. Shit. Gavin tore the paper from Vlad’s hands and repeated it by memory. “Promise you, Thea Scott, to always tell you how I feel. To read to you every night. To cherish your body—”
Mack and Del covered their ears. “Not in front of the children!”
Gavin tugged her close and whispered the rest in her ear. “And to never forget that love—”
“Is enough,” Thea breathed.
Gavin kissed her again just as the doors burst open and the new bride and groom—the other new bride and groom—strode out on a wave of applause and “Canon in D.”
“Well,” Dan said flatly. “I see things are working out.”
Gavin looked at his father-in-law, a man he’d just as soon punch in the face than anything else. “Sorry we can’t stay, Dan. We have our happy ending to live.”
Gavin scooped Thea in his arms. “Ready, my love?”
Thea traced a line down his jaw. “I’m at your mercy, my lord.”
EPILOGUE
Christmas Eve
Thea curled into Gavin’s side and trailed her fingers lazily up and down his stomach. The lights of the Christmas tree cast their bodies in a soft, yellow glow. Upstairs, the girls were asleep, dreaming of sugarplums and new Nintendo games.
Downstairs, Mom and Dad renewed their vows over and over again.
Gavin’s voice was tired as he read to her. They’d read every night since Atlanta. Just a different book.
Irena, wait!”
Benedict raced after his wife. The shocked gasps and stares of the members of the ton who were so eager to shun her now couldn’t tear their eyes away from the drama playing out before them.
The Bromance Book Club Page 27
