"All three of us?" Knox asks.
"Maid of honor flanked by herpack." She lowers the clipboard just enough to meet our eyes, a slow, heated look that hits me right in the chest.
Fuck, she has no idea how thin my self-control is wearing when she looks at me like this.
"So the processional goes like this—" She starts walking us through the formation, pointing out marks, counting out the tempo with little taps of the pen. Two-count steps. Pause at the midpoint. Split at the front.
And the whole time, I am fighting for my life.
Because her scent has shifted again. This time, in volume, like someone found the dial and turned it past every reasonable setting. It fills the garden, warm and bright and unfiltered, and every time the breeze moves I catch an even bigger wave of intoxicating honeysuckle.
And by the way Knox and Mason seem to lose their balance, I'm guessing they're getting hit too.
"—and after the vows, you'll turn to face the guests," Beth continues, completely unbothered. "Harper says the recessional music is a Sam Cooke song, so the pace will be a little faster. Like this."
She demonstrates the walk, pacing down an imaginary aisle through the garden, and the setting sun catches the line of her shoulders. Her scent rolls through me, and I have a brief, vivid flash of last night—Beth's voice in the dark sayingmore,her back arching, my hands—
I close my eyes.
I wonder what would happen if she wasn't on suppressants right now.
Maybe the four of us would resume where we left off last night... I mean, I'm personally getting ideas of what we could do under this decorative arch...
"Arthur."
I open my eyes. Beth is standing in front of me, one eyebrow raised.
"You with me?" She asks softly.
"Completely," I say.
"Good. Because I just explained the recessional order twice."
Knox chuckles.
"Sorry," I say. "Your scent is, uh—"
"Distracting?" she supplies.
"I was going to saydevastating,but sure."
Something flickers across her face.
"I'm not surprised," she says simply. "I can smell all three of you just as clearly." She lets out a small, honest laugh. "Thank god for suppressants, right?"
She turns and walks back toward the arch. The three of us watch her go because there is genuinely nothing else in this garden worth looking at.
She sets the clipboard on the stone wall, leans back against one of the arch posts, and crosses her arms. The ivy frames her shoulders. The last golden light catches the side of her face.
"By the way, while we're off script," she says, her tone shifting to something more grounded, "there's something I need to tell you guys."
We wait.
"I turned down the buyout," she says.
The garden goes very quiet.
"Today," she continues. "In Chicago. I walked into the meeting and I turned it down. Wildflower and Vine is mine and it's staying mine."
