Love has been too afraid to touch me like I might break. And Josh hasn’t been easy to live with. He’s been a constant pain in the ass about me stealing his sister. When in fact he’s only mad she opened up to me and not him. Not that he’ll ever admit it.
“Vee?” I hear Rian call and I look up at the stairs. Love is standing at the very bottom of them with Sammy and Maya. But I couldn’t care less about them. All I see is her.
Her striking curves and those beautiful crystal blue eyes. She looks absolutely stunning and I immediately wonder where she’s going in that sexy red dress, and why the hell was I not invited.
I look at my phone and have my answer.
Vie: My parents are renewing their vows. It’s been thirty years since they got married, the whole family is going to be there. Think you can be ready in twenty?
I was definitely not ready at twenty. Damian walks in with a suit and I jump from my seat and run to him.
“Switch clothes with me,” I order- sorry request, no, more like beg.
“No. Are you demented?”
“Demented no, but very desperate. I invoke this request as my payback favour!” I exclaim trying to get him to agree and he sighs.
“I’m two sizes below you,” Josh nears us and hands me a suit.
“She made me get it for you in case you hadn’t seen the message,” Josh says and I wonder how long I stood in the living room helping Marcus with his physiotherapy, in my own way of course. Arm wrestling.
“Thanks, man,” I say get the suit and go to the downstairs bathroom. After I enter and had just undressed myself, I hear a soft knock on the door. I know it’s her but just to be safe I will ask.
“Yes?” I question and hear someone leaning against the door. I want to open it, but I need to cool it down. My body is not being my friend.
“Are you dressed?” Love asks her voice a soft whisper.
“Does it matter?” I ask and she sighs on the other side and I slide the pants on. “Come in,” I say, I don’t know when I started practising courtesy and manners, but it was somewhere within those ten damned weeks. And it has grown on me to see how Love is delighted every time I’m the perfect gentleman. Yet that’s exclusive to her.
“You’re not dressed,” she says opening the door and getting ready to close it again right after but I get a grasp of her arm.
“You’re barely dressed yourself,” I say and she blushes, I smirk.
“I told that to Maya, she says that’s just being hot-”
“You are hot. Dangerously so,” I tell her putting on my shirt, followed by my blazer.
Her eyes follow my every move and I have to fight the urge to ruin her makeup and clothes. This is not the time for it. After the ceremony.
Instead of ripping her clothes off I offer her my arm and she wraps her arm around mine leaning completely against it.
I look down at her and the pink still covers her freckled cheeks. Her hair is held up. Making her dress call even more attention. Seems like Maya wants to kill me, or anyone who looks at Love. Either way someone is getting killed tonight.
I send Karl a message saying for him and our current team to follow us and stay outside the building. What I wasn’t expecting was the ceremony to be so small.We’re only a few people in a small chapel. We were handpicked. There’s only Maya, Marcus and Josh to my left, Damian, Sammy and Rian to my right and that’s it. No more family. This isn’t just a love ceremony this is some kind of other statement.
“I promise to love you and cherish you every day for the rest of my life and protect our children at all costs,” there’s a slight glare at me from Vance, Love’s dad. There’s part of the statement but this feels incomplete. Or maybe something is wrong. No, it has to be the first one. Something is missing from the picture.
“Thank you for joining us, Dominik,” Love’s mother says catching me outside the chapel alone.
“Of course, Marie, I wouldn’t miss it. Thank you for the invitation,” I say assuming I was invited. At least I was by Love.
“You saved my daughter three times, you’re family, Dominik!” she exclaims happily and smiles at me before Love erupts from behind her.
“She was the one who saved me,” I confess to her in a whisper before turning to Love, who hugs her mother and gives me a huge smile before it vanishes for some reason.
The statement. It wasn’t Vance’s statement. It was Spencer’s. I look up at the chapel and see Kai’s sidekick hanging in a noose from the clock structure above us. A blood drop falls on Love’s cheek and I can actually see and feel when darkness settles on her.
I hover over Love and her mother and guide them to my car.
