So I’m going to make sure she has one. For as long as I can.
She’s laughing, catching her breath, one hand still twisted in my jacket.
“Okay,” she says. Slightly breathless. “That was not what I expected.”
“No?” I say.
“No.” Her eyes are sparkling. “It was better.”
Just like that, we’re married.
Chapter 17
Fools Rush In
LILA
For a fake marriage, the Rhodes family is treating it like it’s pretty damn real.
Weddings in my family have always been giant productions. A guest list in the hundreds, nothing but stiff formality and pageantry designed to demonstrate the union of two powerful families.
This wedding—mine, it feels surreal to say— is tiny and intimate and feels so much more real than anything I ever experienced in my family’s social circles.
Which is, of course, the height of irony for a marriage that’s all fake.
After the ceremony, we all head inside. To my surprise, Walker picks up his guitar and waves me and Slade over to the space that’s been cleared in the living room, sofas pushed to the side, making empty space in the middle.
It’s odd to think this famous country music star is now my brother-in-law. In fact, it’s odd to think I have two brothers-in-law now—three if you count Rafe—and two sisters-in-law. It’s a lot of people in my life all of a sudden.
Being estranged from my own family left me feeling alone in the world more often than not. But I feel far from alone now.
Walker’s dark eyebrows raise up over those signature Rhodes green eyes. These brothers could almost be triplets.
“First dance for the newlyweds?” he says.
I expect Slade to decline. But because this wedding has been nothing but one surprise after another, Slade holds out a hand to me.
The first surprise, of course, being that astonishing kiss.
I really wish I didn’t know my husband is a good kisser. It just makes me want to do it over and over again.
In lieu of that, I take his hand.
The room quiets down as Walker strums a note or two. Even his twin baby girls just softly coo at their father, evidently knowing the magic that’s to come once he has his guitar in hand. He gives his wife a tender, intimate smile, like every song he ever sings is really just for her, and then strums the opening chords.
The song he picks?
“I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.”
The lyrics feel entirely too appropriate—fools rushing in and all that. Except that Slade and I aren’t in love. He told me quite plainly that love was never going to be on the table.
That bittersweet feeling rushes through me once more.
I grew up in a house full of people who made me feel alone and unwanted, unworthy of their love because I wasn’t like them. I’m not like the Rhodes’s either—quite the opposite, the frivolous city girl to their practical, country Western roots—but all of them have made me feel accepted and wanted from the moment we met. I’ve spent my whole life wanting exactly this. A real family. A place to belong. Someone to hold onto.
Maybe, being married to Slade, I can have my dream. Or at least pretend to.
For one year.
