Page 162 of The Wrong Groom

We didn’t tell anyone until it was already done. The second time around, we wanted it to be ours. No five-hundred-person guest list, no photographers, no press release. Just the two of us and Peyton, in a small chapel with the windows thrown open and lilacs on the altar because they’re my wife’s favorites. Peyton held the rings, beaming with excitement as Alexis and I said our vows. We wrote them ourselves, and they meant so much more than the ones we recited at our first wedding—because now we both know what it truly means to be married to each other, to be a true partnership, a team.

This dinner is the only concession we made to doing things publicly, and even this is as small as we could reasonably get away with, a celebration held at Liora with family and a limited group of guests.

Across the room, Alexis crouches in front of Peyton, fixing the strap of her dress where it’s slipped off one shoulder. Peyton says something, and Alexis’s nose wrinkles in that adorable way I love so much as she chuckles at Peyton’s words. She taps the tip of Peyton’s nose with her finger, and my daughter beams. Alexis might be her stepmother, but the bond between them is so much more than that, so much deeper than I ever dared to hope for.

It’s my favorite thing in the world.

The lamplight catches in Alexis’s hair as she stands up and takes Peyton’s hand, accompanying my daughter over to the windows to gaze out at the twinkling lights of Los Angeles below us. Peyton oohs and ahhs as Alexis points out various buildings to her, and my throat goes tight at the sight.

I still don’t quite believe they’re mine. That this is the little family I’ve built for myself. There were years I was certain I’d already used up whatever luck a man gets, that the rest of my life would be helping to run Thorne Enterprises and raising my girl alone and calling that enough. Then Alexis walked into my world and rearranged everything, and nowadays, I feel like the luckiest bastard alive.

I cross to my mother at the other end of the table. She’s watching the two of them as well, a small smile on her face that I’d almost call satisfied.

“You knew,” I say, dropping into the empty seat beside her. “Didn’t you? That Alexis would be good for me.”

My mother takes a slow sip of her wine before she answers. “I knew your father wasn’t a foolish man, whatever else he was.” She sets the glass down. “And I knew you’d spent so long guarding that heart of yours that you’d forgotten it still worked.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No.” Her smile deepens, and she pats my hand where it rests on the table. “It isn’t.” She looks back at Alexis and Peyton, and her expression turns wistful. “Love is a stubborn thing, Gabriel. In my experience, it can find the cracks in even the most broken-down heart, and it grows there whether you give it permission or not. I only hoped you’d stop standing in its way long enough to let it.” She lifts her glass again. “It seems you did.”

My feelings about the terms of my father’s will are still complicated, especially with three of my brothers still facing down their own arranged marriages, and I used to feel angry at my mother for going along with it, for not trying harder to find a loophole to get us out of it. But I know, beyond any doubt, that she loves us all. That she wants the best for us. And in my case, that’s exactly what I got.

Leaning over, I kiss her cheek. She leans into it a little, giving my arm a squeeze.

When I straighten up, Alexis and Peyton are returning from their exploration of the view. Peyton skips ahead to report on their findings to Beckett and Dominic, and Alexis catches my gaze and veers in my direction. The sight of her striding toward me stops me in place the way it always does. She’s wearing a deep green dress that shows off the little bump of her belly, and she’s the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen.

When she reaches me, I stand and draw her in by the waist, relishing the way her body melts against mine.

“Hello, wife,” I say with a wide grin.

Wife.

It meant something the first time, even when neither of us would admit it. But it means a thousand times more now that we chose it on our own terms, now that we’ve spoken new vows with no one watching and nothing forcing our hands.

Alexis tilts her face up, her eyes soft. “Hello, husband.”

She goes up on her tiptoes, and I meet her halfway, cupping her jaw with my free hand as our lips meet.

“Damn, get a room.”

Beckett chuckles at his own joke and claps a hand on my shoulder, grinning. I roll my eyes at him as he pulls Alexis into a hug.

“Congratulations, both of you,” he says. Then he adds in a theatrical whisper, “Took him long enough to get out of his own way, huh?” He shoots me a look over her shoulder. “No offense.”

“Plenty taken.”

He laughs again, opening his mouth to say something else—most likely another brotherly joke at my expense—but the words never come. He freezes with his mouth half open, his gaze shifting to something across the room. Whatever he’s seeing pulls his expression tight, the humor draining right out of it as his jaw sets.

“Excuse me for a second,” he says, already moving, his voice clipped.

I don’t bother to look where he’s headed. Whatever it is, my brother can handle his own business, and I’ve got better things to focus on tonight.

The music shifts, the band I hired easing into something slow, and I hold out my hand to my wife.

“Dance with me.”

Alexis looks at my open hand, then up at me, a teasing smile curving her lips. “Twice in one lifetime? People are going to start thinking you like this.”