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“It was worth it to hear you say you love me and to be able to tell you the same. I’ve wanted to tell you, but I thought it sounded silly or rushed or whatever, and now that I’ve said it, I want to say it again. I love you, Owen Shea, with your Irish accent and your impeccable dress sense and your grumpy face and your need for order and your beautiful hands.”

“My what now?” He looks puzzled.

I pick his hand up and survey it. “It was one of the first things I noticed about you when I tried to ambush your tea-making. You have beautiful hands. Long fingers, slender, smooth. God, I fell in love that day with your hands alone.”

“I hope you haven’t just fallen in love with my hands, Alice.”

“Not just your hands. Every inch of you.”

“Good to know. And what’s even better is that later on, I’ll show you just what these hands can do.” He raises his eyebrow.

“Is that a promise?” I’m giddy, delirious, drunk on this moment, this feeling, on him, on life, on love.

“No, it’s a threat,” he says.

“I was hoping so.”

He pulls me in and kisses me harder this time.

“Glad to see everything’s okay.” Sydney’s voice abruptly stops our make-out session.

Owen shakes his head. “I can only apologise about the interruption,” he says, bowing his head to Sydney.

“No need to apologise. It’ll make a great story. Weddings can be kind of dull, so I’m glad there was at least one small drama. The morning had been going too smoothly, and I’d started to get nervous. But you’ll need to tell us what it was all about, if not for my curiosity, then for Ruby’s, because she’s like a cat on heat in there wanting to know what the hell happened.”

“Is Drew okay?” I ask, remembering his feral look of murder when Pippa opened the door.

“He’s fine. Don’t worry about him. As soon as the ring was on my finger, he calmed down. Now, I really want to go inside, mainly so I can interrogate you, Owen, to see if you’re worthy of dating my best friend.”

Owen offers Sydney his wrists as if ready to be cuffed. “I’m ready.”

Sydney glances at me and whispers, “I like him already.”

“So do I,” I tell her as we make our way back into the hotel, my hand gripped in Owen’s and my heart blooming.

epliogue

Alice

six months later - december 25

“Remind me why we’re driving over to Smithy and Romana’s at the crack of dawn?” Owen complains, but I don’t buy the grumble for a second since there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and a Santa hat perched on his head, which completely ruins the Scrooge effect.

“Because we said we would, and I want to give the girls their presents and see their faces when they open them.”

I hook my arm around his as we stuff ourselves into his car on this cold, crisp Christmas morning after loading the boot with a sack full of wrapped gifts.

“I still don’t see why we have to wait until we get to their house to open ours,” Owen mutters.

“You sound five years old.”

“Yeah, well, it’s our first Christmas together, and I may have bought you some highly inappropriate gifts that you can’t possibly open in front of children,” he says as he ducks into the car.

I arch an eyebrow and lean through the open door. “Have you?”

“No. But I wanted to, so it’s spoiled that little bit of fun.”

“Maybe not. You don’t know what I’ve bought you,” I tease, sliding into the passenger seat.