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“You break his heart before he breaks yours.”
Probably too late for that. Hers felt pretty darn cracked.
Thirteen
Leighton hadn’t slept one lousy wink and the morning was a blur of coffee and robes and makeup and girlfriends and her mother delicately crying so as not to screw up her false eyelashes. She kept thinking about her parents, and Axl’s parents, and Bill and Soon-ja and the sanctity of marriage.
Of the fact that on the other side of town, in a stone church, Winnie was marrying Todd, some of the wind taken out of her sails.
Bill’s property was stunning. Her team had set up a gorgeous tent with floral chandeliers and boundless pink accents. Servers had handed guests a glass of champagne upon arrival. It was perfect. Exactly what she would want if she were really getting married.
Which she wasn’t.
Yet she was standing in a gown that she freaking loved, if she were honest, and her grandmother’s lace veil from Germany that her father had surprised her with. She’d had the very awkward moment where she had had to tell her father she did not want him to walk her down the aisle because it was essentially a single-file arch and aisle. The real reason being she didn’t want to waste that special moment on a fake ceremony. If and when she did get married, she wanted to hang on to her father’s arm and see his joy.
She thought, quite simply, she might throw up.
There were cameras everywhere, which further contributed to the feeling that this was just a big production. Which it was.
Yet the rose archway was in front of her and she was frozen. She could not bring herself to step through Soon-ja’s flowers and into a greenhouse only to be a faker.
She stood there and stood there. She paced a little.
The music started twice. She could hear the guests starting to murmur and shuffle restlessly.
Forcing herself forward, she took three steps and spotted Axl at the front of the greenhouse. She froze again, actually bumping into Jackson, who had his camera in her face. He lowered it.
Are you okay? He mouthed.
She shook her head.
She turned, planning to retreat and get the heck out of there but there was staff and two cameramen crawling all over the entrance to the arch. Feeling trapped, like she was either going to descend into a full-blown panic attack or vomit in the grass, she did the only thing she could.
Leighton lifted her skirt and took off up the aisle.
* * *
Standing at the makeshift altar waiting for Leighton was the scariest thing Axl had ever done besides combat. He was sweating bullets and feeling shit he had no business feeling.
“Are you okay?” Rick asked him, standing beside him. Rick stepped slightly in front of Axl to block him from the guests’ watchful eyes. “You don’t have to do this, buddy. I can spin a story while you slip out the front.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with me, man,” he told Rick. “But I feel like maybe there’s more to this than I thought.” He rubbed his jaw and said, “There’s just something about Leighton. I just think… I don’t know. I feel like I need to go talk to her.”
To say what, he had no idea. But he needed to see her.
Rick’s eyebrows shot up. “Dude, you’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
That took him aback. “What? No. Of course not.” They’d known each other a week. It was ridiculous. He didn’t fall in love that easily.
No one fell in love that easily. That was for movies and reality TV. Not life.
Yet when he glanced behind Rick and saw Leighton standing under the arch of roses, looking absolutely stunning from head to toe, he doubted everything he’d ever known about love and relationships and his future.
Holy shit, she was beautiful.
And if he wasn’t in love with her now, he sure in the hell could be soon.
She was wearing a form-fitting dress that showed off all her curves to advantage, nipping in at the waist and hugging her hips. It was sparkling and bridal and yep, there was cleavage. All the cleavage in the world. The veil on her head made her look like an angel. A vision in white, surrounded by pink flowers.
