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His fingers brushed against her skin as he slipped each button through a loop, and she finally let out a breath when he reached the nape of her neck, tumbling her hair over her shoulder to keep it out of the way.
She stared at her reflection. Was this...real? She’d told herself for so long that she would never want this. That marriage was a trap—that at some point, when you least expected it, it would become a source of misery. And yet, looking at herself wearing this dress, with Rufus standing just behind her, watching her, she could imagine wanting it. She wanted him. She understood for the first time how people could take that risk. Because some things couldn’t be ignored or avoided. Not for ever. Sometimes you had to take a risk, because walking away was impossible.
She heard the click of a shutter and knew that Rufus had taken a photo of her, still looking wide-eyed in the mirror. He moved to change the angle, and she turned to look at him over her shoulder, wishing she could know what he was thinking. Whether the sight of her in a wedding dress had freaked him out as much as it had her. He looked intent, focused on the screen of his phone, and she wasn’t sure whether the twin lines between his brows were concentration or something else. One of them was going to have to do something to break this tension before it broke her.
‘Where should we do this?’ she asked, and Rufus glanced up at her with surprise.
‘What did Lara suggest?’
‘The only thing she said was to stay away from cliché.’
‘So let’s do something different.’
‘Like what?’
He smiled, and she melted a little, before pulling herself together. ‘Let’s go to the kitchen.’
Rufus walked ahead of her—the narrow skirt of the dress hampered her slightly on the stairs—and when she reached the kitchen Rufus was shaking icing sugar over the cooled mince pies and arranging holly leaves on a plate.
‘I thought we were taking pictures?’
‘We are. Come. Sit.’
He pulled out a chair at the table, and she noticed that he’d moved some decorations around, so that there would be boughs
of greenery behind her in the shot.
He placed the plate of mince pies in front of her and she raised an eyebrow in question.
‘You’re meant to look like it’s your wedding day. Which means you have to look like you’re in love.’
‘Which means mince pies?’
‘I saw the look on your face when you ate the last one. It was something to behold.’
‘You’re laughing at me.’
‘Trust me, I’m not. I’m very happy to have put that look on your face, by any means. Now, are you going to eat the pies?’
‘It feels...exhibitionist, doing it with you watching. Knowing you’re taking pictures.’
He held her gaze for a beat.
‘In a good way?’
Heat rushed to her cheeks and she decided there was nothing that she could possibly say that wouldn’t inflame the situation further, so she closed her eyes, resigned, and bit into a mince pie. She could feel the powdered sugar on her top lip, and the filling was still warm. There was a hint of something spiced in the pastry and as her eyes closed she heard the click of the shutter again. She flicked a glance up to Rufus, and caught him grinning, looking down at the phone screen.
‘Perfect,’ he said, and she felt a little strange, knowing that he was looking at her face on the screen as he spoke. ‘Next stop, the great hall.’ She narrowed her eyes at the amusement on his face but followed him anyway. He pulled a stool out in front of the Christmas tree and she watched as he grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the door and climbed up on the stool to remove the star from the top of the tree.
‘How do you feel about climbing up here?’ he asked, pulling a bench further away from the tree, and then looking down at the screen, kneeling down and playing with different angles.
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I thought if you stand up here, and jump, and we get the angle right, it’ll look like you’ve got the star on the top of the tree.’
She grinned. ‘What could go wrong?’
‘Want to try?’
