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“I’ll be happy to stay,” Drake assured me and caught his wife around the waist. “It was too damn quiet at home anyway.”
Kissing him on the cheek, I let Kin pull me back to the dressing room. As soon as the door closed behind us, I expected my best friend to start asking questions, but she stayed completely mute on the subject. Paul acted like my earlier meltdown hadn’t even happened as he started sorting the dresses.
The two had me sit as they took dresses out of their bags. Each one was more beautiful than the last, and they took my breath away. I wanted to try them all on, wanted to see how each and every one of them looked on me.
“This one is the pièce de résistance,” Paul said with a wicked look on his handsome face. “If I had known this was the style of dress you were looking for, I could have pulled it this morning and had it waiting for you.”
“Let me see,” I begged in a breathless voice.
As soon as he unzipped the bag, I ached to put it on. My fingers shook as I stepped into what, to me, was a piece of bridal perfection. Paul showed Kin how to do up the back, but I knew even before the last lace-covered button was in place, this was my dress. The trumpet-style gown had ivory Chantilly lace over nude sparkle net and cashmere chiffon. There was Venice lace over the bodice which had a V-neckline and an open back. The long, lacy sleeves were sheer but would cover the scar on my wrist that I wanted to keep hidden from the world.
“Holy shit,” Kin breathed as she stepped back to take a better look at me in the mirror. “Lu, you’re glowing.”
“Let’s show your family,” Paul suggested, and I nodded excitedly.
“Wait.” Kin stopped me. “Lana wants you to wear the shoes.”
Laughing happily, I stepped into the kick-ass glass shoes that my sister and Nevaeh had bought for me. She was right. These sexy as sin shoes would have gone with anything I might have picked, and they were perfect with the dress I was now wearing.
“You two go on out,” Paul encouraged as he opened the door for me. “I’m going to grab a veil that will look magical with the dress and be right with you.”
Out where I had left everyone, they were all still talking animatedly. I heard Drake’s deep laugh as he swung Arella up into arms, and with one arm under her back, let her bend backward to do a headstand. “Again, Daddy!” she squealed as she landed on her feet and started jumping up and down. But then her blue-gray gaze caught sight of me, and her eyes got as big as an owl’s. “She’s so beautiful.”
“She’s a real princess!” Trinity squealed, and every eye turned to look at me as I paused before reaching them. Jenna and Mia lifted their heads from where they had been playing with something on their phones, and both their mouths fell open. Behind me, Kin fixed the chapel-length train, while my gaze went straight to Dad. His brown eyes skimmed over me from head to toe and I saw his throat bob, but he didn’t say a word.
“My son is one lucky sonofabitch,” Devlin muttered.
“Wow, Lucy.” Aunt Emmie, who never gushed over anything, was suddenly doing just that. “That dress is perfect, honey.”
The others seemed to think so too, voicing their approval with stunned expressions still on their faces. But there was really only one opinion I truly wanted, and he had yet to say a single word. “Daddy?” I whispered, feeling a little uncertain now.
He shook his bald head and swallowed hard one more time. “You look beautiful, Lu.” He crossed the distance that separated us. As he drew closer, I saw the tears he was unable to hide. At the sight of his tears, my own eyes flooded with them. “You look just like an angel.”
“Lucy, baby,” Mom appeared beside us just as Dad reached me. She took one hand as he took the other. Right then, in that moment, I was so happy that I let go of what had happened earlier. There was no place for dark thoughts or hurt feelings. I wanted to share how happy I was with her. “You look gorgeous, honey.”
“Here we go,” Paul announced as he came over to us, a simple lace veil in hand. Standing behind me, he took the tiara off my head and replaced it with the veil. “There. Now, we have our bride.”
I had no idea how I looked with the veil on, but from the way my parents were looking at me, I knew it must have been a good thing. Dad cupped Mom’s elbow and pulled her into his side as Paul walked me over to the trifold mirror.
“Oh,” I whispered, stunned by the girl in the mirror before me. Just as Kin had said, I was glowing. “Is that really me?”
Lana came up behind me, a trembling smile on her face. “Well?”
“This is it,” I told her with a slight catch in my voice. “This is the dress I’m going to marry Harris in.”
Holy shit. That realization hit me square in the chest, and I sucked in a sharp breath. This was the dress I was getting married in.
“Dude, you crying?”
I found Nik and Drake in the mirror and saw my brother-in-law wipe at his eyes. “I’m not crying, man. You’re crying.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “They’re all crying,” she whispered so no one else could hear her. “Baby, there isn’t a dry eye in this place right now. You’re going to have Harris on his knees the moment he sees you walking down the aisle.”
“What do we all think?” Paul asked from behind me. “Is this the dress?”
“Definitely,” Dad told him. “Wrap it up. We’re taking it with us.”
“That’s not how this works, Jess.” Aunt Emmie informed him. “He orders the dress from the designer, and then she comes in for fittings.”
