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Kendra did her own hair, bundling it up on the top of her head into a messy bun, then pinning it into place so it looked artistic rather than sloppy. She slicked on some lip gloss and decided against any blusher, as she could see she didn’t need it. She didn’t hide her freckles. She didn’t bother to accentuate her eyes.
And strangely enough, she almost felt...free.
Because she knew that if one of those florid-cheeked boys her mother had forever been pushing on her was waiting for her today, her wedding would look nothing like this. She would have been sitting in her parents’ house in Connecticut in a far more traditional gown, looking out at a huge tent on the lawn above the water. There would have been veils and churches and brigades of attendants. Guest lists filled with people she didn’t know and didn’t wish to know.
Maybe, Kendra thought, she’d never bothered to fantasize about her wedding day because it had always been a foregone conclusion. She certainly wouldn’t have lookedhappythe way her reflection did.
Her heart did a cartwheel in her chest as she told herself, hurriedly, that was merely the pregnancy talking. The baby was giving her this glow. It wasn’thappiness.It was hormones.
Either that, she thought when Panagiota came to collect her, or she’d taken leave of her senses entirely. Because as much as she might have shot her mouth off to Balthazar last night, she’d done what he wanted. She’d signed his agreements. She’d put on this dress.
For a woman who had claimed she had no intention of marrying him, Kendra was doing a terrific impression of a blushing, eager bride.
She waited for reality to slap her awake, but it didn’t. Because this was reality. The baby inside her and the man waiting for her.
And both were better than anything involving the life she’d left behind in Connecticut.
Thatwas the truth that slapped her.
Hard.
Kendra tried to catch her breath from the wallop of it as the housekeeper led her through the sprawling villa, whitewashed walls and raucous flowers on all sides, then outside. Past all the terraces, past the ruins of a long-ago chapel, to a small altar on the side of a cliff.
There were three people waiting for her, seemingly suspended between the wide blue sky and the sun-drenched sea. Balthazar in his usual black, severe and unsmiling. The unfathomable priest. And another man she did not know, yet recognized instantly all the same.
Constantine Skalas, looking faintly rumpled and amused, as if he’d just that moment rolled off a supermodel and slouched his way to the ceremony.
As she drew closer, clutching the white gardenias Panagiota had handed her as they walked, Balthazar and the priest stared at her in varying degrees of condemnation. Constantine only smirked.
Kendra reminded herself that she was choosing to be as happy as she liked because she’d escaped the life her family wanted for her, which had to be worth a celebration, and beamed at all of them in turn.
“A white wedding,” Balthazar murmured darkly as he took her arm. He did notquitescowl. “Let us hope God does not smite us down where we stand.”
“This is the day our child becomes legitimate, Balthazar,” she replied, smiling at him. Then more wildly when he actually did scowl at her. “Let us give thanks and be glad.”
The ceremony was conducted in Greek and English. There were three rounds of blessings. Constantine exchanged their rings three times. There were candles and crowns, the joining of hands, and a ceremonial procession three times around the altar.
Kendra couldn’t help being moved by the ancient words, the traditions, the press of Balthazar’s hands against her own.
Like the baby inside her,herbaby, the wedding felt bigger than her. It connected her to something far larger than herself or this man she was marrying or all the dark little squabbles that had brought them here.
Somehow, this wedding she hadn’t wanted gave her hope.
She clung to that when it was over. Balthazar and his brother went off somewhere. Panagiota pressed a small bag of what she calledkoufetainto her hands—the word for sugared almonds, it seemed—then left with the priest.
Kendra spent her first moments as a married woman—as the wife of Balthazar Skalas—in a beautiful dress with gardenias and sugared almonds in her hands, alone at an altar. Unwilling to let go of that undeserved hope that ran through her as surely as the breeze.
She moved over to the railing and looked out at the deep blue Aegean Sea, because that felt like the same thing.
And she couldn’t have said how long she stood there, but she was all too aware of it when Balthazar returned. She couldfeelhim. That brooding, crackling energy, whipping all around her as if he brought his own storm with him wherever he went.
Kendra already knew he did.
“I’ll admit it,” she said, without looking over at him as he came to stand beside her, a dark and brooding cloud. “I expected to feel different.”
“You should feel different. You are no longer a Connolly.” He said that as ifConnollywas a synonym forrat.The way he always did. “You are a Skalas.”
“Oh, happy day.”
