The wedding was perfect.
Laurel strode into Morwen Hall ahead of Melissa and their father, ready to stage-manage the wedding of the year and make sure absolutely nothing stopped Melissa and Riley from getting married—as long as they both still wanted to.
With all that determination she’d built up, it was actually kind of an anti-climax when nothing went wrong.
Riley was waiting at the front of the aisle when she checked, and even Eloise was waiting with the other two bridesmaids. She looked kind of detached—as if she wasn’t going to let anything about the day affect her.
Laurel couldn’t blame her for that.
She sidled up to Eloise as they stood outside the ceremony room, waiting for the signal to start the procession. Caitlin and Iona were fussing with Melissa’s train, while the bride checked her reflection one last time and straightened the tiara on her veil-less head.
‘Told you she wouldn’t wear the veil.’
‘You were right,’ Eloise said, with no emotion in her voice.
‘You okay?’ Laurel asked, lowering her clipboard and looking up at her, concerned. ‘I heard... Well, there’s been a lot of talk this morning.’
‘I’m sure there has,’ Eloise replied serenely.
‘You seem very...calm,’ Laurel said. ‘Serene, even.’
Eloise gave her a small smile and raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘What else is there to do?’
‘I suppose...’
She could be calm too, Laurel realised. She could ignore everything Dan had said, go on about her life without him and pretend the whole thing had never happened. She could act as if it didn’t hurt until the pain faded away for real.
Or she could get fired up, say what she really thought, and go after everything she wanted. Even if he said no, even if he didn’t listen. Even if he could never love her... Wouldn’t it be best to know for sure? To face him down and tell him everything he needed to hear before he made that decision?
To take a chance at being the princess who rescued the prince from a life of never being good enough for love.
That was a starring role Laurel could really get behind.
Never mind serenity. She had something much more important to fight for.
True love.
After so many years believing she wasn’t good enough, and trying so hard to be anyway, she’d broken free. She was done with trying to earn love. She was going to demand it instead.
The string quartet at the front of the ceremony room started a new piece and Melissa gave a little squeal. ‘It’s time!’
‘Good luck,’ Laurel whispered as they lined up in their assigned order. ‘I’m going to head in and watch from the front.’
Where she could keep an eye on everything. And grab Dan the moment this was over and give him a piece of her mind.
* * *
From his seat in the front row Dan watched Riley’s face light up as he saw Melissa walking down the aisle towards him and hoped that his brother had made the right decision. As much as being married to Melissa would drive him insane, for Riley it was a different story. Anyone who made his face light up like that, as if his heart was beaming out happiness from within...well, he had to give his brother kudos for taking a chance on that, right?
Then he glanced across the hall and spotted dark brown hair above a blue dress and felt his own heart start to contract.
Laurel.
She’d slipped in to take a seat in the front row on the other side of the aisle, a few chairs down from her stepmother. Her cheeks were flushed, and even at a distance he could see the brightness in her eyes.
That was not a broken woman. Whatever she might have hoped for, his turning her down hadn’t caused her any pause at all. She’d stormed inside, dealt with Melissa, put on the wedding of the year—and kept every ounce of her composure while doing it.
He was so proud of her he could barely breathe.
It was good that he was leaving, he reminded himself as Melissa and Riley took their vows. Good that she’d be free to seek out all the things she wanted from life, away from Melissa’s shadow. Away from the distraction of their affair.
Laurel had the strength now to go out and find her prince, her happy-ever-after—he could feel it and he was glad about that. Really he was.
So...why did it feel so wrong?
Almost before he knew it the ceremony was over, and Riley and Melissa were walking back up the aisle, arm in arm, ready for what was sure to be the longest wedding photography session in history. Sighing, Dan got to his feet, hoping he could grab a drink at least before he had to loiter around waiting to see if they actually wanted the non-famous brother of the groom in any of the shots.
But before he could start to follow them out of the hall he felt a small hand on his arm and looked down into Laurel’s blazing brown eyes.
‘Don’t you say a word,’ she snapped, with all the fire and determination he’d seen in her earlier barely contained. ‘Because I have a lot of things to say to you. And you are going to listen, and then I am going to go and organise the wedding breakfast. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ Dan blinked. ‘Wait, I mean—’
‘Too late. Now listen.’
She took a deep breath, and Dan braced himself for a list of all his faults—probably organised alphabetically, knowing Laurel.
‘I know you think you can’t have this. That love isn’t something that stays for you. But you’re wrong. Maybe you haven’t found the right woman yet, or maybe you don’t let any of them in enough to love you in the first place. But whatever it is you have to give it a chance, Dan. You have to be the hero of your story too, you know. You can’t always be the stand-in, the fall guy, the one who gets beaten up and edited out. You don’t have to be a star to chase your own happy-ever-after, okay? And this week...this week you showed me all that about myself. You gave me the confidence to stand up to Melissa—not to go behind her back and ruin her day, but to tell her the truth, to explain how I feel and to move on. To stop trying to earn her love because I thought I wasn’t good enough. I am good enough—for me. And that’s all that matters. You showed me that there’s life beyond Melissa’s shadow—and, trust me, I’m going out there looking for it. And I think it’ll be a crying shame if you don’t do the same.’
She let go of his sleeve and took a step back, staring up into his face as he tried to get his scrambled thoughts in order.
‘I get it if you don’t want to look for that happy-ever-after with me. You’re right—we only agreed to a fake relationship and I’m not going to try and hold you to anything more. But if you don’t want to try because you’re too scared—because you think you can’t be good enough, that you can’t live up to expectations—you’re an idiot. Because I’d rather have the real you than some mythical prince any day.’
He opened his mouth to respond, still unsure of the words he was looking for, but she reached up and put a finger to his lips.
‘One more thing,’ she said. ‘You also taught me that we each need to be true to ourselves and our own dreams—not try to be the people our families or friends think we are. We have to be our own people. And I wouldn’t be doing that if I didn’t tell you that my own person is in love with yours.’
Love. Love? Dan started to shake his head, but Laurel was already walking away.
‘Can’t stop. I’ve got a wedding reception to pull off, before I can go and start my own life. Goodbye, Dan.’
No. Not goodbye.
She was leaving him...walking away...and it was all his own fault.
The reality of his own culpability came crashing down so hard that he practically fell into the seat next to him. It was Cassie all over again—a woman he cared for walking away, seeking her own happiness because he couldn’t share it with her. No, not couldn’t—wouldn’t. He wouldn’t take that chance, that risk of not being enough for her. And that meant he’d always be alone. Always be left behind and put aside—not because there was someone better, but because he wouldn’t give enough of himself to find a true partnership.
He’d spent so long expecting people to leave, to be disappointed in him, he’d built up walls to stop them even coming in in the first place.
The question was, did he even know how to knock them down again? And if he did...could he risk it?
* * *
Laurel leant back against a pillar in the ballroom, wishing she could take off her stupid shoes, and watched Melissa and Riley take their first dance together as husband and wife.
She’d done it. She’d got through Melissa’s wedding without any major disasters—if you didn’t count the state of her heart. But even taking that into account she felt stronger, more certain about the future than she had in years.
The credits were about to roll on Melissa’s big day, and Laurel was still standing.
She raised her champagne flute just a little, toasting herself, and took a sip as Noah and Eloise took to the dance floor too, for the planned ‘best man and maid of honour’ dance. Laurel winced at the distant look on her friend’s face and hoped that the desperate way Noah was talking to her meant that he was apologising.
Somebody should, she felt. And, as she’d said to Eloise earlier, they couldn’t let the men they loved break them.
She wanted Eloise and Noah to work things out—find their happy ending. Even if she couldn’t just yet.