Once Upon a Marriage

She swallowed. Another roar of cheers came from somewhere. In the far-off distance. She’d been thrust into another vignette. Something that would never happen at home.

“I don’t think they come with grooms,” she said. Playing along with him. Her mouth was dry. Her palms sweaty. She picked up her soda. Held it with both hands.

“So I’ll be your groom.” He was joking. The grin on his face said so. Elliott wasn’t a grinner.

“Okay.”

His face sobered instantly. Completely. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, hands crossed. And she prepared herself to accept his graceful letdown. To let him off easy.

To grin and pretend she’d been joking, too.

But just for the second, just one tiny second, she allowed herself to believe that the moment was for real. The sudden ache inside her was intense.

Consuming her.

The longing.

Not just for a marriage of her own. But for him. This man who’d walked into her life and been different from all the rest...

“I’m serious, Marie.”

She dropped her glass.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“YOU HAVE TO know that I’m all for you and Marie hooking up, but this is a little crazy, man. Getting married at two o’clock in the morning?”

Back in their tuxes from the morning, albeit slightly wrinkled ones, the two men were standing in the chapel where they’d all begun their day—had it really been less than twenty-four hours ago?—waiting for the minister on call to show up.

Marie and Gabi were upstairs slipping back into their little black dresses.

It was crazy. He was crazy. But if he didn’t do this now, he was going to lose her. Her mother had said Marie still didn’t trust herself to a relationship. But all day long, Marie’s actions had been telling him a different story.

She wanted him. As much as he wanted her. For the first time in his life, he had someone who wanted only him. Especially him.

Barbara be damned. She was wrong. And if he presented her with a done deal, if she saw how happy he’d made her daughter, surely she wouldn’t cut his future out from beneath him. Because to do that would be akin to cutting her daughter’s future, too.

“Our flight leaves in the morning,” he said, as though that was explanation enough for his rush.

The real reason—because he’d never wanted anything in his life as much as he wanted Marie Bustamante as his wife—didn’t sound rational even to his own ears. Or the other part—that he somehow knew that if he didn’t do this now, he wasn’t going to get another chance.

Back in Denver, with Barbara’s paychecks and warnings pecking at him, he’d be too sensible. To conscientious. Marie would think he’d lost interest in her. And be hurt.

She’d shut him out...

And his word to Barbara? Was that worth nothing?

For most of his life, the only thing he’d had to stand on, to count on

being there for him, was his integrity.

At the moment, in Las Vegas where anything was possible and people did things they didn’t normally do, where they were happier than they normally were, he didn’t care. He’d spent his entire life standing on his word from the outside looking in. Marie welcomed him in. She had since day one.

Liam looked around them. The lighting that morning, when combined with the sun shining in the windows, had seemed romantic. But now on its own was a bit garish. “Tanner, you do know there are other places to get married.”

“I know.”

“It’s not like Marie’s going anywhere...”