Caprice Lombardi was a beautiful woman who looked nothing like me and everything like the twins, the long black waves and deeply olive skin, even the expression of intensity that seemed to arrest their features at all times. We shared the same curves though, the figure eight shape that I’d once been so self-conscious of, and a similar smile, the way our cheeks dimpled slightly and our lips stretched.
She was smiling at me now and those soft arms were outstretched. “Come and give your Mama a hug.”
A sob rose in my throat. I didn’t care that I was already crying by the time I folded myself in her semolina and lemon scented embrace. Apparently, it was a day for tears.
She hushed me as one hand stroked down my hair, soothing me the way she had when I was a baby, pressing my head to her bosom so that I could take comfort from her heartbeat.
“Mama,” I murmured, over and over in a small broken voice.
“Si, mia bambina, tua madra.”
“I’m so happy that you’re here. I didn’t think… I mean, I never hoped you would be at my wedding.”
It was Mama’s turn to cry. “Oh no, no, I could never miss this. You are my child. You are my life.”
I sniffed. “You were so disappointed in me.” When her face crumpled, I hastened to say, “No, Mama, I understood why you were. It was fair. It just hurt.” I didn’t explain how her apathy had crippled me; how my heart had skipped random beats, shuddering and clenching in my chest whenever I thought about her, which was often.
There is nothing like a mother’s censure to paralyze the spirit.
“I did not like the way you came together, yes? The hurt you brought Elena, it was terrible and great. She deserved someone’s loyalty and I knew this, that she would not get that from the twins. They understand too much about the messiness of love and they have always loved you almost like a parent. They would give you and forgive you anything. Elena needed someone, capisci?”
It made sense, of course. Elena was so alone and even though she had played a large part in her isolation, it was my fault that it had become so starkly defined. I’d taken the love of her partner, the support of our family and any friends she had made through Sinclair. It disturbed me in a third person kind of way that the greatest consequences felt by my affair had landed on my own sister.
“Okay, we are all happy and together, hurrah hurray! Now, let’s get down to the business of making this girl into a bride, hmm?” Candy said, flouncing off the bed to drag me into the bathroom. “Wait until you see the dress your man picked out for you.”
“It’s a bit indecent for a traditional wedding but I guess this is a beach ceremony,” Brenna allowed, her Southern born conservatism showing through.
Cosima snorted. “You will look like a vision. Sin won’t know what hit him.”
I smiled at the thought but I still hadn’t absorbed the blow that the presence of the best women in my life had dealt me. How long had Sinclair planned this for? How could he have known that this was exactly what I needed our wedding to be, in Cabo to bring everything full circle, with all our loved ones and no one else to judge what we had. If I hadn’t known Sinclair loved me, there was no way to doubt it now. He was the man who turned all my dreams into realities, spun all my fears into golden desires.
He was the man I had always been destined to marry.
Chapter Twenty Five.
I knew immediately why Sinclair had chosen the dress for me. It was a delicately constructed mermaid-style dress with an open back, a v in the front that exposed a deep swathe of cleavage and slight capped sleeves that frothed over my shoulders. The open weave, off white crochet and lace patterned, exposed flashes of skin without being indecent and pooled behind me in a slight train. It was bohemian, utterly unique, and gorgeous, but most of all, with my hair tousled in waves over my shoulder, I looked like a siren emerged from the depths of the Pacific dressed in sea foam come to find her sailor.
My bridesmaids and Mama went to shore first in a small motorboat after long minutes of reassurances, tears and embraces. I waited, fidgeting in the other boat that would take me to the beach, nervous as I’d ever been even though it was ridiculous to feel anything but excitement.
When I arrived on the sand, there was an aisle bracketed by small shells and coral leading up to the wedding arch and Sebastian waited for me in the shallows to help me out of the boat. The cool ocean water kissed the bottom of my dress even though I held it up but it felt appropriate to meet Sinclair with golden slippers of sand on my feet and salt spray on my skin.