Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
KELSEY
There’s a feeling that family gives you that I don’t have a word for. Like you’re being hugged without even touching, and you’re safe, because these are your people, and you belong to each other.
Because you’re home.
I’m thinking about this because it’s the opposite of how I feel right now.
Mom is over by the dessert table with Aunt Patricia and Aunt Bev, all three of them tilted together like they’re sharing a fun secret. She throws her head back laughing at something. She looks so happy. She looks exactly like herself.
I try to catch Danielle’s eye, but there’s something happening on the other side of the room. Maybe cake soon.
The cousins are piled on a love seat near a heat lamp, three of them, legs draped over each other in an easy pileup of people who’ve been doing that their whole lives. I used to be in pileups like that.
I drift over. “Hey!”
A beat. Then another.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
Everything so polite. I perch on the arm of the nearest chair. “I was just thinking of that summer when we got in so much trouble for jumping into the pool from the Hendricksons’ roof. Oh my God, I think I was grounded for months.”
People smile.
“Good times,” somebody says unenthusiastically.
Their conversation restarts, but it’s thinner now. Like I broke something when I came by.
I smile when someone glances at me. I nod at things that are nod-able, but all the while, I’m feeling like an idiot. I really want to leave, but I don’t want to have it be drama. So I wait.
Finally I push up. “Time for a drink!” I walk away before I can do anything embarrassing. Like cry. Or ask them if they’re mad. Or protest my innocence like I did way too much.
Three years. I wrote Christmas cards. I addressed their wedding invitations in my best handwriting. I told myself we were getting there, that love was winning, that this weekend was proof.
Maybe it was foolish.
Across the room, Granny Ernie is holding court with a cluster of little kids, her voice animated, hands painting pictures in the air. They’re rapt. She glances up as I approach, her face lighting.
“Kelsey!” Bright and warm and real. Relief moves through me.
But then one of the kids tugs her sleeve, and she turns back, mid-thought, finishing whatever she was telling them.
I hover for a second, then drift back.
Okay.
All of these people who have known me my whole life, and right now I can’t find a single one of them who wants to be standing next to me.
I scan the room for Bruno. He was walking out with Uncle Jasper a little while ago. Uncle Jasper actually clapped him on the back like they’re the greatest of friends. Uncle Jasper, who barely even said hi to me. At least my fake date’s a hit.
Well, he’s done more tonight than the role requires.
At some point a string quartet starts up—something slow and waltz-y, romantic. The first dance.
Danielle and Tyler take the floor. Danielle told me they weren’t planning on learning a whole dance number and “performing like circus bears.” It was a good call not to overdo it. At some point they abandon the formal moves of the waltz for something more intimate, forehead to forehead.
I smile. The waltz is a boring, stuffy dance, all rules and rigidity. I love that they’ve off-roaded from it.
The parents go out. Mom and Dad, and Tyler’s folks. I catch Mom’s eye, but she doesn’t seem to see me.
The grandparents head out, box-stepping and beaming. Kids come out. Some of the younger couples. A bunch of the cousins from the couch stream out and start doing goofy moves to the waltz music.
Again I search for Bruno. He’s not near the bar, not at the edge of the tent.
I doubt he’d want to dance, but it might be nice not to stand here all alone. He’s probably back at the suite counting the minutes before he can get out of here. I wouldn’t blame him.
I keep a pleasant expression, standing there alone, watching everyone. My eyes feel hot, but I keep that smile going.
Broadway training for the win!
Movement on the far side of the tent catches my eye.
Bruno.
My heart lifts. Which is stupid. He’s just my fake date.
But there’s something different about him. He’s not disheveled exactly, but there’s a charge to him, a darkness, like things are all wrong. He looks across the dance floor and locks eyes on me. Something is definitely wrong. Suddenly he’s on the move, stalking around the perimeter.
He hates it here.
I dragged him into this mess of a family. He thinks they’re full of shit and all that.
He looks over at me, still coming, eyes locked on to mine. He stops in front of me and holds out his hand.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
His voice comes out rough. “Dance with me, Kelsey.”
“You dance?”
He doesn’t answer. Just waits with his hand out.
Feeling strangely shy, I place my hand in his palm. He closes his fingers around mine and pulls me onto the floor, eyes fixed on mine.
His hand settles at the small of my back—firm, deliberate. His other hand takes mine and lifts it into position.
I’m about to make a joke, like, are you channeling Captain Von Trapp, but then we’re moving, and I realize with a shock that he knows this dance. Not just knows it. Owns it.
A waltz—so formal and controlled with its precise footwork and rigid rules. Of course this is the dance Bruno Blackwood would know.
“Did something happen?”
“Is it not customary to dance at a wedding?”
“Where did you learn this?” I whisper.
“Military school.”
Of course. Military schools teach that sort of thing. And Bruno would learn it perfectly. Bruno would’ve been the hulking, scowling military-school prodigy who followed every rule with scary precision.
I have never loved the waltz—there’s zero room for improv or personality, and it’s not beautiful like ballet. There’s not much thrilling about it at all, really.
Or at least that’s what I thought.
But dancing with Bruno, the waltz stops feeling restrained. He turns all that rigid precision into something dangerous. Like the precision itself is what’s dangerous. Because there’s some kind of wild intensity involved.
My feet move automatically. I know the basics, but he could guide a complete beginner through this without breaking stride—hand firm at my back, eyes fixed on mine, stern and dark and utterly focused.
But I happen to know the dance. And I stay with him. I move with him. We’re breathing together inside this rigid choreography and something about that—the precision, the harsh focus of his gaze...
Oh my God, is this hot?
“You really know how to waltz,” I say, dimly pointing out the obvious.
We turn. He pulls me tighter, eyes fixed on mine.
And I’m thinking about the way he kissed me. The same energy. Intense. Single-minded. All that force locked inside control.
It’s exciting.
He’s exciting.
The other couples and the fairy lights have all gone soft at the edges. There’s just the music and the frame of his arms.
He holds me close, closer than the dance requires.
And I really just want to kiss him again.
The dance ends.
“Well…” I’m trying to think of some joke, but I can’t. Apparently, I’m hypnotized by the unexpected hotness of the supposedly most boring dance in the world.
He says, “Let’s get out of here.”
I let go of his hand and take off my shoes. “We probably need to say our goodbyes.”
“Do we?” he says.
I look around. People are pretty caught up in their revelry.
I grab his hand and smile. “Maybe not.” I pull him away from the tent and then tug on his arm like I’m a five-year-old trying to get him to run.
He looks conflicted for a moment, his eyes darting left and right, but then he gives in and starts running, and I’m pulling him along, the grass cool and wet on my feet.
And something about the sheer weirdness of this whole situation, getting this cold stoic billionaire to run across the grass with me, it makes me start laughing, and that makes him start laughing.
We end up on the crew veranda, breathless. It’s the first time I’ve felt okay all night. More than okay. I really had a horrible time.
I felt like a ghost in that tent, pathetic and alone.
Until he came and pulled me into his arms. And I just fit there.