Chapter Thirty Sunny
I always imagined a wedding as quiet.
A garden. Soft music. Only the people who matter.
But love—real love—doesn’t always arrive gently. Sometimes it arrives like a storm that refuses to wait for your permission.
Now I’m standing inside a gold-trimmed government hall in New York City, walls lined with velvet ropes and blinking red phone lights—because the entire world decided my wedding is theirs.
Reporters shout outside.Livestream drones hover like metallic bees.Strangers chant our names.
“Sunny, smile!”
“Hold his hand!”
“Kiss him!”
Every demand feels like a hand trying to pull me back into the girl I used to be—the one who didn’t know she had a voice.
I breathe.
I have one now.
Dylan adjusts his cufflinks, jaw locked tight—a man trying not to burn the world down just to shield me.
“We can call this off,” he murmurs. “Tell the city to go to hell.”
I look at him—at the man who gave me space when I begged and fought when I couldn’t.
“I don’t want to run,” I say. "But I don’t want to be owned by a narrative either.”
He studies me—cautious, reverent.
“Then you decide,” he says. “Whatever you choose, I’ll stand next to you.”
That sentence feels like the vow before the vows.
My mom—Myra—touches my cheek gently.
“You look like yourself,” she whispers. Not a princess. Not a prop. Just Sunny.
Her smile is soft, knowing. “A wedding doesn’t make a marriage. The words do. Say only the ones you mean.”
I nod. I think I understand love better in this moment than in every chapter of my life before.
Jenna bursts through the back corridor door—phone in hand, face flushed.
“We have a problem.”
My stomach clamps.
“What now?”
She flips the screen toward us.
Marcus Blake—Dylan’s rival—is giving a press statement outside:
“Knight Capital is collapsing under scandal.
Ask yourself—would any rational woman bind herself to that?
This wedding is a stunt.
And she—” he smirks—“is just the escape hatch.”
Dylan stiffens.
I expected rage. I expected violence.
Instead—
I feel calm.
Because I’m done letting men decide who I am.
I take the phone from Jenna. Pocket it. And lift my chin.
“He thinks I can be used as a weapon.”
“What are you going to do?” Jenna asks.
“Make myself a shield.”
Doors open.
Sound crashes over me like a tidal wave.
Cameras. Flashes. Cheering. Doubt. Curiosity.
I feel Dylan beside me—a gravity I choose, not a force that holds me against my will.
We step forward.
And the room hushes.
A judge stands at the altar, smiling politely. “We are gathered here—”
“Wait,” I say.
Everyone freezes.
I turn—not to him—
To the crowd.
“I know you expect a show,” I begin. “But I’m not here to give one.”
The livestream drones angle closer.
“I’m here because I love a flawed man. And I am a flawed woman. And the only thing that makes us worthy of forever is that we choose each other anyway.”
A hum ripples through the space.
“I’m not marrying a billionaire,” I say clearly.“I’m marrying Dylan Knight. The man who stopped when I said his name. The man who let me walk away. The man who didn’t ask me to shrink to fit him.”
My voice steadies.
“If love is a war—then I’d rather lose every battle than win without him.”
Silence. Then—
Applause erupts like thunder.
Dylan turns to me, eyes bright—not pride, not triumph—
Gratitude.
The judge clears his throat. “Do you, Dylan Knight—”
“I do,” he answers, eyes locked to mine, long before the words finish.
“And do you, Sunshine Emerson—”
“I do.”
We’re handed rings. The world leans forward.
Dylan slides mine onto my finger—and I swear I feel the years he carried it in silence.
When I slide his onto his hand—his breath stutters.
As if he never believed his name belonged next to mine.
“You may kiss the bride,” the judge announces.
We lean in—and for a heartbeat—the world disappears.
Just us.
His hand over my heart. My fingers at his jaw. A world I finally chose.
And then—
As our lips meet—I whisper, barely audible—
“You’re mine.”
A camera—right beside us—catches every second.
Flash. Click. Digital immortality.
Outside—
A helicopter whirs. Someone screams—
“brEAKING! THEY’RE ON THEIR WAY TO THE HONEYMOON!”
And suddenly—our first moment as husband and wife—
no longer belongs to us.
It belongs to the world.