Chapter 21
AVERY
A thousand windows blaze within the darkened city, headlights streaming through the grid of streets like blood through veins. The Manhattan skyline is sharp and glittering on the other side of the penthouse glass, where I’ve been standing for the past twenty minutes.
Nick is here somewhere too. His office, I think.
I heard his voice earlier, low and clipped, probably finishing up whatever calls he'd postponed when Kelsey's number lit up his phone earlier this afternoon.
He's given me space since we got home. Fed me, made sure I drank an entire bottle of water, watched me eat every bite of the simple pasta he threw together.
Then he retreated. Not far, just enough to let me breathe without his worried gaze tracking every exhale.
My reflection in the tall windows stares back at me. A woman in soft clothes, hair still damp from the shower, arms wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold something in. Or keep something out.
I press my palm flat against the glass. The cool beneath my fingers is soothing. The barrier between me and all that noise, all that relentless energy.
The baby is fine. I'm fine. The doctor confirmed both.
So why can't I settle?
I know the answer, even though I don’t want to admit it.
The wedding is coming up fast. Three hundred guests.
Photographers and caterers and florists and the society pages already running speculation about my dress, my jewelry, about what kind of statement Dominic Baine's bride will make simply by walking down the aisle.
The final seating charts alone took four hours to finish last week, all so that the right people are positioned near the other right people and so no one feels slighted or left out.
And the press. God, the press. They’re still circling, though from a safe distance thanks to Gabe and his team.
The tabloids are still hungry for more of my past. The article on my mother was removed from the headlines, but just as I feared, more rumors are already swirling online.
Cameras will be outside the church. They'll be lurking at the reception.
They'll be everywhere, thirsting for a piece of the artist who crawled out of poverty and trauma to ultimately land one of the most powerful men in New York.
I wanted this. I said yes to all of it—the venue, the guest list, the security detail, the endless fittings at House of Delaire with Serena and her team pinning silk and lace around my body while I stood on that platform like a mannequin being dressed for display.
I thought I wanted it.
Part of me still wants it. But another part of me . . .
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Nick’s deep voice draws my attention before I realize he’s there. I glance over my shoulder and see him step away from where he’d been leaning against the hallway wall. He approaches slowly, his face solemn, concerned.
He walks up to me from behind, pausing close enough that I could lean back and find his chest, but not yet touching. Just standing with me. Looking out at what I'm looking at.
He doesn't ask if I'm okay. He's been asking variations of that question all day, and he's smart enough to know I've had enough of answering it.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The city glitters below, relentlessly in motion. Nick’s reflection watches it with the same unreadable stillness he brings to boardrooms and negotiations. That shrewd focus that misses nothing, reveals nothing.
"I keep thinking about today at House of Delaire," I say finally. My voice sounds raspy in the quiet. "All that light pouring in. The mirrors everywhere. Everyone watching while they pinned and measured and fussed around me."
He lowers his head toward my shoulder, pressing a soft kiss to the curve below my neck.
"And then I think about this." I lift my hand from the glass, gesture vaguely at the view. "All of it out there. The photographers. The guests. The… spectacle." The word tastes bitter. "And I'm in here, behind glass, looking at it as if it's something happening to someone else."
Nick is quiet. Waiting. He's always known when to let me find my own way to the point.
"I don't—" I stop. Start again. "This is going to sound terrible."
"Tell me."
I close my eyes. The truth has been pressing against my ribs for weeks. Then, today—the fainting, the ER, the stark fluorescent lights and the doctor's calm recitation of everything I need to avoid—cracked something open.
"I don't need the big wedding." I exhale once the words leave my mouth. "The three hundred guests. The photographers and the press and just… all of it." I open my eyes and turn to face him. "I thought I did. Or maybe I thought I should need it. Or I thought that you—"
"You thought I what?"
I swallow, wishing I hadn’t said anything now, but it’s too late to take it back.
"If it’s what you need, I’ll do it. The big society wedding.
The entire city on pause for a day to celebrate Dominic Baine finally making it official, showing the world that the shadow mogul has decided to take a wife.
If this is what you want, then I want it too. "
Something shifts in his expression. A crack in the stillness.
"Avery." His voice is low, rough at the edges. "I thought you wanted it."
"What?"
"The venue. The guest list. The whole production.
" He exhales a sound that's almost a laugh, but not quite.
"I've been building this circus because I thought it was what you needed.
It is what you deserve, but only if you want it.
I want you to have the wedding you never got to dream about when you were young, before—" He stops.
We both know what came before. "I want to give you everything.
Evidently, I didn't stop to ask if ‘everything’ was what you actually wanted. "
I stare at him. My chest feels strange, tight and loose at the same time, pressure releasing and something else flooding in to take its place.
His mouth curves, but there's something raw beneath it.
"I would have married you the same day I proposed. I’d have sailed us to somewhere romantic, found someone to make it legal, and had you as my wife before sundown that very day.
The rest of it—" He gestures at the city, the glass, everything beyond this room. "The rest of it was for you."
The absurdity of it hits me all at once. Here we are, two people who know each other this deeply, who've survived betrayals and separations and family trauma and found their way back to each other against all odds, and yet we couldn't manage to say I don't need a spectacle out loud.
A laugh escapes me. Small and rueful and edged with something that might be tears if I let it. "We're idiots, aren’t we?"
"Hey. Don’t call the future Mrs. Baine an idiot." His hand finds my hip, settles there with familiar weight. "As for me, well, this isn’t the first time I’ve taken charge of a situation when I should’ve paused to talk first.”
I lean into him, and his arm comes around me, drawing me against his chest. Solid. Warm. He presses his mouth to the top of my head. Breathes there for a moment.
"Say the word and it’s done," he murmurs. "I’ll call Beck in the morning. Contracts can be canceled. The whole thing disappears. Done. You and I can head down to city hall and get married tomorrow if you want to."
The ease of it steals my breath. He means it.
I can hear the absolute certainty in his voice.
He would cancel all of this wedding chaos without a second thought.
A multimillion-dollar production, months of planning, headlines and expectations and half of Manhattan's elite already clearing their calendars. If it’s not what I truly want, then he’ll take care of it.
That's who he is. That's the man I fell in love with. The one who'd burn down the world for me and consider it just another Tuesday.
"No. We can’t do that." I lift my head to look at him, conflicted feelings churning inside me. The expectations of our friends, my mother. All the work Serena and her team have done on my dress. All the care and creativity Eve and Kat have put into my lingerie for the wedding and honeymoon. "We can’t cancel now. Part of me doesn’t want to. "
His brow furrows slightly. "Avery—"
"My mother spent twelve years in prison.
" I don’t need to remind him. We both know what my mom has sacrificed for me, but maybe I need to hear the words again.
"She missed my college graduation. My first gallery exhibit after I came to New York.
Every milestone of my adult life, she heard about through a plexiglass window during visiting hours or over a monitored phone line.
" My throat tightens, but I push through.
"Walking me down the aisle is the one thing she's been dreaming about since she got out. I can’t take that from her. "
Nick's expression softens. His thumb traces a slow circle on my cheek.
"And there's everyone else." I think of Tasha, who held me together through every crisis of the past two years.
Eve and her sketchbook full of lingerie designs.
Lita and Matt and Beck and Gabe. All of the people in our lives who show up for us, again and again, even when showing up is hard.
"They deserve to share this day with us too. They’ve earned it. "
"They have," he agrees quietly.
"And you," I say, as I press my palm flat against his chest, over his heart.
"Dominic Baine getting married is a statement, whether you want it to be or not.
You've spent years as the man no one really knows, the one who moves through the world like a shadow.
This is you stepping into the light. For the foundation, for your legacy.
" I reach up and cup his strong jaw. "For the man you're becoming, Nick.
That matters. It matters to me more than anything. "
He doesn't argue. We both know I'm right.
"So no, I don't want to cancel. I want to marry you in front of everyone who loves us. I want my mother to walk me down that aisle. I want Tasha standing next to me during the ceremony and I want Beck making a corny toast at the reception that somehow ends up being perfect."
"He's been working on it for weeks," Nick murmurs, smiling. "I've seen the index cards."
I laugh despite myself. "I just—"
The words catch. I turn back toward the window, toward the city lights glimmering beyond the glass, and something loosens in my chest.
"I wish we could be in two places at the same time." My voice comes out soft. Almost wistful. "I wish I could marry you twice. Once just for us, with no one watching. And then again for everyone else who cares about us."
The silence that follows feels different. Charged with the weight of Nick’s quiet. His expression turns tender, making my chest ache.
"We'll figure it out," he says. His voice is low, certain. He gathers me to him, wrapping me in his arms. "Whatever you need, angel. We'll figure it out."
I exhale. Let my weight settle into him. The anxiety that's been buzzing beneath my skin all evening finally, finally begins to quiet.
We haven't solved anything, not really. The wedding is still on. The guests are still coming, the press is still circling, the whole elaborate production is still barreling toward us like a runaway train.
But something has shifted tonight. Or maybe something has settled, instead.
His heartbeat pulses against me, steady and slow. His mouth brushes my temple. Not a kiss, just presence.
Tomorrow there will be logistics. Decisions. The endless machinery of a wedding that's just two weeks away. But tonight, there's just this. The two of us at the window, the city sprawled out beneath us, and the truth finally spoken between us like something precious we'd both been afraid to hold.
"I love you," I tell him. Simple. True.
His arms tighten around me. "I love you too. More than you can know."
I smile against his chest. I needed this connection. This moment, this man, this quiet certainty that only exists in his arms.