Chapter 19 Delaney #2
“Rosie or Tori?” my future mother-in-law asks with a smile.
“Tori,” I smile softly. “Rosie looks lovely.”
“You look lovely, Delaney.” She wraps her arms around me and kisses my cheek. “Your dress is stunning.”
I look down at the white-silk minidress Caitlin dropped off for me earlier this week and smile. “Caitlin told me I had to wear it.”
Lenny rolls her pretty eyes as she looks around. “That girl was always bossy, but she was right this time. The dress suits you. You look happy.”
I feel him before I see him.
Ryker’s hand slides to the small of my back as we stand in front of the vineyard, waiting for dinner to begin. “Delaney, I have someone I’d like to introduce to you.”
I spin in his hold, everyone else forgotten, and smile when I find an older woman with her arm tucked in his.
Her silver hair is pinned up in a beautiful chignon.
And her face tells the story of a long life.
A long, happy one, I hope. She smiles wryly when she drops Ryker’s arm and reaches for mine.
“My grandson should have brought you by the house before now, Delaney. How are we going to be good friends if he hides you away from us?”
Her blue eyes, the color of Ryker’s, look from me to him with a sneaky glint as Ryker leans in and presses a kiss to my ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t get home in time for us to come over together.”
“It’s fine. But I have something I want to talk to you about later,” I whisper.
“Everything okay?”
I nod and kiss his cheek before turning back to his great-grandmother. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Beneventi.”
“Oh, dear, you call me Nonna.” She looks at me and hopefully likes what she sees. “You need to come to the house. My grandson isn’t feeding you enough.”
Ryker laughs, and my heart settles for the first time in hours.
“Come,” she says, patting my hand in hers, already turning. “Everyone’s waiting.”
Everyone . . . She definitely got that right.
The table is massive and full. Of people and food.
Ryker pulls out an empty chair next to his father and helps Nonna into it, kissing her cheek, then gently escorts me to the center of the table where our chairs sit. His hand in mine, warm and strong and possessive in a way that shouldn’t feel as good as it does. But faked or not, it really does.
“You were late,” I murmur, my breath fanning his ear once we sit, a smile tugging at my lips because this man looks incredible. He’s in another suit. Navy blue and fitted beautifully to his muscular frame. “But you clean up nice, so I’ll let it slide just this once.”
“Oh yeah,” he whispers back, his grin cocky and delicious. “I can think of a few ways I can make up for it later.”
“Lesson number three?” I ask without signing. No one needs to ask me what that means, even if I’m a little too excited at the possibilities.
And this man just shrugs and laughs at something Hendrix says to his right.
I’ll remember that later.
Dinner starts, and voices overlap. So many voices. Kingston voices. Beneventi voices. Friends’ voices. Happy ones. Loud ones. Laughter ebbs and flows, and all the while, I sit, taking it all in. I’ve never been to a dinner like this.
I’m not sure I ever expected to. And that was fine with me. I knew my place in the world before this man came into it and turned it upside down.
I’m hyper aware of every move he makes.
No matter who he’s speaking with, his hand finds my wrist. My back. My fingers. Like he needs to make sure I’m here and I’m safe.
And I get it because I feel the same.
This man who saved my life and is now at risk of ruining his.
Wine flows . . . and flows . . . and flows.
Damn. Ryker’s family likes wine. More than one joke is made about me being pregnant because I don’t drink, but my husband-to-be shoots them down quickly, setting his cousins straight in a way that makes me respect him more than I already did. Not an easy feat.
His brother taps a fork to his wine glass and smiles. “Speech.”
Of course there are speeches.
My face pales. Please don’t let them expect me to make one.
Ryker sighs and squeezes my hand. Like he expected this, even if he doesn’t really want to do it. He stands, looking around the table, his smile stretching across his face like he was born for this. To command attention. “I’m not big on speeches.”
A round of laughter sparks throughout his family, which Ryker ignores.
His gaze settles on me, like I’m the only person here. The only one who matters. And I force myself not to squirm under the weight of that stare.
“I want to thank you all for coming tonight on such short notice. In typical fashion for our family, this was a little last-minute, but none of us have ever been that good at waiting for what we want.” He looks up and down the table. “ I didn’t plan on any of this.”
A few soft snickers come from behind me. The girls this time, I think.
But Ryker doesn’t even look their way. Too focused on me to have been paying any attention to them.
“But here’s the thing, I don’t think that matters.
Because some things . . . the things you don’t plan end up changing your life in ways you can never imagine.
Some of them, like falling off a quad and losing your hearing are put in your path to teach you what strength and perseverance means to a man.
Other things . . . things like finding the woman you’re going to spend your life with, they sneak up on you.
Delaney didn’t come into my life the way I expected her to, and trust me, I tried to get her in my life for months before she was ready. And she shot me down every time.”
The snickers come from every direction this time, and my face flames as Ryker takes my hand in his.
“But she showed up for me in every way that mattered when I needed her to.”
My breath catches because that’s not how I remember it happening.
He saved me.
“And whether she realizes it or not . . .”—his voice drops lower into that octave that makes my knees weak—“she changed the game. Completely.”
“It may not be easy, but nothing worth having ever is. Dad always said we were best under pressure, and I get it. It’s easy to be with someone when everything is going well.
But when the world crashes in on you, and you know you have a partner standing next to you, helping you hold that weight .
. . and you still want them there. You still choose them.
That’s where the good stuff starts. That’s where it lives. ”
He lifts my chin up, and butterflies take flight in my stomach.
“It might not have happened the way I thought it would, but it happened the way it needed to for us. And this time tomorrow, I get to call this incredible woman my wife.”
He presses a chaste kiss to my lips, and I melt as he lifts his glass high. “So cheers to finding the right person.”
The silence is deafening until it’s not.
Until everyone holds their glasses up in a riot of cheers and whistles and applause.
But I don’t see any of it. Barely hear it. I’m too busy focusing on the man staring at me. The one who just announced to the table that he chose me, like he wasn’t forced into this.
And the scariest thing of all is how much I believe him.
“You okay, Bambi?”
My lashes flutter as he sits back down.
“You’re staring,” I whisper.
“So are you.” His knuckles graze my cheek, and I fight a chill.
“Good speech,” I add softly, not sure what to say or how to feel.
Ryker leans in and presses his lips to mine, ignoring the hooting and hollering happening around us.
“Ryker . . . Everyone’s watching.”
“Let them watch.” He grins against my lips. “One more day, Bambi.”
One more day.