Chapter 27 #2
It was Michelle, and I couldn’t keep my feelings inside any longer. “I’m not okay at all,” I said, then spilled nearly everything to the woman who was about to become part of my family.
Michelle listened calmly, her warm brown eyes fixed on me the entire time. “Now what?” I asked, holding out my hands helplessly.
“You need to apologize for the things you just said to him. And then you need to tell the truth,” Michelle said in a firm, but warm voice.
“Oh. It’s that simple?”
“No. It’s that hard. It will be incredibly hard to speak your truth, and to take ownership of the things you said to him. But isn’t it better than the alternative? Feeling crappy and keeping it all inside?”
I inhaled deeply, then breathed out. I did it again. The big breaths spread through me, cooling my jealousy, calming my angry heart. “Why do you have to be so wise about everything?”
Michelle smiled, and grasped my hand. “I’m not so wise.
I’m just trying to help you see your way through.
And look, I know it’s not easy to open up to someone you love.
It can be incredibly scary. There was a time when I thought I had lost Jack from being too open with him.
But it turns out being open was exactly what he needed, and what we both needed to have what we have.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without having gone through that uncertainty.
And I couldn’t be any happier to be where I am now,” she said, squeezing my hand in emphasis.
“But I don’t know what’s going to happen if I open up. I don’t know that I’m going to have the same thing you have.”
Michelle laughed. “Of course you don’t. And neither does he.”
“He might be pissed at me. I was a bit, how shall we say, mean. Just a teeny bit,” I said, a tiny smile creeping back on my face as I made fun of myself.
“I don’t think you’ve done anything that you can’t recover from.”
Another deep breath spread through my chest, fueling me with something other than the anger that had steered me wrong a few minutes ago. “I’m so glad you’re marrying my brother,” I said.
“Me too.” Michelle beamed, unable to contain a bright, shining smile.
“And you know,” I said, flashing a toothy grin and wiggling my eyebrows, “don’t forget I was kind of a matchmaker for the two of you. Hopefully that’ll keep you from being too mad at me for behaving terribly before your rehearsal dinner.”
“One, you did not behave badly. You behaved like a woman in love. And two, I will happily give you all the credit in the world. Jack is wonderful, and I know a lot of that is because he has you as his sister.”
After Michelle left, I took a minute to compose myself, touching up my powder and reapplying my lip gloss.
Then I joined my family and friends on the veranda.
Torches flickered in the early evening light, casting pretty shadows across the deck and the sandy beach mere feet away.
I found my place card, and a waiter pulled out a chair for me.
My stepmother would be sitting next to me.
I scanned the group for Nate, but didn’t see him anywhere.
Reaching for my glass of water, I took a sip and waited patiently, peering at the other place cards to find where he was seated.
Across from me, two chairs down. I’d have to grab a private moment with him as soon as I could.
I’d talk to him without tears or agenda, and simply speak the full truth.
All this time of saying less than what I felt wasn’t helping anyone.
A minute later, my spine straightened and goosebumps rose on my arms as his mouthwatering scent drifted by. He took the chair next to me. “Michelle just told me the seating had changed. I hope you don’t mind,” he said, moving in next to me.
I didn’t wait a second longer. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly, because there was no time like the present.
I went for the truth, and I hoped those three words could begin to convey how contrite I was.
But they were only the beginning. “I shouldn’t have said any of those things.
When I saw you with that woman, it made me so incredibly jealous. ”
A flicker of a smile appeared on his lips, those gorgeous, delicious lips I loved to kiss. “Like that night I was in Miami and you thought I went to a club,” he said, speaking in a hushed whisper.
“Yes. I was so jealous then. And now I feel that way ten times, fifty times, a thousand times more. I can’t stand the thought of anyone else with you. Except me.”
He parted his lips, and a sexy sigh escaped. “Casey,” he said, breathing my name like I was precious to him. “I feel the same. I completely feel the same.”
But there was no more time for any conversation, because my father stood up, clinked a glass, and thanked everyone for coming to the other side of the world to celebrate the wedding of his son.
After that, my stepmother commandeered Nate’s attention.
Seated on the other side of him, she peppered Nate with all sorts of questions about the resort, asking about the scuba diving, where she might see turtles underwater, and if there was a way to swim with the dolphins.
When the appetizers cleared, Jack rose and cleared his throat. Quickly the noise died down, and the only sound was that of waves gently lapping the shore.
“Thank you so much for joining us here. We hope it wasn’t too much of a hardship to come to the Maldives,” he said with a smirk.
“It was a piece of cake,” someone called out.
“But seriously, we know we asked a lot of you to have you come here, and I’m delighted to see so many friends and family with us.
It is an honor to be able to share this moment with all of you.
” He stopped talking to lock eyes with Michelle, who was watching his every word with a huge smile on her face.
“I could not be happier or more ready to make this amazing woman my wife. Nothing has ever felt more right or true to me than loving her. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. ”
I catalogued the reactions at the table to Jack’s speech.
Davis beamed with pride and love at his sister, Julia brought her hand to her heart then wiped a tear from her eye and Clay dropped a kiss on her cheek.
I sneaked a peek at Nate, who was intently listening.
He must have felt the pull because he turned to meet my gaze, and the look in his eyes melted me.
It was the way he’d looked at me in London, in New Orleans, in my apartment.
His gaze zeroed in on my collarbone, that spot he loved to kiss, and instinctively I raised my fingers and touched it.
I heard a hitch in his breath, then forced myself to focus as Jack continued.
“I’ve often said I’m the luckiest man in the world to have this woman,” Jack continued, and reached for Michelle.
She threaded her fingers through his, and the tender and passionate love between them was evident even in how they held hands.
“And yes, there’s some luck to it, and some chance, but there’s also my sister. ”
I sat up straight, jerking my head from left to right, as if to say Who, me? I hadn’t expected to be part of his speech.
Jack moved away from Michelle and walked closer to me.
“I wouldn’t be at this dinner, ready to take Michelle Milo as my bride tomorrow, if my sister hadn’t stuck by me, and believed in me, and encouraged me to move on from the things that had held me back.
She’s been my anchor and my best friend, occasionally my secret agent, and in many ways she is the reason I’m here today.
So thank you, Casey, for speaking your mind, never giving up on me, and then administering the kick in the pants I needed to fall in love with Michelle,” he said, bending down to give me a hug, then raising a glass to toast.
My cheeks flamed red, and huge tears of joy streaked down my cheeks. I brought my hand to my mouth to cover my quivering lips. I was a mess. I was a total mess, with mascara surely staining my cheeks. All eyes were on me, as everyone at the wedding toasted.
I couldn’t speak. I simply raised my glass in response, and then felt a hand on my thigh.
It wasn’t naughty or suggestive; it was caring, as Nate handed me his napkin.
I brought it to my eyes and dabbed them, and once the focus of the guests returned to the groom, who was now telling a story about adjusting to life in Paris, Nate leaned in to whisper, “Don’t give up on me either. ”
Nate
After the dinner plates were cleared, a hand came down on my shoulder. “Got a minute?”
I craned my neck in Jack’s direction. “Of course,” I said, tossing my napkin on the chair and following Jack, who weaved through the tables, past the torches, and onto the soft, white sand.
We walked away from the wedding guests, and toward the water, moonlight bathing the ocean in its soft nighttime glow.
Jack stopped and faced me. “Let me ask you a question. Do I look stupid?”
I furrowed my brow. “What?”
“Just answer the question. Do I look stupid?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Because I’m not stupid and that means I know you’re in love with my sister.”
I blinked several times. “What?”
Jack stared hard at me. “Don’t you play stupid either.”
I swallowed dryly. This wasn’t how I’d intended to tell Jack. But then, nothing had gone as I’d intended the last few days. “I won’t play dumb.”
“Good,” Jack said in a firm voice. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m going to break her heart and that I need to keep my hands off her?”
“It’s not for me to tell you what to do or not to do. I simply want to know when you’re going to deal with it.”
“Why?”