Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
LIVIANNA/LILY
Now
The Wedding Day
White Silk & Velvet Vows
The happiest moments always seem to arrive one heartbeat before something changes.
The butterflies in my stomach are making me nauseous as I get ready for my march down the aisle. “Mom, I think you need to loosen the back of my dress.”
“Are you sure?” She assesses the corset from behind me. “It looks perfect to me.”
“I ate too much at my birthday brunch. Now I feel sick.” I wipe the sweat from my upper lip. “It’s dreadfully hot, and I don’t want to get sick.”
“You picked Malibu because you love the beach.” She gazes out the window of the bridal suite. “You must have known the weather would be like this.”
Quinn enters the room. “Oh, Livianna. That dress is gorgeous, and you make it even more so. Cash is going to lose his mind.”
“Thanks.” I step toward her. “Will you help me?”
“Livianna, I think you should keep it exactly how it is.” My mom picks up a glass of water. “Drink this.”
“No. It’ll make me throw up.” I turn my back to Quinn and peek back at her. “Please, just give me an extra inch so I don’t pass out while I’m saying my vows.”
Quinn glances at my mom. “Just an inch, Ms. Hemings.”
“Have it your way.” My mom sighs. “It’s your day, darling. You should be comfortable, but I think it’s just nerves.”
She’s not wrong. Ever since I saw Jaxon’s face while being intimate with Callum, I’ve been on edge. I pretended I was sick, and in a way, I was. But it had more to do with the tricks my mind was playing on me than actually feeling unwell.
I wait while Quinn releases the ribbon that’s squeezing me. “Are you boiling like I am?”
“No, but the sun is setting, so it will cool off soon.” She finishes redoing my dress.
My mom scans over me. “You’re breathtaking, Livianna.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I wiggle to give myself more room. “Much better. Thanks, Quinn.”
“Anytime.” She adjusts the straps of her black A-line dress. “Why did you pick Malibu this time of year?”
“I love it here.” I gesture to my mom. “Tell her this wasn’t a bad idea.”
“No, darling. Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve loved it.” She makes her way to the door. “That only increased when you moved into Jaxon’s Malibu mansion. That was an astounding place which made you fall in love with Malibu even more.”
The mention of his name makes my insides grow heavy.
I pick up my black and white bouquet of lilies and fiddle with them. “I wish I could remember living there. It sounds amazing.”
My mom stops with her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll let you two have a minute alone before the ceremony. Your father will be waiting for you when you’re ready.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.” I show her a warm smile. “He better not cry or I will bawl.”
“I’ll let him know.” She leaves Quinn and me alone.
Quinn’s standing near the mirror, her eyes narrowed on me. “You never told me you were renting that house from Jaxon.”
I shrug and shake my head. “I’m sure it wasn’t anything personal, but I don’t know why I didn’t. What difference does it make?”
She rolls her lips between her teeth.
“What?” I wave my hand in her direction. “Why are you staring at me like I’ve betrayed you?”
She sucks in a breath and speaks on the exhale. “Never mind that. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Okay.” I turn away, wondering what the hell she was just thinking. “Is everyone here?”
“Yes, Callum is here.” She fixes the pearl strap of my white wedding gown. “You’re going to die when you see him.”
“Why?”
“He’s in a tux, and it suits him. I would’ve expected him to wear leather or something along those lines, but he went traditional.”
“I knew he was going to. I just can’t picture it.”
“Good. It’ll make your march to him that much more memorable.”
A knock rattles the door before Bren pushes it open just enough to lean through. “Quinn, we’re up. Let’s go.”
“Ready.” She lifts her small bouquet of black and white calla lilies from the table near the mirror and pauses at my side long enough to press her free hand to my arm. “You’re going to take his breath away.”
She slips out into the corridor. Bren lingers in the frame, taking me in from the floor up, and the lopsided grin he carries everywhere goes still.
“Look at you, Livianna.”
I press my lips together against the pull gathering at the back of my throat. “Don’t you dare get all sentimental on me.”
He lets out a short, rough chuckle and pushes off the doorframe. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Cash would kill me if I ruined this for you.”
He pulls the door closed behind him, and the room settles into quiet. I draw one slow breath and let it fill my lungs.
Outside, the traditional Irish music grows, low and ceremonial, and I tighten my grip on the ribbon-wrapped stems of my bouquet until the texture bites into my palm.
The black and white calla lilies don’t tremble. The rest of me does. The wooden aisle stretching between this door and where Callum’s standing on the beach is the shortest and longest distance I’ve ever had to cross.
The door opens again. My father fills the space, stopping with his hand still on the knob. His eyes turn glossy.
“Livianna Grace.” He inhales slowly and tips his chin up, already losing the battle he promised my mother he would win.
“Daddy.” I swallow the lump in my throat and close the distance between us.
He wraps both arms around me with a careful precision that tells me he’s very aware of the delicacy of my dress.
When he pulls back, he cups my face in his palms and studies me the way he always has, like he’s taking a private inventory of whether the world deserves me.
“Your mother told me not to cry, but she’s not following her own rules, so I don’t have to either.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“You’ve always known how to get to me.” He sweeps his thumbs beneath my eyes with a featherlight touch, checking my makeup.
“But it’s time to pull it together.” I reach up and blot under my eyes. “Because if you cry, I do too, and my makeup artist spent an hour on this face.”
He releases me and holds my palm in his. “Your grandmother would’ve loved to see you today.”
My eyes burn without warning, and I hold it in. “Don’t do this to me right now.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifts my free hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “I’m so proud of you, Livianna. Every single day.”
I blink hard and turn toward the window, letting the afternoon light do some of the work to make me stop crying.
“Okay.” I exhale and straighten my spine, the corset holding me perfectly. “I’m ready.”
He offers his arm, and I loop mine through his, settling the bouquet against my wrist so the flowers face outward.
“Ready?”
The ceremonial music bleeds under the bridal suite door. It’s grown full and genuine enough to press against my ribs.
“Daddy, I’ve been ready as far back as I can remember.”
He covers my hand with his and steps forward, and together we amble toward the beginning of the rest of my life. The corridor opens onto the Pacific, and the world rearranges itself around me. My heart pounds in my chest.
“This is it, Daddy.”
“Yes, it is, darling.”
“Don’t let me fall.”
“Never.”
As I start my march, the sky above Malibu is dusted in gold and amber, and silver-blue farther out where the ocean sits on the horizon.
The sunset falls across the beach in long, unbroken rays, and the beach breathes beneath it all. It’s as if the Pacific has attended enough weddings to know the pace.
The wooden planks of the aisle stretch before me over the sand. Black and white lilies and wild white roses with deep Irish greenery line both sides in arrangements that are less like decoration and more like the coastline grew them there on purpose.
Candles burn inside hurricane glasses. Black lanterns flicker above, and the wind blows through the floral archway at the altar end.
The low, pipe-heavy music carries the weight of a tradition that belongs here because of Callum’s heritage. There’s no way I wouldn’t honor him this way on our special day.
The ocean breaks against the shore in a rhythm that does not belong to anyone’s timeline and can’t be asked to slow down. My father’s arm is steady around mine. The path is even beneath my heels. The white silk train of my dress drags behind me.
Now that I’m moving, I’m not shaking as much. The guests rise when I come into view. They turn all at once, the way guests always do.
Familiar faces blur into the collective turning toward me. The only face I am searching for is at the far end of my stroll. My smile grows as he steps out into the aisle.
Our gazes connect, and I have an urge to run to him. He licks his lips, holding his hands clasped together in front of him.
Bren stands a half-step behind him and to the right, and for once in his life, Bren’s entirely still.
The wind stirs off the Pacific and moves through Callum’s dark hair with complete indifference to the occasion. He tries to fix it, but then gives up.
And then he quits holding it together.
He draws a breath and stops guarding his expression for one full beat. Then he pulls it back as if he is deciding in real time how much of himself the crowd gets to see. The answer is all of it.
He releases his hands from in front of him and lets them fall open at his sides. He stands like that: uncovered, unguarded, and not trying to hide.
He’s filled arenas and stadiums, and lived in the gaze of hundreds of thousands of people who believe they know every version of Cash Mayze. None of it has come close to this.
My march doesn’t falter, my father’s arm doesn’t waver, and the ocean doesn’t pause.
With every step I take toward Callum, what I’ve been carrying narrows to extreme warmth that has everything to do with the loving expression on his face.
There’s no doubt in my mind that this is exactly what he wants.
When I reach him, there’s no veil to lift. That’s not the tradition we chose.
Instead, my father takes my hand from the crook of his arm and places it into Callum’s with the carefulness of a man completing the most significant transfer of his life. He steps back without a word.