Tristan
When the priest says “husband and wife,” something happens in my chest that I can’t quite explain.
There’s relief in it, because when Chloe hesitated before her vows, my gut twisted hard and I was certain she was about to back out, throwing my entire future into chaos.
But it wasn’t just the CEO position I was thinking of.
Standing here, holding her hands in front of everyone and watching that flicker of uncertainty cross her face, my family’s company and my position in it were the last thing on my mind.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest adds, and I barely wait for him to finish the sentence. I tug on Chloe’s hand, pulling her flush against me, palm the back of her head, and kiss her.
She makes a soft sound against my lips as she kisses me back, her body arching slightly against mine, and I have to work hard to keep it brief and relatively appropriate for a formal setting. I have enough self-control to do that much, although it’s a closer call than I’d like to admit.
My wife. My wife.
When we break apart and she looks up at me with those soft gray eyes, the whole garden drops away. It’s just her face and the flush on her cheeks and the ring beneath my thumb as I trace a light trail over her knuckles. For a moment, neither of us moves or says anything at all.
Then we turn to face the crowd together as I raise our joined hands, and applause goes up among the gathered guests as we make our way back down the aisle.
Chloe smiles at the crowd, waving to a few people, but as soon as we’re out of the immediate view of the guests, she pulls her hand away from mine.
With no audience, there’s no reason to keep the act going.
I get that, but I still feel the loss of it, and I have to suppress the sudden impulse to reach for her hand again.
I want to say something to her. Something that actually addresses what just happened out there—the ceremony, the hesitation, the look on her face when she was repeating her vows.
I open my mouth but get nowhere before the photographer materializes with his assistant and his shot list, clearly having been waiting for this exact moment.
We’re swept off to the gardens for photographs before I can say a word to my new wife.
He works us through position after position against the backdrop of the sculpted hedges and the long afternoon light, the vineyard rolling out behind us.
I hold her the way he directs, my arm around her waist, her hand resting against my chest, and she lets me do it without pulling away or stiffening, her body warm against mine.
Between shots, we don’t talk much. The silence between us isn’t hostile.
It’s more… fuck, I don’t know what it is.
I thought I knew how to read her pretty well after all those years of rivalry, but right now, I’m at a loss.
“Eyes on each other,” the photographer instructs, and we look at each other as the camera clicks several times. “Perfect. Now can I get one where you’re both laughing at something?”
Chloe shoots a glance his way, one eyebrow arching. “At what, exactly?” she asks dryly.
The photographer blinks, looking nonplussed.
He clearly has no answer for that, and the awkward silence stretches just long enough that a laugh bursts out of me.
Chloe turns toward me at the sound, her eyes a bit wide, and then she laughs too.
The sound of it surprises me, soft and unguarded, nothing like the smile she’s been wearing all day, and I’m still looking at her when the camera clicks.
“Yes!” The photographer calls enthusiastically. “Perfect! Just like that.”
He gets a few more shots then lets us go, and we make our way to the ballroom.
The doors open, and the room erupts. Everyone rises to their feet, glasses raised as they greet us.
Chloe moves through the room with a practiced air, smiling and accepting congratulations, greeting each person who approaches with an ease that looks completely natural.
I keep my hand at the small of her back and work the room alongside her even though the whole thing feels slightly removed from me, as if I’m watching it from a short distance, still stuck somewhere out in that garden.
The evening moves fast in some stretches and slow in others. Chloe and I sit side by side at the head table and say maybe twelve words to each other throughout the entire meal, which makes complete sense given how many people keep coming up to our table, but I find it maddening anyway.
Then, as catering staff descend to gather people’s plates, the lights dim and soft strains of music float through the air.
The crowd quiets as Chloe and I rise to our feet for our first dance. The world around us seems to fade, leaving only the gentle hum of the cello and the warmth of her presence in my arms.
Her movements are initially a bit stiff, as are mine. But as the song unfolds, her tension starts to melt away a bit as we sway to the music, and I almost feel her relax in my arms.
“You’re a decent dancer,” she says, after we’ve been moving together for a couple of minutes.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised,” she says. “I just… wasn’t expecting it.”
“Pretty sure that’s the same thing,” I point out with a chuckle, and she rolls her eyes—but I do get one dimple to appear in her cheek for a brief moment, which sends a little rush of satisfaction through me.
Before I’m ready for it, the music shifts, the melody changing to the song our parents chose for the father-daughter, mother-son dance.
Chloe steps away from me, reaching out to let her father take her hand.
As the soft strains of the music envelop us, I find myself dancing with my mother, who has a bittersweet smile on her lips.
“It was a beautiful wedding,” she tells me, quietly enough that it’s just between us. “I hope for love and happiness for both of you. I mean that.”
Her words catch me off guard, and I stare down at her. “I’m a little surprised you pushed for this,” I admit, finally addressing something I’ve wanted to bring up ever since the will reading. “Given what your own marriage looked like.”
She stiffens in my arms, her grip on my shoulder tightening. “What does that mean?”
“You know what it means. You and Dad built something enormous together, but it was never really a marriage, was it? Not in the way most people mean.”
Her gaze goes somewhere past my shoulder, and she’s quiet for a beat. When she looks back at me, her voice is careful. “It wasn’t like that, Tristan. There was so much you didn’t know about your father. So much you still don’t.”
My brows furrow at that. I have no idea what she’s getting at, but the string quartet has reached the end of the song, and I don’t have time to ask her what she means. I rejoin Chloe, my mother’s words still turning over in my head even as the festivities of the evening continue around us.
Chloe and I step off the dance floor, and almost immediately, we’re surrounded by a group of Thorne Enterprises executives—some of the company’s officers who often work alongside me and my brothers.
“Congratulations, Tristan,” one of them says, reaching to shake my hand. “And to you, Ms. Dawson.”
“It’s Thorne, now,” I correct. A strange expression crosses Chloe’s face, one that I can’t read.
“I don’t know if we’ve met,” Chloe says. “Care to introduce me, Tristan?”
I gesture to each of the executives, telling her their names. Once the ice is broken, she takes it from there, asking the right questions, keeping each person engaged, moving things along with an ease that comes from years of working her way through rooms exactly like this one.
I hang back and watch her work, and that’s when I notice something odd.
Every time someone new speaks to her, she shifts just slightly, angling her right side toward whoever is talking.
It’s subtle enough that you’d miss it entirely if you weren’t watching closely, reading it as nothing more than natural movement in a conversation.
But I’ve seen it before. At the engagement party.
At the altar today when she asked the priest to repeat himself.
At the gala where my father received that award, when she had her back to the bar and her right side toward the room.
I don’t say anything about it, just file the observation away for now. And I make sure to stay close and step in when it’s useful, making introductions where she needs them and repeating anything that I’m not quite sure she heard.
The executives move on after a bit as new people take their place, and Chloe keeps going through all of it.
But I can see her energy starting to flag after another thirty minutes.
It’s clear in the slight tightening around her eyes and the way her smile takes a fraction of a second longer to arrive than it did at the start of the night.
She’s been running at full capacity since before the ceremony, and it’s showing in the small ways that nobody else here is positioned to notice.
When there’s a gap between one group leaving and the next arriving, I catch Chloe’s hand as I step a little closer to her.
“We can leave now if you want,” I tell her. “We’ve put in enough time to appease both of our families. The party is winding down anyway, and nobody’s going to miss us for the rest of the night.”
She looks up at me, and for just a moment, everything she’s been holding up all day shows on her face. The exhaustion of putting on a show all day, and something else underneath it all that isn’t quite the wariness she usually has when she looks at me. Then she nods.
“Okay,” she says, a note of gratitude in her voice. “Let’s go.”