Chapter Sixteen
Chase
"How are you still a good dancer, when you got kicked out of dance class after only a year?" Vivi asked as I whirled her in a circle.
Giving her the smug, superior smile that is the province of older brothers, I said, "I'm just that good."
She giggled, her eyes scanning the ballroom and landing on Aiden, currently dancing with Annabelle. Annabelle was smiling up at him. Her expression sent a stab of jealousy through my heart.
Stupid, I know.
Aiden was crazy in love with Vivi, and Annabelle wasn't interested in him. Didn't matter. I was still jealous. Wanting and not having Annabelle was making me a little crazy. I could admit it, if only to myself.
Violet glanced up at my face, back to Aiden and Annabelle, and her smile became a frown.
"You've set yourself up for a challenge, Chase," she said quietly enough not to be overheard by the other dancers.
"I already know that."
"You sure you don't want to move on? I like Annabelle. It's not that, but—"
"What? What do you know?" I demanded.
Vivi shook her head. "I don't really know anything.
Aiden said that her ex really messed with her head.
Said he was a royal asshole and the only reason they didn't beat the shit out of him was because they were worried it would hurt her case in the divorce.
He was already going after everything she had. "
"I know all that," I said. "But that's all I know. I can't figure out how to prove to her that I won't hurt her the way he did."
"You can't," she said simply. "The only thing you can do is be who you are. Keep being her friend. Keep being there for her. She likes you. Sometimes I catch her looking at you, and it's not the way you look at a friend."
"That's my plan, it's just taking a lot longer than I thought it would," I said, disgruntled.
Vivi laughed at me, her eyes flashing with affection and amusement. "You know, it wouldn't hurt for you to wait to get something you want for once. When was the last time you had to work for a woman?"
"That's not the point," I protested, annoyed.
Vivi raised an eyebrow and said nothing. I scowled down at her, but she was immune. That was the problem with little sisters. They always knew where to poke at you to get a reaction.
The music ended, and I led her back to Aiden, growling under my breath, "Just in time. I'm ready to get rid of you."
She laughed again. The sound of it brightened Aiden's dark eyes and sent a smile curling across his face as he reached for her hand and pulled her from my side.
Before she left me, she reached over, poked me in the chest and whispered, "You'll never be rid of me."
I squeezed her hand and gave her a gentle shove toward Aiden, ignoring the little pang in my heart as I did. Any day now, he was going to slide a ring on her finger. It was only a matter of time at this point.
I had no doubt it would happen eventually. And then my little sister would be someone's wife. She'd always be my baby sister. But she'd also be his. It wouldn't be the two of us against the world anymore. She had Aiden.
I wanted her to have Aiden. I did. And I would be proud as hell to give her away at her wedding. That didn't mean a small part of me didn't envy her. And it didn't mean that a tiny part of me didn't hate him a little for taking her away.
I looked down at Annabelle, wrapping my arm loosely around her shoulders, and mused that if only emotions were logical my life would make so much more sense.
"They look so good together," she said, watching Aiden lead Vivi to the bar for another glass of champagne.
"I guess," I said grudgingly. She was right, Aiden's height and dark hair and Vivi's gleaming blonde and odd periwinkle eyes. His air of command and hers of icy composure. They might have been made for each other.
On the other side of the ballroom, the newlyweds caught my eye and I nodded my head in their direction.
"You could say the same of those two."
Jacob stood with his arm around Abigail, the smile on his face so wide I thought his cheeks must hurt, and the pride in his eyes as he looked at his new wife unmistakable.
Abigail glowed with happiness. I didn't know Jacob that well. I spent a lot more time with Aiden and Gage, and I'd been hanging out here and there with Vance. I knew Charlie from the work she was doing on my house and I'd hit it off with her husband Lucas and Lise's husband Riley.
But Jacob was something of a workaholic—a family trait—and he and Abigail lived in the building he owned in Midtown, called Winters House like their family home.
We'd seen each other at family dinners and I talked to Abigail here and there, but I wouldn't say we were friends. Still, I'd been around them enough to see how deeply Jacob loved his new wife and how devoted she was in return.
Unlike the rest of the family weddings, which had been fairly modest, Jacob and Abigail seemed to want half the state to witness their wedded bliss.
The wedding and the reception were at Chateau du Jardin, a vineyard and resort in the countryside about an hour outside of Atlanta.
I don't know how good the wine was—I hadn't tried it yet—but the grounds and resort were over the top in the best way.
Luxurious didn't even begin to describe the accommodations. Jacob and Abigail had been planning the wedding forever, I'd heard, and it was huge. At least five hundred people, maybe more.
They'd been married in the atrium at sunset, the pink and gold rays streaming through the glass roof, the light gilding Abigail as she strode down the aisle on Aiden's arm.
Her parents were both gone and she didn't have any family to speak of, but Vivi confided that Aiden had been deeply touched when Abigail had asked him to do the honor of giving her away to Jacob.
The ceremony had been just long enough to give it a sense of circumstance, but not so long we were shifting in our seats, wondering when it would be over.
For a bride, Abigail had been calm and collected the few times I'd seen her during the day. Jacob, on the other hand, had been a bundle of nerves.
He'd reserved every room in the resort for family, and we'd all arrived before lunch to take advantage of the pool and other amenities. Abigail, always the perfect hostess, had drifted from one group of guests to another, welcoming us all with warm affection and a serene smile.
Jacob, under the auspices of avoiding his bride until the wedding, had paced their suite, rearranging the roses he’d ordered for Abigail and nursing the same warm beer for hours.
I'd stopped in the room for only a minute, not wanting to intrude, and had a beer with Aiden while we watched Jacob pace.
"Relax, man," Vance said, biting into a chip and shaking his head at his cousin. "It's not like she isn't going to show."
"I know that," Jacob had snapped, irritably.
"Then what? You're not having cold feet. Are you?"
We all understood Vance's disbelieving tone. Jacob and Abigail had been engaged for over a year and the few times I'd seen them, they looked madly in love.
"Don't be an idiot," Jacob snarled. "I just want it over with. I want her to be my wife now. I don't know what we were thinking with this circus. I don't want to wait until sunset."
"You were thinking," Aiden said reasonably, "that you want to share the most important day of your life with your friends and family.
You were thinking that your bride wants a sunset wedding, and you want to give it to her.
You were thinking that you want the entire city to see how much you love her when you make her your wife. "
"Not the entire city," Jacob grumbled.
"Most of it," Vance laughed under his breath.
"Well, I was an idiot. We should have eloped. Then we'd be done with this and she'd be mine."
"She's already yours," Aiden said in that same reasonable tone that I could see was driving Jacob nuts.
Siblings. When you didn't love them more than life, you planned inventive ways to murder them.
"Why don't we go down to the gym and you can run off your mood," Vance suggested. "If you look at Abigail with that face when she comes down the aisle, she's liable to turn and run."
"You're funny," Jacob had said with a glare, but he'd let his cousin drag him to the fitness center and push him on a treadmill.
Aiden and I had wandered off, he to find my sister and me to hunt down Annabelle. I found her leaving her room wearing a swim cover-up. After a quick stop by my room so I could change into my suit, we’d killed a few hours at the pool.
Annabelle in a bathing suit. She wore a modest one piece, but my brain and body didn't care. She was still mostly naked.
I lay on my stomach and watched her talk to Charlie, ignoring the murmur of their voices in favor of daydreams of tugging one strap, then the other, off her shoulders, of pulling that conservative suit down her body until every inch of her was bare.
That was how the day went. Always by her side, always surrounded by other people.
She'd sat beside me at dinner after the ceremony and had been monopolized the entire time by an old friend who'd been seated on her right. I had only one dance with her before Aiden claimed her, and it looked like Evers Sinclair was on his way to do the same.
I gritted my teeth. I was trying to prove to her that I was a good bet. Throwing a jealous temper tantrum would not help my case. Evers had left his date across the room with his brother, Axel, and Axel's wife.
Coming to a stop in front of us, Evers gave me a chin lift and said to Annabelle, "Are you going to dance with me or what?"
"In a minute, I'd love to. Just let me finish my champagne."
"Let Chase hold it for you," Evers complained.
"So impatient. Chill out," Annabelle said, then, tilting her head to the side and gesturing subtly to the couple in the corner, "What's going on with Cooper? Who is he with, and why do they keep arguing?"
Evers glanced at his older brother, currently in the corner, hands on his hips, glowering down at his petite date, who scowled back up at him.