Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
Alyssa
The ballroom smells like panic and wilting florals.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Jules is elbow-deep in a box of replacement chair sashes, her hair pinned up like she’s about to rob a train, muttering something about “sunshine-infused coral being an abomination.” Beside her, the florist’s assistant stands motionless, pale as the tower of decapitated yellow roses stacked behind her.
The hydrangeas are sweating, the daisies are gasping, and the peonies—God help us—look like they’ve already given up on life.
What was supposed to be a tasteful vow renewal has spiraled into a full-blown wedding circus.
The clients’ daughter is pregnant, the timeline collapsed, and suddenly we’re planning a shotgun wedding on a vow renewal budget with seventy-two hours of notice and a client who believes coral and yellow are “grounding.”
I should tell them that getting married because of a baby isn’t romantic—it’s logistically insane. And maybe a warning sign. But I won’t. Because this is my job. And also, because this isn’t my story.
Even with the legal pushback, we changed the colors—mostly because they’re covering the cost. The bride cried. The mother hyperventilated. The groom looked like he needed a drink—or possibly a different fiancée.
Thanks to Dexter’s legal team, we’re not losing money. I owe him more than I can repay. Emotionally. Logistically. Existentially.
The bride’s mother is sobbing near the cake table, blotting her face with a cloth napkin the exact hue of her regret.
The bride is on her third meltdown—this time about the petal toss.
The groom is MIA. Morning sickness has taken over the room like a poltergeist. And just as Jules finishes strangling the chair bows with “loving intention,” the string quartet informs me their cellist had a vision and left mid-rehearsal.
So yeah. Just another Sunday in paradise.
I’m trying to untangle the seating chart with one hand and coax a ribbon into submission with the other when Jules leans close and hisses, “If I die today, tell my mother I loved her and that it was the peonies’ fault.”
“Noted,” I mutter, still scanning the entryway. “Do we have an ETA on the miracle cellist?”
“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.” She yanks a bow tight like she’s closing a chapter. “Assuming traffic isn’t apocalyptic. Also—can I just say I’m in love with Dexter Vaughn’s legal team? They gave us contacts for everything. Musicians, caterers, damn, I think there’s a sword-swallower on that list.”
“You can love them, but remember, we always have everything under control,” I say automatically. That’s what planners do—we lie, beautifully, so others can believe everything will be fine while we quietly fall apart.
The hotel’s glass doors open behind me, letting in a rush of cold March air. I don’t turn. I’m rehearsing the gentle but firm speech I’ll give the bride when she inevitably changes her mind about yellow and claims she’s “always been more of a sage green soul.”
Then the air shifts.
Something in me reacts—a pull low in my gut, an ache just beneath my ribs. I lift my head.
And he’s there.
Dexter Vaughn.
Standing in the entryway like something out of a fever dream.
Dark jeans, soft charcoal shirt rolled to his elbows, his hair a little longer than before, falling in a tousled wave over his brow.
No glasses today. Just him—more alive than the version I’ve been holding onto but infinitely more dangerous.
My clipboard slips from my hands.
Jules follows my gaze and freezes mid-sash. “Oh my God,” she breathes. “He’s here.”
“I see that.”
“Do I call security or Vogue?”
“Neither,” I whisper. And then I’m moving.
My legs carry me before my brain catches up. Each step feels slow and fast all at once, like wading through a dream I’m terrified to wake from. Across the ballroom, Dexter starts moving too—one stride, then another, like we’re tethered by some invisible thread neither of us dares cut.
For a second, the noise drops away. The hum of logistics, the panic of florals, Jules cursing under her breath—it all dulls beneath the rush of adrenaline in my ears.
We meet halfway, somewhere between the coral ribbons and the wilting yellow roses, like the chaos around us bent just enough to make room for this.
For him.
For me.
For whatever this is now, in the space between what we were and what we might be some day.
His eyes sweep over my face, almost reverent. As if he’s making sure I’m not a projection of his hope. His hands find my waist, warm and certain, and I don’t think. I move.
He doesn’t say a word.
Just pulls me in.
His arms wrap around my waist with a familiarity that shatters whatever composure I thought I had left.
One breath.
That’s all it takes for my hands to fist in the back of his shirt.
He lifts me off the ground. Then he spins me once—slow, like he’s afraid to let go too fast—and the world narrows down to this moment.
I hear myself laugh, surprised by the sound of it.
It escapes like something I hadn’t realized I was holding back.
When he lowers me back down, we don’t untangle. My hands stay where they are—clutching the fabric at his back—and his arms don’t drop either. His forehead rests lightly against mine, his breath warming the space between us.
“Hi,” he whispers, like it’s the only word he trusts himself to say.
My throat tightens. “Hi.”
“You weren’t kidding about the coral.” He smirks. “It’s like the sun and a fruit basket got married.”
“Don’t mock my suffering,” I say, though my voice barely holds. It trembles at the edges. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to land tomorrow. You said you’d call.”
“I was going to.” He moves closer. “But then I thought, why call when I could show up?”
There’s still noise around us—people calling out for candles, someone dragging in an ice sculpture—but none of it reaches me. Not really. Just him. Him and the ache in my lungs like I forgot how to breathe when he’s close.
“You’re supposed to be in Los Angeles,” I murmur. “Being mysterious. Writing songs. Hiding out.”
“I’ll do that later,” he says, leaning down. “Right now, I wanted to see you.”
Then he pulls me into him again. Arms around my waist, breath brushing against my cheek.
His lips find mine like they’ve been searching—like they’re simultaneously asking and answering the same question. It’s not a public kiss, not a safe one. It’s a private collision dressed in public space. It’s salt, and longing and everything we left unsaid across time zones and unread emails.
By the time he pulls back, I’m half leaning into him and half floating out of myself.
“I heard you needed a cellist,” he murmurs.
I blink at him. “You play cello now?”
“I could learn, but not that fast.” He grins. “But Kit does. She volunteered. Said she’d work for cake.”
“You bribed her with sugar?”
“She’s an honorary Wilder. Food is the love language.”
I glance around. “Do you have any idea what you just walked into?”
He studies the carnage around us—ribbons strewn like casualties, peonies shedding petals like tears, a bride’s scream echoing down the hall.
He grins. “Looks like your average war zone.”
“You’re lucky I missed you,” I mutter, pulling him into a side hug that’s more of a full-body sigh. “Otherwise, I’d kill you for surprising me.”
He leans down, mouth brushing my temple. “Missed you too, Aly. So fucking much.”
And for a second, the coral doesn’t seem so offensive. The disaster fades. And the fact that I’m surrounded by the unraveling of someone else’s love story doesn’t hurt so much—because mine just walked back in.