Chapter 24
Let’s Change Everything
Tyler
Six months ago, I’d have laughed at the idea of losing my mind over a woman and a wheel of Brie.
If anyone had actually told me someone could undo me like this, I’d have called them dramatic. And yet, here I am, slumped against a bush like some rejected extra from a period drama, jacket discarded, tie undone, feeling defeated.
This is not how I pictured tonight ending.
Six months ago, she was just a girl at a party. Now she’s the only thing I can think about.
My mind drifts back, unhelpfully, to that night.
She’d been drunk, not messy, just loose and warm and laughing at everything.
I hadn’t been laughing.
I’d been paying attention. Trying not to do it too obviously.
I don’t even remember how we started talking, or why we ended up alone in that room.
But I remember her.
She was wearing a short skirt that kept riding up, taunting me with every shift of her legs. At one point, before I could stop myself, I reached over and gently tugged it back down.
That was the first time I touched her.
She stilled, just for a beat, and then leaned her head against my shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. The smallest sound left her, a soft sigh that felt like the weight of the world had just slid off her chest.
And I remember exactly what she said.
Every word.
Like my brain branded it somewhere permanent.
“I feel like I’m always too much or not enough. There’s never a middle ground. And people say I’m funny, but I think that’s just… code for…”
She never finished her thought but instead looked up at me, her knowing eyes pinning me in place and whispered the line that’s been haunting me ever since:
“You know, your voice sounds like expensive candlelight. I bet you’d smile if someone gave you a reason. Do you believe in reincarnation? Because I’m pretty sure we’ve done this before.”
Our eyes held for too long, just teetering on the edge of something else. Something that could have changed everything.
I suppose it did.
I forced myself to look away before I did something reckless.
And now here I am.
Laughing softly, bitterly, at the fact that somehow, this woman has completely derailed me. Of all the women in the world, I fall for the one in rollers, actual grandma rollers.
Man, that was hilarious.
Then there was the salted fish incident, nothing like being smacked in the crotch with a canapé to really get sparks flying.
And the sarcastic commentary. And the cheese. Always the cheese.
And then…
Yeah.
The boob slip.
My groan turns into something that might be a prayer. Her breasts, Jesus. Didn’t quite expect that one, but it most definitely wasn’t unpleasant.
That mouth.
Soft. Pink. A little bitten.
The way she looked at me right before we kissed, like she was daring me to do it. The little gasp she made when I did. The way her breath hitched, right before I completely lost the ability to think about anything but her.
I scrub both hands down my face and sit forward, elbows on my knees, head between my legs like I can fold myself in half and stop wanting her.
Because I do. Want her.
Every sarcastic, infuriating, too-honest part of her.
And right now, I have no idea if she wants me back.
Hayley
Fuck a duck, where is he?
I’ve scoured every corner of the garden, the steps, the fountain, even behind the topiary swans, and still no Tyler.
And then I see it.
The maze looms ahead, lantern-lit and ominous, like a glowing metaphor for my questionable decision making.
This could go either way.
I stare into the hedge labyrinth like it’s the emotional equivalent of scaling Kilimanjaro in heels. For all I know, Tyler could be anywhere, the lake, the rose garden, halfway to Dover by now.
But my gut says he’s here.
And if I don’t go in, if I don’t at least try, I’ll regret it.
Forever.
So, I do the only logical thing.
I hitch my skirt, say a quick prayer to whichever saint handles ill-advised romantic gestures, and step inside.
Left. Left again. Dead end. Backtrack. Right. No, wait…other right.
The lanterns flicker above me as I weave through, my dress snagging on every opportunistic twig in Kent.
I turn another corner and come face-to-face with a suspiciously familiar patch of lumpy green.
“Fucking Derek,” I mutter. “Met your cousin…useless bastard too.”
I keep moving.
The path curves again. The sounds of the party are gone now, just the crunch of gravel under my shoes and the thud of my pulse in my ears.
And then, finally, the clearing.
The centre.
Empty.
My stomach sinks.
For a second, I think I’ve imagined the whole thing, not just this mad chase, but the entire weekend.
The flirting. The garden. The kiss…
Him.
Me.
Us.
Maybe it was all just in my head.
But then I see it.
A jacket.
Black, perfectly cut, discarded on the floor. My breath catches.
He’s here.
My earl.
Head in his hands, shoulders hunched like he’s carrying the whole damn castle on them.
His tie’s half-loosened, hair a beautiful kind of disaster.
When his eyes find mine, something in him shifts, like he’s convinced himself I’m not coming, and seeing me unravels him just enough to let the hope through.
A faint smile ghosts across his mouth. “Should I brace for a dramatic monologue?”
Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “You look like you got into a fistfight with Derek and lost.”
One eyebrow lifts, but he doesn’t move.
I cross to him, awkwardly tucking my skirt under me as he wordlessly offers a hand to help me sit on the ground beside him.
“I went looking for you,” he says quietly. “Someone said you were with Peacock and…”
“Were you jealous, Mr. Ashford?”
His mouth twitches. “Let’s just say, when the bridesmaids start giggling about someone’s codpiece, a man gets concerned.”
That cracks a grin out of me despite everything. “Relax. It was just a pep talk. Not a rose-garden rendezvous.”
He exhales, finally meeting my gaze properly, like he’s weighing whether to believe me, and whether he’s even allowed to.
“I heard you had a run-in with Helen?”
His expression doesn’t flicker, but his jaw tightens. “Let me guess, Karl?”
“Karl,” I confirm.
I glance down, fiddling with the hem of my dress. “You do realise how wildly cliché this is, right? The best man falling for the maid of honour?”
He grins, slow and devastating. “Technically… you fell for me. Remember? Boob-gate?”
I groan, covering my face. “God. I knew you saw my boob.”
He shrugs, unapologetic. “Hard to miss, babe.”
Babe.
That stupid little word hits me like a defibrillator to the chest.
I laugh, helpless, heart full, but inside, I am not okay.
The quiet stretches, but it’s different now. Not awkward. Just… poised. Like something’s about to tip.
“Karl told me what you said to Helen…specifically,” I blurt before I can lose my nerve.
“Specifically? What was that then?”
“You…err…you basically declared your love for me.”
He exhales through his nose, almost a laugh but not quite. “I didn’t mean for anyone else to hear that.”
“But you said it.”
He looks at me like it costs him something. “Yeah. I said it.”
My pulse trips. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, Tyler. Why me? You could have anyone here, Helen, half the bridesmaids, probably Peacock if you asked nicely, so why me?”
He turns fully towards me now, elbows braced on his knees, like he can’t quite sit still under the question.
“Because you changed everything, Hayley.”
His voice is quiet, but it thuds through me like a drum.
“The night I met you, the one you don’t even remember, you looked at me and saw me.
Really saw me. You made me laugh, you made me think, and your eyes…
” He shakes his head, like even now he can’t quite believe it.
“Your eyes locked on mine, and I just knew nothing was going to be the same after that.”
He exhales, steady and low.
“I had to see you again. I left Helen because she never made me feel even one percent of what I felt with you that night. And this weekend…” A huff of a laugh escapes him.
“This weekend has been chaos. A full-on Fawlty Towers sketch. But even with the disasters, the costumes, the hedges, even sleeping with you at night, albeit with a wall between us…” His voice softens until it’s almost fragile.
“Being near you has been the only thing that’s felt real.
I had to know if that night was something. And now I do.”
The words hit like a punch and a balm all at once.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Just feel.
“You don’t get to say things like that and expect me not to…”
He reaches out, brushing a stray leaf from my hair. His fingers linger just long enough to fry my already overloaded brain.
“Not to what?” he asks, quiet now, like he already knows the answer.
I swallow hard. “Not to…”
I shift closer, heart hammering.
“Don’t move,” he murmurs, not as an order, but as a plea. Like the universe might shatter if I do.
“This feels like the part in the movie where everything changes.”
His smile curves, slow and unguarded, something raw flickering in his eyes. “Then let’s change everything.”
His mouth is on mine before I can think.
This time, it’s not sweet.
It’s not polite.
It’s hungry.
His lips crash onto mine, all urgency and demand, and I give back just as hard, gripping his lapels and yanking him closer until we’re a tangle of teeth and breath and need.
We do, in fact, topple over, graceless, gasping, landing in a tangle of limbs on the gravel. He laughs against my mouth, low and shocked, before kissing me harder, deeper this time, devouring like he can’t decide whether to worship me or ruin me.
Gravel digs into my spine, my skirt is bunched indecently high up my back, and I don’t even care.
He drags his mouth down my jaw, teeth scraping just enough to make my pulse stutter, before finding my mouth again like he can’t stay away.
I hook a leg over his hip without thinking, pulling him flush against me, the world narrowing to nothing but heat and breath and the sound he makes, low and rough, like I’m undoing him completely.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I swear Derek the Hedge is blushing.
I forget the castle. The wedding. My own name.
There’s just him, everywhere, and me, clinging on like I have no intention of letting go.
When we finally break apart, breathless, his forehead rests against mine. Neither of us moves.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “That was some kiss, milady.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. My eyes are still shut, like opening them might shatter this moment.
“Hayley,” he murmurs, softer now, coaxing.
“Yes, Tyler?”
“Eyes open.”