Chapter 212 Callum #2
A laugh broke free of her, soft and surprised, and something unspooled in her shoulders. The tension eased. The tremble steadied. And there it was: that smile. The one that always felt like a win. A smile that was earned.
“Auri,” I murmured, needing to say her name, needing to tether myself to something real before I floated clean off the ground.
She blinked up at me, took a shaky breath. “I was okay until I saw you.” Her voice cracked again. She looked down, then back up, her gaze misty again. “I didn’t expect it to hit me like this. Not the nerves. Just…” She inhaled through her nose. “You. The weight of us. It just… hit all at once.”
I said nothing. She needed me to listen right now, to understand her needs.
Her hands tightened on the bouquet, the stems creaking from the pressure.
She hesitated. “Cal… we’ve done all of this together.
Every stretch. Every crash. Every goddamn battle.
I don’t want to walk this last part alone.
” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t need grand or perfect.
I don’t need a moment to be remembered by strangers.
I just need you. Safe. Steady. Beside me. ”
In the background, Lucy’s voice tapered, but she continued strumming her guitar in a gentle, romantic melody.
Auri’s eyes were the softest they’d ever been. “I want to start this together. I want to walk into our marriage the same way we’ve endured everything else—together.”
And that was it. That was the moment the dam broke inside me. I pressed my lips together, hard, trying to force the burn in my eyes back down my throat. It didn’t work.
I reached up and brushed a knuckle down her cheek. “I’ve got you,” I told her, steady and certain. “Every step.”
I stepped beside her, close enough she could feel that if she stumbled, I’d catch her.
Then I saw the back of her dress. Or rather, I didn’t, because the dress didn’t have one.
Just a criminally scarce drape of silk that teased the curve of her spine, dipping low.
Scandalously, fucking blasphemously low.
It gave every single goddamn inch of her sun-kissed skin back to the wind, tan lines on full display like they were framed.
A masterpiece. My masterpiece.
My breath faltered.
Fuck.
I slid my hand across her lower back as we took our first step forward, just to steady her.
That was the lie I told myself when really, I needed to feel her.
My fingers had been deep inside her not thirty minutes ago, coaxing the most gorgeous sounds I’ve ever heard from the woman I would now get to call my wife, and I was already counting the minutes until I could have her again.
So yeah. I needed to touch her.
I craned my neck, heart in my throat, to see if her tattoo was visible.
Fais au paradis.
Black ink on golden skin. Barely visible, but there, between the twin dimples at the base of her spine, where the silk barely held its place.
Made in Heaven.
Then branded with devotion.
And now, married to me.
Seemed like a fair trade.
My lungs collapsed. My dick twitched. Pretty sure my soul tried to ghost itself into the Aegean.
The only thing keeping me tethered to this plane of existence was the bouquet in her hands—full and fragrant and deceptively innocent.
I whimpered. A real, honest-to-God whimper. And I swear to Christ, this dress had been engineered in a secret lab somewhere to dismantle me piece by piece. A backless silk weapon of mass destruction, designed with one singular objective: to erase all thoughts from my brain except hers.
It was working.
We took a single step forward together, but I couldn’t help myself.
I leaned in, voice low, reverent and more than a little unhinged. “You wore this on purpose, didn’t you?” She glanced at me, eyes glinting through a smile that could raise the dead. “You want me drooling at the altar.”
Her laugh, soft and giddy, slipped straight into my bloodstream like a hit of something sacred. But she just leaned in closer, breath warm against my ear, lashes dipping like she knew exactly what she was doing.
“No, baby,” she murmured, sweet as sin. “I want you drooling from the heart.” She paused as we resumed walking. “I want to give you butterflies and make your knees weak at the same time.”
My pulse flatlined. That was it. That was the kill shot. She could’ve said her vows right then and there and I would’ve gotten on both knees, ring or no ring. This woman. This fucking woman.
How the hell was I supposed to make it through the rest of this ceremony when she was out here assassinating me with poetry of fond memories and backless silk?
She turned just enough that I had to drop my arm, letting go of her bouquet with her right hand.
Her fingers grazed mine with a soft, searching touch.
I could hear the shaky breath she took beside me, the rustle of her veil catching the wind at the same time, like even the island knew to rise for her.
Her fingers brushed mine as we stepped forward in sync, and I didn’t grab them, I let her choose. Let her reach. Let her decide what she needed from me in this moment.
And when she finally laced her fingers with mine, I felt it in my fucking soul. Two hearts. Two names. One story. Ours.
We walked together, toward our forever.
But just as we started, chaos erupted in front of us, dragging us back down to Earth. Almost like this was our wedding and there were people present. Weird.
Marco audibly snorted into his palm, his shoulders already shaking with sobs. “Fuck’s sake,” he choked out. “You guys are ruining my tough guy reputation, and I hate you both for it.”
Ivy, on the other side of the altar, stood next to Lucy, who was perched on a white stool, still strumming the final chords. Ivy’s entire face was wet. Her mascara was gone. Her shoulders shook as she dramatically pointed one trembling finger at us.
“This is disgusting,” she sobbed. “You’re both revolting. Now hurry up and get married, you emotionally manipulative fairytale fucks.”
Kimi, the human glacier, actually blinked hard and turned his face to the sea. “Too much,” he muttered. “It’s too much.”
And Lucy, bless her goddamn heart, sang the next line with a crack in her voice so pure it felt like church.
For every scar / and every crash
That brought me here / to this path
As for Auri and me? We burst out laughing, hands squeezing as we picked up our pace. Of course they’d react like this. Of course our gremlins couldn’t let us get married without at least one emotional breakdown and a public declaration of love-fueled rage.
We reached the altar—bare stone, olive leaves at our feet, a wooden arch casting a soft shadow that looked like a halo right where we stood. Colette waited with her hands folded and a smile that said she knew. Knew what it meant to love through pain. Knew what it meant to stay.
Auri passed her bouquet to Ivy and then turned to face me, veil fluttering as she grabbed both of my hands with hers. Her flushed cheekbones glowed with sunlight. My heart—fuck, my whole chest—ached like a bruise.
My blushing bride.
Colette cleared her throat. “Bonsoir, mes amis.” Her voice was soft but trembling at the edges.
like she already knew she wouldn’t make it through without crying.
”Today isn’t a performance. This wedding is not for show, and it’s not for anyone else but these two individuals standing before us.
It’s a moment. One they have both earned. ”
I could barely hear her over the sound of my pulse.
My heart was trying to punch its way out of my chest. Auri’s fingers tightened in mine.
I stared at her, lashes still wet, pouty lips glossy and begging for me to seal this covenant with a kiss.
She looked like a fucking vision, and she looked at me like I was one too.
My thumb brushed over hers. Her pinky curled against my hand like a promise. We didn’t look away.
“I’ve seen vines come back after fire,” Colette continued.
“I’ve seen entire fields reborn after drought, roots deepening in silence until the earth could sustain them again.
And I’ve come to believe that the strongest things in this world don’t survive despite the pressure—they survive because of it. ”
I felt that one in my chest, deep and low. My eyes burned, but I didn’t bother blinking it away.
“They’ve already survived the things that try to hollow you out until you forget how to reach for softness. But they didn’t forget.”
Auri took a small step closer to me, and her familiar smell hit me. I closed my eyes and breathed it in, grounding myself in her.
“This isn’t the beginning,” Colette whispered.
“It’s the honoring of a thousand choices already made in the dark.
The quiet ones. The hard ones. The ones that mattered.
The ones that didn’t.” She paused, inhaling sharply.
“They’ve chosen each other over and over, without fanfare, without a script.
And they are here now—rooted, ready, and sacred. ”
I swallowed hard. Auri’s lips parted, eyes never leaving mine. It felt religious. Like time had fractured and given us this pause in the chaos, a moment no one else could enter. In a strange way, this felt more intimate than anything we’d done. More naked than skin.
“Aurélie. Callum.” Colette smiled through her tears. “You may now speak your vows.”
Aurélie let out a breath like it was the first one she’d taken in hours. Her hand trembled in mine.
I didn’t move.
She turned, slow and steady, and I felt the absence of her touch like a wound as she pulled her hand from mine.
Her fingers brushed my knuckles once before she moved away.
Ivy stepped forward without a word and offered the slip of paper with both hands.
Auri nodded in silent thanks and took it, carefully unfolding it like it was something sacred.
And to me? It was.