Chapter Thirty-Six #2
Around us, guests danced beneath the lights.
Richard Harrington was attempting a move that might once have been popular back in the forties.
Elaine was laughing so hard she had one hand pressed to her stomach.
Even Margaret appeared to have surrendered to the evening, champagne in hand and judgement temporarily suspended.
A warm sense of satisfaction settled over me.
“We did it,” I said softly.
Noah’s gaze shifted from the reception back to me.
The noise around us seemed to soften.
“We did.”
The words were simple, but something in the way he said them made my pulse stumble.
Then, before I could blink, he held out his hand.
“Dance with me.”
I stared at him.
“You dance?”
“Never.”
A laugh escaped me.
His smile deepened, “Come on, Holly.”
The way he said my name should not have affected me nearly as much as it did.
Before common sense could intervene, I slipped my hand into his.
The band had moved into a slower song by the time we reached the edge of the dance floor. Noah’s hand settled lightly against my waist, and suddenly I became very aware of his nearness.
The stage lights cast a warm glow across the marquee, catching in the greenery overhead and reflecting in the glasses scattered across nearby tables. Around us, conversations rose and fell, laughter spilling between songs, but it all felt slightly distant.
My attention kept returning to the man standing in front of me. The loosened tie. The softness that had replaced the tension I’d grown so used to seeing in his expression.
He seemed genuinely happy.
The realisation settled over me with surprising force.
He simply watched me, his expression shifting with something contemplative. Then he drew me a fraction closer until the rest of the reception seemed to disappear altogether.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said gently. “Not just for the wedding. Although it would have collapsed without you.” His voice dropped low. “But for the last few days. For… everything.”
The honesty in his eyes robbed me of every sensible response I’d prepared, so I did what any self-respecting wedding planner with too many feelings would do, I reached for the nearest professional shield.
“It’s all in a day’s work for a wedding planner,” I said lightly, lifting one shoulder in what I hoped passed as breezy confidence rather than heart-palpitating panic.
His mouth curved, not quite a smile, not quite disbelief, something else. “Holly,” he said as we swayed, “nothing about what you did this week was normal wedding planner territory.”
I felt heat creep up the back of my neck. “You’d be surprised,” I muttered. “You should see what happens when two cousins fight over a grazing table.”
That earned a loud laugh from him, a sound that wrapped around me like a hug I wasn’t prepared for.
My stomach dipped. I looked down, letting the weight of the moment settle.
“It wasn’t nothing,” he continued. “And I don’t want you thinking I kissed you because everything was going wrong.”
The world tilted slightly.
I lifted my eyes.
“You didn’t?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” he said. “It happened because I’d been wanting you ever since that first day I met you.”
Relief and hope unfurled beneath my ribs.
Still, a small part of me hesitated. “I didn’t know if it still meant anything… after today. After everything settled.”
He shook his head gently. “It does. More, actually.”
Over Noah’s shoulder, I spotted Cleo near the bar.
Her eyes widened.
She looked from Noah to me and back again before turning so abruptly she nearly collided with a waiter balancing a tray of champagne flutes.
I bit back a smile.
Noah followed my gaze.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
When he glanced back at me, something had shifted in his expression.
“Walk with me?” he asked softly.
I looked over beyond the glow of the reception lights, the vineyard stretching into darkness beneath a sky scattered with stars.
“Okay,” I said.
We drifted away from the marquee almost without deciding to, our steps naturally falling into the same rhythm. The music, the laughter, the clinking glasses, everything disappeared behind us until it was nothing more than a distant hum, like the party existed in a different time zone.
The moon hung low and bright above the vines, silvering the edges of everything, the rows, the gum trees, the grass, the marquee in the distance. The vineyard stretched out in long, steady lines, each row reaching into the dark like a story still being written.
We walked slowly, neither of us speaking. But it wasn’t awkward. It didn’t even feel like silence, not really. It was two people letting the noise fall away long enough to notice what was left.
At the edge of a row, he slowed and came to a stop.
The air smelled like late-summer fruit, a sweetness tucked into the breeze.
His hands slipped into his pockets, his posture loosening as though the soil itself was exhaling through him. “This,” he said, eyes still on the vines, “is the first time today I’ve felt like the ground isn’t moving under my feet.”
The admission melted something in me. He’d spent days carrying anxiety like it was stitched into his spine, retreating into himself, bristling at the smallest things, moving through the world like everything was just a little too loud.
“It’s been a big week,” I said gently.
“It has.” He paused, with a faint rueful grin. “I haven’t exactly been… easy, these last few days.”
My lips curved. “You’ve had a lot on your shoulders.”
He turned to me then, the night reflected in his eyes, calmer now, steadier. “Even when I felt all that weight… there was you.”
My heart gave a traitorous little lurch. I hadn't realised how badly I needed to hear that until he said it.
He faced me fully then, reaching out to brush a stray curl behind my ear. His fingers lingered, the touch barely a whisper but somehow enough to pull my heart upward into my throat.
“Holly,” he said, his voice low and almost nervous. “I want to see where this goes. You and me. Not rushed. Not forced. Just… us.”
My pulse fluttered with a mixture of relief and something that felt dangerously like happiness. “I want that too,” I said gently.
A small, breathless sound broke from his chest. He lifted his hand again, cupping my cheek this time, his thumb brushing just beneath my cheekbone. It was the gentlest touch I’d ever known, full of promise rather than urgency.
He leaned in slowly, giving me every moment to step away. I didn’t. When his lips met mine, the kiss was tender and certain, the kind that seemed to gather the whole week into a single, perfect moment.
I slid my hands lightly around his waist, feeling the solidness of him, the way he leaned into me before deepening the kiss by the smallest degree. Nothing rushed. Nothing overwhelming.
Just a sense of coming home.
When we finally drew apart, we stayed close, our foreheads almost touching, our breaths mingling in the space between us.
“What happens now?” I asked, my voice carrying the faintest tremor of hope.
Noah threaded his fingers through mine. “Now we take it slow. But we take it.”
We walked back towards the reception hand in hand, the night settling gently around us.
The marquee glowed in the distance, the sounds of the party drifting like lazy smoke across the lawn.
For the first time all week, the sight didn’t bring a rush of responsibilities or mental checklists. It simply looked beautiful.
As we stepped beneath the lights once more, the laughter and music wrapped around us warm and familiar.
The wedding was over.
And somehow, impossibly…
something else had begun.