3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
~DECLAN~
The plan is simple.
Show up. Stand up. And shut the hell up.
At least until I can get on a plane back to Manhattan with my dignity intact and my company's future secured.
The Tulum property deal—the one that’s supposed to transform Shaw Entertainment Group from a nightlife operation with a complicated reputation into a legitimate hospitality company with a clean one—is currently sitting in a holding pattern I do not love.
The seller is stalling. There is a competing offer I haven't fully traced. And I’ve spent the last three days in Mexico attending to wedding logistics when I should have been on a beachfront site visit I scheduled for Friday morning, which became a thirty-minute drive-by and a phone call instead of how you close a nine-figure deal.
The deal needs me back in Manhattan.
Manhattan needs me on a plane.
The plane needs me through this wedding—a wedding that has been a goddamned masterclass in barely controlled mayhem.
The bride’s parents missed their original flight from Chicago—weather, then a mechanical delay, then a second mechanical delay that had Jessica on the phone at two A.M. rerouting them through Houston.
The florist delivered peonies instead of poppies and had to drive back to Playa del Carmen this morning. One of the groomsmen—not broken-nose Todd, but another—got food poisoning at the welcome dinner.
And the original officiant? That went about as well as the others.
Because the man Jessica coordinated with for six months called yesterday to cancel.
Hence the replacement. Hence the man currently standing at the front of this chapel with a laminated license and sweaty palms.
And he’s not the only one sweating.
My brother Quinn stands to my left, hands unsteady as he reaches for the boutonnière I've just handed him.
He pins it crooked. I fix it without asking.
Because that's what I do.
Fix him. Fix our company. Fix situations.
"Thanks," he mumbles, wiping his hands.
"Mm."
"You okay? You look—"
"Fine."
"—like you're planning something."
"I'm always planning something."
He opens his mouth, and I give him the look, the one that has ended conversations since he was nine and I was twenty-three and already running things he didn't need to know about.
To my right, Wyeth nudges me just as the processional music begins.
The guests settle, slipping into their floral-decorated seats. The crowd shifts and squeezes in the intimate chapel—just as the bridemaid’s appear in the doorway.
And third in line is Darcy Madison—or, as I like to think of her, Darth Vader in a dress.
Poured into a silky rose-gold number that falls to the floor, she is nothing short of stunning.
Her dark hair is swept over one bare shoulder, her pink lips pouty, dark eyes smoky enough to start a wildfire right where I stand.
She grips a bouquet of white flowers and smiles at the people in the crowd.
The smile disappears the second her hazel eyes meet mine.
She doesn't look away.
And neither do I.
She keeps walking, skin flushed—heat, nerves, or something else—and the air moves with her, that warm, clean scent from last night returning with a vengeance. I feel it in my chest, my jaw, the space behind my ribs.
Taking position across the aisle, she finally looks away.
I don't.
I'm still looking when Wyeth leans in, voice barely audible.
“You look any harder at that woman, and your eyeballs are going to pop out of their sockets,” he hisses.
“I’m observing,” I correct.
“You’re staring. At Jessica's maid of honor.”
"I'm the best man. It's my job to observe the wedding party."
“For forty-five consecutive seconds?”
I don't answer, because Wyeth is right, and Jessica is walking down the aisle now and Quinn’s eyes are sweating.
I hand my younger brother my pocket square and he takes it without looking at me because he only has eyes for his bride, which is how this is supposed to work.
The officiant steps forward.
He's new—the replacement who showed up yesterday after the original canceled due to a family emergency, the kind of man who takes his job seriously and his timeline more seriously.
"Dearly beloved," he begins, and I settle into the best-man stance—feet shoulder-width, hands clasped, eyes forward—the picture of someone who is absolutely paying attention to this ceremony and absolutely not thinking about rose-gold silk or hazel eyes or the specific way Darcy Madison says my name when she's annoyed.
I last ninety seconds before Quinn's phone buzzes.
The sound is a vibration against his jacket, but I'm standing close enough to hear it. I know the ringtone. He assigned it to Jessica's parents after the third flight delay turned this weekend into a logistical nightmare.
Pulling out the phone, he looks at the screen, then me.
"It's Linda," he whispers. "They're—the connection in Houston—I need to—"
"Go," I say.
"But the—"
"I'll handle it. Go."
He doesn't argue. My brother has spent thirty-three years learning when I'm making a suggestion and when I'm giving an order, and this is the second.
He leans over, whispers to his patient bride, then slips out the side door to the garden, Jessica following behind.
The chapel goes quiet.
Eighty guests now look at the front of the chapel where the bride and groom were supposed to be standing and instead see two other Shaw brothers, two bridesmaids, one maid of honor, and one officiant checking his watch because his timeline just took a hit.
So, I do what I do.
I assess, and decide.
Quinn will be back in two minutes, maybe three if the bride’s mother Linda is crying, which she probably is because Linda has been crying on and off since Thursday.
All I need to do is hold this room for one hundred and eighty seconds and make it look intentional.
I step forward.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I say, voice carrying across the chapel, "we're experiencing a brief delay. Nothing to be concerned about. The bride and groom will return momentarily."
If only “momentarily” weren’t actually a lie.
Because twenty minutes later, Quinn and Jessica still aren’t back.
Murmurs and a few confused looks pass through the room. Someone in the third row starts to stand.
This is not holding.
We need a visual to keep the guests preoccupied—something that looks like the ceremony is proceeding.
I look at the bridesmaids.
Blonde, flirty Kayla is smiling, clearly assuming this is part of some plan. Bria is sneaking glances at her phone.
And Darcy is standing there, watching me, eyes flicking between me and the crowd.
Suddenly, I have an idea—something phenomenally stupid.
I cross the aisle and offer her my arm.
She blinks. “What are you doing?”
“Just trust me," I say quietly.
Her eyes narrow. "That's a terrible opening line."
"I have a plan."
"Your plans tend to involve fisticuffs and black eyes, from what I can tell."
“Fair. But not this one. This one involves you standing next to me for two minutes while I pretend we're doing a rehearsal."
"A rehearsal?"
"The guests will think it's charming."
"The guests will think we're insane."
"Then we'll be charmingly insane together." I keep my arm extended. "Two minutes. When Quinn comes back, the real ceremony happens, and you can go back to pretending you don't give two shits about me."
She looks at my arm. “I wouldn’t have to pretend.”
But she glances at the guests—people starting to shift—and then takes my arm.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she hisses.
I pull her close. “Always.”
With two people in place in front of the officiant, the guests settle immediately. A few people smile. Someone in the back—one of Quinn's college friends—starts clapping, creating a small ripple of applause I neither expected nor wanted.
We stand at the front of the chapel.
The officiant watches us with an expression I can't quite read—confusion or the beginning of understanding. He nods, opens his folder, and continues.
"This is the part where you tell him we're waiting for Quinn," Darcy murmurs, smiling at the guests.
"I'm getting to it."
“Um, is there any way to get to it faster?”
I turn to the officiant. "We're holding for—"
"Dearly beloved," he says in heavily accented Spanish, "—we are gathered here today—"
"Wait," I say.
He does not wait.
"—to join together—"
Darcy's hand tightens on my arm. "Declan."
"I'm handling it—"
"Handle it faster—"
"—in the bonds of matrimony—"
The officiant continues, seemingly uninterested in interrupting the script he’s started. The guests watch with warm attention. The photographer materializes and begins taking photos. The musicians play softly in the background.
“What is he saying?” Darcy hisses. “I can’t understand it through his accent.”
My brain is too busy calculating the exact social cost of stopping this ceremony in front of eighty people versus the legal cost of not stopping it.
My body is too busy noticing Darcy smells even better at this distance—soft, honeyed, smelling of spring and roses and late night bad decisions.
I can’t seem to get my shit together.
"—take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife—"
I look at the officiant and realize he’s not stopping.
I look at the door and realize Quinn is not coming through it.
"The rings?" the officiant asks, a question delivered as a statement.
The rings are in my pocket. I am the best man. This is where the rings go.
My hand moves before my brain authorizes it, and Darcy makes a sound that is not a word as I produce the platinum bands.
The officiant takes them, seemingly satisfied his timeline is back on track.
Darcy's nails dig into my arm through my jacket. "What are you doing?"
"Buying time."
"By giving him the rings?"
“A delaying tactic.”
“A delaying tactic?”
My jaw clenches. “Do you have a better idea?”
The brusque question makes Darcy’s ears turn red, and soon we are bickering under our breaths.
“—a better idea. I can’t believe you just asked—“
“—I know you’re allergic to listening, but at the risk of invoking hives—“
“—arrogant, self-absorbed, bossy son-of-a—“
The officiant holds up the rings. "Do you," he flips a page, reading, "Declan Shaw, take this woman—"
“Yes,” I bark at the man holding the ceremony. “Just get on with it.”
Darcy’s eyes widen. “‘Just get on with it’? Why am I not surprised that wedding tradition means nothing to—“
But my brain is already zoning out as Darcy keeps hiss-yelling at me and the officiant keeps reciting wedding lines in broken English.
Because wait—Declan Shaw?
Did he actually just say Declan Shaw?
Mr. Won’t-Pump-The-Brakes actually has my name.
“—Darcella Maria Madison—"
Her full name. He has her full name, which means he has the marriage registry. Which means this is not a rehearsal bit. This is the actual ceremony and we are in it and I have just said "Yes" and—
"—take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband—"
My pulse pounds. "Darcy—"
She's still going, words tumbling out in a furious whisper. "—typical alpha male nonsense, steamrolling over everything like you own the—"
“For fuck’s sake—" I wipe a hand across my face. “If you’d just stop a second and—“
"—probably think this is charming, the whole 'I'll handle it' routine—"
The officiant’s voice rises, the accent thick as syrup.
“For richer or poorer—"
"In sickness and in health—"
"To love and to cherish—"
"Until death do you part?"
I reach for Darcy, wrap a hand around her waist, and tug her toward me. “Something is not right. Don’t—"
"—and another thing,” she scoffs, hazel eyes blazing, “you can't just decide—"
"Do you?" the officiant interrupts, looking at her expectantly.
"Do I what?" she snaps, turning her glare from me to him.
"Take this man—"
“Yes. I—Wait. What?"
“Then by the power vested in me by the region of Quintana Roo," the officiant announces, booming with ceremonial authority, "pronounce you husband and wife."
The guests applaud. Someone in the back whoops. The photographer's camera clicks rapid-fire.
Darcy looks at me—shock, fury, and disbelief morphing her pretty face into a mask of outrage.
“You may kiss the bride," the officiant says, with a flourish.
And that's when it hits me.
We're married. Actually married. In Mexico.
Because I said "Yes" to shut him up and she said "Yes" while yelling at me.
And now the maid of honor at my brother’s wedding is still staring at me, waiting for me to fix this, to undo it, to do something that makes this not real.
And for once in my long, overworked life…
I have absolutely no fucking plan to fix or save the situation.