Chapter 2 - THE QUESTION THAT NEVER EXPIRED
“Are you sure about him?”
Three years ago, beneath that Boston restaurant awning, I had laughed.
Not because Ryan’s question was funny.
Because I was twenty-seven, in love, and already learning that when somebody pointed out something uncomfortable about Noah, my first instinct was to defend him.
“He’s stressed,” I said.
Ryan glanced through the glass doors.
Noah was still arguing with the valet.
The poor kid looked nineteen.
Maybe twenty.
Noah pointed toward the street, then toward the coatroom, as though the missing umbrella were evidence of a personal conspiracy.
Ryan looked back at me.
“I didn’t ask whether he was stressed.”
Rain drummed against the awning.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say.
Ryan shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark coat.
“You don’t have to answer me.”
“Then why ask?”
His gaze stayed on the wet street.
“Because everybody in my family has spent Noah’s entire life telling him whatever he wants to hear.”
“That sounds harsh.”
“It’s accurate.”
I folded my arms.
“You don’t know me well enough to question my relationship.”
“No.”
He nodded once.
“You’re right.”
That should have ended it.
Instead, Ryan added quietly, “But I know my brother.”
The valet eventually found Noah’s umbrella.
It had been in Noah’s own car.
Noah never apologized.
By the time we drove home, I had convinced myself Ryan was jealous of his older brother.
Three years later, sitting in my bridal suite while my fiancé posed for fake wedding photographs with my maid of honor, I finally understood.
Ryan had never been trying to win.
He had been trying to warn me.
A knock came five minutes after my phone call.
Jenna looked at me.
I nodded.
She opened the door.
Ryan stood outside wearing his black tuxedo trousers and white dress shirt, his jacket folded over one arm. His tie hung loose around his neck.
He had obviously dressed in a hurry.
Behind him stood nobody.
That mattered.
No entourage.
No family members.
No Noah demanding explanations.
Ryan had come alone because I had asked him to.
His eyes found mine.
Then moved to my bouquet.
My hands were still clenched around it.
“Kate.”
I released the flowers.
Red marks crossed my palms.
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
He stepped into the room.
Jenna quietly closed the door.
For several seconds, Ryan said nothing.
He didn’t tell me I looked beautiful.
He didn’t tell me everything would be okay.
He didn’t insult Noah.
He simply waited.
That was somehow what broke me.
Not enough to cry.
Not yet.
But my voice came out thinner than I wanted.
“I saw them.”
“I know.”
“He knew I was standing there.”
Ryan went still.
“What?”
“Noah saw me watching.”
I swallowed.
“And he told the photographer to keep taking pictures.”
Something flashed across Ryan’s face.
Anger.
Cold and immediate.
But controlled.
“Where’s Daniel?”
“The photographer?”
“Yes.”
“Still outside, I think.”
Ryan pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure those photographs don’t disappear.”
I stared at him.
“Why would they disappear?”
He met my eyes.
“Because my brother is about to realize they matter.”
That landed harder than I expected.
Ryan sent one message.
Then another.
His phone rang almost immediately.
“Daniel,” he said. “Save every image from the last thirty minutes to two separate drives. Don’t delete anything, regardless of what anybody asks you to do.”
He listened.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“No. Don’t send them to me. Keep the originals.”
Ryan ended the call.
Jenna stared at him.
“You think Noah would actually make the photographer delete them?”
Ryan looked at me.
“I think Noah has spent his entire life removing evidence of moments that made him look bad.”
I sat slowly on the edge of the sofa.
My wedding dress spread around me.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
Ryan’s expression softened.
“That depends on what you want.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then nobody gets to rush you.”
“The ceremony starts in less than two hours.”
“It can start in two years if you want.”
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped me.
Ryan almost smiled.
Almost.
Then his expression became serious again.
“You have options.”
“Such as?”
“You can leave.”
I looked toward the windows.
Cars were already arriving on the circular drive.
“You can stay here and make Noah come to you.”
I said nothing.
“Or you can walk into that ceremony and tell the truth.”
My pulse changed.
Ryan saw it.
“You don’t owe anybody a performance, Kate.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe the guests an explanation.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe my family protection.”
That one made me look at him.
Ryan held my gaze.
“Especially not my family.”
The door opened abruptly.
My mother rushed inside.
Helen Ellis was sixty-two, five foot four, and capable of making grown construction contractors reconsider their life choices with one raised eyebrow.
She took one look at my face.
Then at Ryan.
“What happened?”
I told her.
Not dramatically.
I didn’t need to.
When I finished, Mom sat beside me.
For ten seconds, she said nothing.
Then she took my hand.
“You are not marrying him.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question.
Ryan looked away, possibly hiding a reaction.
“Mom—”
“No.”
Her grip tightened.
“I have spent three years being polite about that man because you loved him. My contractual obligation to politeness just expired.”
Jenna made a sound that might have been a cough.
I looked down at my grandmother’s engagement ring on my right hand.
My actual wedding ring waited downstairs.
Hundreds of white roses had been installed.
Two hundred and twelve guests had traveled from seven states.
My company had closed its office for the day.
A string quartet was rehearsing in the garden.
“Noah is going to say it meant nothing.”
Ryan leaned against the dresser.
“Yes.”
“He’ll say Lucy started it.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll say I’m insecure.”
“Yes.”
“And his father will tell me not to throw away three years over one stupid moment.”
Ryan’s silence confirmed that too.
Something inside me hardened.
I stood.
My mother looked up.
“Kate?”
“I’m not leaving.”
Ryan straightened.
Mom’s eyes narrowed.
I walked toward the mirror.
For the first time since returning from the garden, I really looked at the woman staring back.
No smudged mascara.
No ruined hair.
No broken bride.
Not yet.
“If I leave,” I said, “Noah gets to tell everyone whatever version makes him look best.”
Ryan watched me in the mirror.
“So?”
“So I’m tired of being translated.”
Ryan’s eyes changed.
He remembered the steakhouse too.
I reached up and removed my veil.
Jenna gasped.
“Kate—”
“The veil was for the wedding.”
I folded it carefully.
“There isn’t going to be a wedding.”
My mother stood behind me.
“What are you going to do?”
I looked at Ryan.
“I’m going to walk down that aisle.”
His brows drew together.
“And then?”
“I’m going to give Noah one opportunity to tell the truth.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
I thought about Lucy laughing under my roses.
Noah’s hand tightening around her waist.
Make them look natural.
I reached for my bouquet.
“Then I will.”
A sharp knock hit the door.
Before anyone could answer, Noah’s voice came from the hallway.
“Kate?”
My entire body went still.
He knocked again.
“Baby, open the door.”
Ryan’s face became unreadable.
Noah tried the handle.
Locked.
“Kate, I know you saw us.”
My mother whispered, “Unbelievable.”
Noah continued.
“It wasn’t what it looked like.”
Ryan looked at me.
Not the door.
Me.
Waiting.
I walked across the room.
I did not unlock it.
“I’ll see you at the altar, Noah.”
Silence.
Then a nervous laugh.
“Okay. Good. We’ll talk there.”
“No.”
I rested my hand against the door.
“You’ll talk.”
His voice changed slightly.
“What does that mean?”
I closed my eyes.
“It means you have one chance left to decide what kind of man two hundred people remember you as.”
Noah stopped laughing.
“Kate.”
I stepped away.
“Four o’clock.”
His footsteps remained outside for several seconds.
Then disappeared.
Ryan watched the door.
“He’s going to call Dad.”
“I know.”
“He’ll try to control the room before you arrive.”
“I know.”
“He may send Lucy away.”
That hurt more than I wanted it to.
But I nodded.
“I know.”
Ryan pushed away from the dresser.
“Then I’ll make sure he doesn’t control everything.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m the best man.”
For the first time that afternoon, something almost dangerous appeared in Ryan Harper’s expression.
“And if my brother intends to lie at his own altar, he’s going to have to do it while I’m standing three feet away.”
Forty minutes later, the first guests began taking their seats.
At three fifty-seven, the string quartet started playing.
At three fifty-nine, my mother kissed my cheek.
At four o’clock, the garden doors opened.
May you like
And somewhere beyond them, beneath my roses, Noah Harper was waiting to discover that the woman walking toward him was not the same woman he had expected to marry.
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