“I know it may seem inappropriate to break this out the day before our wedding, but I’ve been thinking about something, and I wanted to share it with you.” She flipped open the heavy embossed cover to a photo of her dressed for her wedding. Her hair was pulled back in an elaborate style that had taken hours to get just right. Her makeup had been professionally done and every detail seen to by a wedding planner with meticulous attention to detail.

“Wow,” Owen said, gazing at the photo. “You look incredible. So beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Her throat tightened. “I wanted you to see this because that’s not me. That’s not the real me. The real me is the one you will see tomorrow. Far less perfect and far less polished, but all me.”

“That’s the only you I want, Laura.”

“I know, and that’s why there’s no hair stylist or makeup artist or wedding planner this time around. There’s only you and me and Holden.”

“Which is all we need.”

“Last time, with Justin, all of this felt necessary. I don’t feel that way with you, and I wanted you to know how comforting it is that I can be completely myself with you—no pretense, no artifice, no charade. Just me.”

“There’s nothing you could give me that would mean more to me than that, Laura.” He cupped her cheek and ran his thumb over her bottom lip.

His tenderness brought tears to her eyes.

“Could I see the rest of the pictures?”

“I didn’t intend to show you the rest. I just wanted you to see that one.”

“I’d like to see the others if that’s okay.”

She hesitated, but only for a moment, before she handed the album over to him. What did it matter now? He knew she didn’t love Justin anymore—if she ever had to begin with. He knew she’d never loved Justin the way she loved him, and that was all that mattered to either of them.

Owen flipped through the pages, studying each photo with intense concentration. The wedding had been glamorous and elegant and classy—all the things she’d once thought mattered so much. Until her elegant classy marriage went up in flames a month after the “I do’s.”

“You’re spectacularly beautiful,” he said after a long period of silence. “I still can’t believe you picked me to spend the rest of your life with.”

“That day,” Laura said haltingly, “I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but I knew it was wrong.”

“I can see that in some of the pictures.” He pointed to a photo of her with Justin. “You’re glowing and radiant, but I still see the sadness in your eyes.”