It felt like no time had passed—there never seemed to be enough when setting these things up—before the wedding party began to arrive. The Felix sisters arrived first, bridesmaids and groomsmen and immediate families. A fleet of makeup artists and hairdressers were already waiting in the bridal suite, and the bartender in the groom’s quarters was stocked up and ready to pour.

Other than escorting them to their suites, I was too busy with final preparations to even notice Addison’s hovering or Kash’s absence or anything beyond the checklist occupying the majority of space in my brain.

I stood at the back of the atrium room where the ceremony would take place, the city stretching up in the night around me as I enjoyed the moment of relative calm before the guests began to arrive. Interns were still fooling with the arrangements at the ends of the rows of chairs, and a crew member ran final tests with the microphones wired into the arbor. The wedding was about to go off, and the only hitch would happen at the end of this aisle.

“Lila …”

A flash of recognition, then disappointment as I turned to find Brock standing behind me.

His was not the male voice I wanted to hear.

My shoulders drew back, chin leveling. I started to turn away. “I’m sorry. I’m very busy—”

“Hang on. Please.”

There was something about the way he’d said the word, a sincerity so unlike him that I paused, uncertain what to do.

He took the window, saying softly, “I hate this, Lila. All of it.”

“So do I, but I don’t suspect for the same reasons,” I answered at equal decibel.

Standing there with him, his face touched with regret and sadness, something in me softened. It was that space in my heart he used to occupy, the one I’d bricked over to pretend it had never existed. And for the first time since I’d walked away, I remembered what it was like to know him.

His smile was sheepish. Boyish. “I’ve been watching you, you know.”

“I do, and it’s creepy,” I teased.

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t command it. You always did. I just keep wondering when I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“How much I loved you.”

The words were a bucket of ice water down my back. “Brock, I—”

“Just … just let me say this. Please.”

There it was again, that earnest word from a liar’s lips. Only I didn’t think he was false. Not this time.

“I’ve been watching you, trying to figure out what’s different. Something about the way you walk. A softness to you that wasn’t there before. But I’ve realized it’s worse than all that. I think it was there all along, but I didn’t see it. And I’ve been trying to reconcile just how I can live with that.”