Once again she heard the tone of light indifference, the one he always used when it was safer and smarter not to acknowledge that it mattered, not to admit the pain.
Neely lifted her gaze and met his again. “His loss,” she said.
Sebastian snorted.
But Neely wouldn’t dismiss it. “He’s a fool,” she said as she kissed him again, loving him for the man he’d become without a father’s love. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
It was only the truth.
IT WAS a perfect day for a wedding.
A storybook sort of day, warm but not sweltering, breezy but not gusting. And there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which, for the Pacific Northwest, was nothing short of amazing.
And one look told Neely that Vangie was going to be a beautiful bride. She was a pretty girl to begin with, but today, with her honey colored hair pulled up into a sophisticated knot, her long white dress elegant and simple and her eyes absolutely sparkling, she looked exquisite and every bit the radiantly happy bride she was.
But she wasn’t only happy, she was generous and kind.
Neely had been so proud of her this morning while she was getting ready and Sebastian came in. Despite her mother and stepmothers wringing their hands and trying to make her stay right where she was so they could get her train arranged just so, Vangie had dashed across the room to throw her arms around her brother.
“Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t say it the other day, but I should have. Thank you for trying…for trying to talk to Daddy and—” she stepped back and, still clasping his hands in hers, looked up at him with a tremulous smile “—for everything. You are the best.”
He was the best. Neely knew that. And she loved him for the smile he had managed for Vangie.
“Anything I can do for you,” he’d said. And Neely knew—they all knew—it was nothing more than the truth. Even though he hadn’t been able to produce their father, he’d done everything else.
While he’d obviously been the one his sister had turned to for months, this week it became crystal clear that he was the one the whole family turned to as well.
He was always willing to talk to them and listen to them—whether it was about Vangie’s silver and rose mint boxes or which medical schools Milos should apply to. He listened to his stepmother Gina fret about his brother Gabriel’s umpteen girlfriends and he spent a morning taking his youngest sister to the office and to a couple of his job sites so she could learn what being an architect entailed.
He managed to defuse half a dozen wedding-related crises as well. He was the one who stepped in and arranged for the limo when the one Garrett had contacted had a conflict. He was the one who saw to it that all his stepmothers had corsages when nobody else had. This morning he was the one who tied all his brothers’ ties.
And right after they got out of the car, he’d said to Neely, “Stand still.” And he used masking tape to go over her dress and make sure there was no lingering rabbit or kitten or dog hair on Neely’s dress.
“A master of details,” she’d teased him, grinning.
He’d smiled that crooked half smile of his and said, “Someone’s got to do it.”
Neely understood now that that someone was always Sebastian.
And now she sat with the wedding guests in rows of white chairs on the lawn overlooking the sound, waiting to watch him do yet another task—this one a task he had every right to—walking his sister down the aisle and giving her to her groom.
She hoped he would smile when he did so. He had the most beautiful smile. She wasn’t treated to it often. But he’d smiled at her the night they’d made love. He’d smiled that smile the next morning when he’d awakened with his arms around her.
And she dared to hope that she would see that same amazing smile someday soon at their wedding when he watched her walk down an aisle toward him.
Still, it was too soon to think about that.
The string quintet—one of the few things Sebastian had not had a hand in arranging—began at that moment to play the processional. Neely stood and turned with everyone else to watch as the bridesmaids proceeded in measured steps across the grass to where a handsome nervous Garrett and his grinning best man waited with the minister.
Little Sarah came first, her head high, her eyes straight ahead, her expression solemn, but every now and then Neely saw a flicker of a smile very like Sebastian’s on her face. Then came Jenna, her ash-blonde hair a striking contrast to the rest of the girls. The triplets—Ariadne, Alexa and Anastasia—followed. Neely still had no idea which was which, but Sebastian never seemed to have trouble telling them apart.
“Not now I don’t,” he’d said when she’d marveled at his ability. “But when they were little it was like three little indistinguishable dark-haired devils. Seriously scary.”
There was a pause in the music after the last of the triplets had reached the halfway mark of the procession, and then the quintet picked up the volume and plunged into the bridal music once more.
Everyone turned and twisted their heads and craned their necks to get their first glimpse of the bride.
Everyone except Neely. She was twisting her head and craning her neck to catch a first glimpse of Sebastian resplendent in black tie, white shirt and tuxedo jacket.
So she was poleaxed to see an older, craggier tuxedo-clad Savas male walking with Vangie up the path instead!
The bride was absolutely radiant, beaming at everyone, looking from side to side as she walked slowly toward her waiting groom. And the man was smiling happily and looking at her dotingly—as if he had a right to be there.
In one way, she supposed he did. She knew exactly who he was—Phillip Savas, the man who had given her life. He was her father in name. But who had been there for her every single day?
She looked around desperately for Sebastian. Where was he?
Not with his sister, that was certain. She had her father to give her away just as she’d wanted.
The way it should be.
Neely could hear the words echoing in her brain. They were the words Vangie had used. And Sebastian had reiterated them even as he’d refused at first to make the effort.
“She wants a normal wedding. A normal family,” he’d said. “That’s all she’s ever wanted.”
And this was what she wanted? A father who showed up for a few brief moments and stepped in at the last minute to give her away? As if it were his right when in fact he’d really given her away years ago!
It wasn’t his right! Neely was outraged. How dared he? Where had he come from?
And most important of all, Where was
