to say? Hi, guys, I know you came to see me marry that other girl but, hey, change of plan and, under the circumstances, this was the best I could do. More champagne, anyone?
‘This you’re worried about?’ Flynn asked, his voice low but amazed. ‘Marrying a guy you never even considered as a possible date on no notice in someone else’s wedding dress, fine. But the thought of me making a speech makes you tense up? You don’t need the corset, your shoulders are so rigid.’
‘Not the thought of you making a speech. The thought of you adapting a speech about Thea to suit me on the spot. The fact that everyone here will know you’re actually talking about another woman.’
Flynn didn’t reply immediately, and when Helena looked up his expression was thoughtful. ‘Just wait and listen,’ he said finally, just as Thomas asked the room to be upstanding for the bride and groom.
‘To Flynn and Helena!’ She supposed she should just be glad that most people managed to get her name right.
Flynn got to his feet as everyone else sat down, and Helena gave up worrying about the tightness of her corset laces. It wasn’t as if she could breathe while this was going on anyway.
‘It’s traditional, I know, for the groom to toast the bridesmaids,’ he started.
Helena winced instinctively. That’s right—draw attention to exactly what’s untraditional about this wedding.
‘But, as you might have noticed, my wife and I don’t actually have any today.’
A nervous laugh, and not even the usual cheer at the use of ‘my wife and I’. Yeah, this was going to go brilliantly.
‘A lot of things about today’s wedding might not have been exactly as people were expecting. But, in fact, everything is just as it should be.’
He smiled down at her and something in Helena’s chest loosened, for the first time that day.
‘All along, we knew we wanted to join our families together, to go into the future as a pair, a team. We wanted to secure our future, and our future happiness. But you can’t make a plan for love; you can’t schedule romance and desire. You can’t outsmart Cupid, as Helena and I learned.’
It was all true, Helena realised. Everything he was saying accurately described Thea and Zeke’s discoveries and disappointments of the last couple of days. But the way he said it, the way he smiled lovingly at her as he spoke...it was as if he were telling a different story altogether.
Their story.
‘Duty is one thing; family duty something altogether heavier. But true love...well, true love trumps them all.’ Women were ‘aahing’ around the tables, and Helena thought she might even have seen one of the middle-aged men in the pinstriped suits wipe at his eyes. How was Flynn doing this?
‘I truly believe that our wedding today is just the first stop on a journey of a lifetime. With Helena, I feel like I have come home at last. Together we, and our families, have a wonderful future ahead of us. And I couldn’t be prouder to have my wife by my side as we venture into it.’
Flynn tugged her up to stand beside him, one arm wrapped around her waist, and raised his glass. ‘To Helena,’ he said, and the room echoed with the repeats.
And just for a moment, standing there in her sister’s too tight wedding dress with the wrong shoes pinching her feet, Helena could see the future Thea had planned for herself. A future of acceptance and appreciation, having a man beside her who always managed to say the right thing at the right time.
It almost seemed like the fairy tale it was supposed to be. For a moment, anyway. Until her guests started calling for something more.
‘Kiss her!’ Mr Teary-Pinstripes called. ‘Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!’ The rest of his table picked up the chant. Then the rest of the room.
Suddenly, Helena almost wished the corset was tight enough to make her faint.
Imagining a fairy tale future wasn’t the same as kissing the prince. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They’d managed to avoid it in the church, where at least it would have been expected to be a chaste and swift kiss. Here, now, after all the wine and the toasts...these people wanted the real thing, and anything less was only going to start up rumours again.
She couldn’t let that happen. Not after Flynn’s speech had tidied away all the talk so neatly.
If they wanted a kiss, she was going to have to give it to them.
She turned to Flynn, eyebrows raised, and he echoed the gesture. ‘I never thought my first kiss with my husband would be quite so public,’ she murmured, quiet enough that she knew it wouldn’t be heard over the chanting.
‘It’s just for show.’ He flashed her a quick smile.
Just a show. Of course. They weren’t really in love, whatever Flynn had suggested in his speech. This marriage was only temporary, just until they could sort everything out. It wouldn’t—couldn’t—last. Not when she couldn’t give Flynn what he wanted most.
None of which explained why there seemed to be too much blood in her veins, or why she couldn’t look away from Flynn’s caramel-brown eyes as he smiled down at her.
Helena’s heart raced as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, the chanting turning to cheering around them.
It’s just for show. The words spun in her head, but all Helena could think as Flynn bent in to kiss her was: If this is just a show, how am I going to survive the real thing?
* * *
Just a show. That was the key.
Except it wasn’t.
Yes, the only reason his first kiss with his wife was taking place in front of a captive audience was to prove a point—to show them that Helena wasn’t some sort of poor consolation prize. But that wasn’t enough. He had to show Helena that too.
And Helena knew the truth.
If he wanted her to stick with this—to believe they had a real future together—well, that future had to start right now. With their first kiss.
‘Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!’ The chanting around them faded into nothing as he leant in closer, his eyes closing as his lips brushed against hers, softly at first, not wanting to spook her. But then, oh, then... Flynn’s fingers clutched at her hip, the silk of her dress slipping against his skin as he deepened the kiss.
She tasted like champagne and gold, expensive and sparkling, her mouth warm and willing under his. He’d wanted to prove a point with this kiss but, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was. All he could think about was how soft her body was against his, how perfectly it fitted to him.
He opened his eyes, wanting to drink in the sight of her too, wanting to see her reaction, to know if she was as affected as him. But Helena’s eyes were closed and, along with his vision, his hearing seemed to return too—or at least his awareness of it.
The chanting had turned to cheering—when, Flynn didn’t know. But he was suddenly aware that he was making a spectacle of himself—and
