The walk back to my suite is a silent procession through a sleeping resort, our hands clenched together like a pact.

Sebastian doesn’t speak. His thumb moves over my knuckles, a slow, rhythmic stroke that says more than words could. The courtyard is empty, just the electric hum of bug zappers and the distant crash of surf. My door is dark. His door, Eleanor’s is a sliver of yellow light under the sill.

He stops in front of my door. His face is all angles in the low security light. “I have to go next door.”

“I know.”

“It won’t be pleasant.”

“I know that, too.”

He brings my hand to his mouth, kisses my palm. His lips are warm, slightly chapped. The gesture is so solemn it feels like a vow. “Wait for me.”

“Where else would I go?”

A ghost of a smile touches his mouth. He lets my hand go, and the night air feels cold where his skin was. I watch him turn, square his shoulders, and walk the ten feet to his doorstep. He doesn’t look back. He raises his hand, knocks twice—firm, inevitable—and disappears inside as the door opens.

The silence that swallows him feels absolute.

I let myself into my suite. The room is exactly as I left it, a museum of my earlier panic. Mark’s suitcase is gone. The silence is a physical weight. I can’t hear anything through the wall, just the dull thrum of my own pulse in my ears.

I need to wash the beach off. The shower is a ritual. I strip, letting the clothes fall where they are, and step under water so hot it borders on punitive. I scrub. Salt and sand spiral down the drain. I watch it go, thinking of nothing, feeling everything. The memory of his hands, his mouth, the crushing weight of him as we lay in the sand—it’s baked into my skin, deeper than salt.

My body feels new. Used. Claimed. Achy in the most profound way. Between my legs is a tender, sweet soreness that makes me bite my lip every time I move. I press my palm there under the spray, not to stir anything, just to feel the truth of it. Proof.

I don’t know how long I stand there. The water runs cold. I get out, towel off with a fluffy white resort towel that smells of bleach and nothing else. I pull on one of the hotel’s absurdly thick robes and crawl into the center of the massive bed.

I’ll wait. I’ll just close my eyes for a minute. The pillow is cool. The room is dark. My limbs are heavy, my mind a blissful, exhausted blank. I listen for the sound of his door opening. I count my breaths. I don’t remember stopping.

I wake to the dip of the mattress and the scent of him—clean sweat, night air, and a faint, sharp tang of distress.

His lips brush my temple. A whisper of contact in the dark. “Imogen.”

I blink, disoriented. The digital clock reads 3:17 AM. “You’re back.” My voice is sleep-rough.

“I am.” He’s still fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s taken off his jacket. In the faint light from the courtyard, I can see the rigid line of his shoulders.

I push myself up. “How did it go?”

He’s silent for a long moment. He looks at his hands. “As expected. Worse, perhaps. There was… a great deal of crying. A fair amount of porcelain was threatened.” His tone is flat, drained. “It’s done. Officially. Irrevocably.”

“I’m sorry.” The words feel inadequate.

“Don’t be.” He finally looks at me. His eyes are shadows. “I’m not. Not for ending it. I am sorry for the hurt I’ve caused. The mess I’ve made. But not for this. Never for this.”

He stands, begins to undress with a quiet, mechanical efficiency. Belt, trousers, shirt. Each item folded and placed on a chair. His body is a pale, muscular sculpture in the half-light. He doesn’t look at me until he’s done, until he’s standing there in just his boxer briefs.

“Come here,” I say, holding the duvet open.

He gets in. The cool air he brings with him makes me shiver. He doesn’t reach for me immediately. He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling.

I turn onto my side, curve my body into his. I lay my head on his chest. His heartbeat is a slow, heavy drum under my ear. I slide my arm across his stomach, feel the tight clench of his abs.

After a minute, his arm comes around me. His hand settles in my hair. He lets out a breath that seems to come from the soles of his feet.

“She called you a selfish, destructive child,” he says, voice a low rumble in his chest. “Said I was throwing my life away for a… fantasy.”

“She’s not entirely wrong.”

“She is.” His fingers tighten in my hair, just for a second. “You are many infuriating things, Imogen Crane. A fantasy is not one of them. You are the most concrete, messy, inconvenient reality I have ever encountered.”

A laugh hiccups out of me, wet and surprised. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“God, your standards are tragic.”

We lie there, breathing together. The world outside this room, this bed, feels like a storm we’ve temporarily outrun. I trace the lines of his torso, the firm ridge of his hip bone over the cotton of his briefs. He’s hard. I can feel the thick length of him pressed against my thigh. It’s not an invitation, just a fact. A part of him, awake and present, even now.

“We should sleep,” he murmurs, as if reading my thought. “Tomorrow is…”

“A disaster.”

“A wedding,” he corrects, but there’s no conviction in it. He turns his head, kisses my forehead. “Sleep.”

I close my eyes. His heartbeat slows. His breathing deepens. I match mine to his. Anchor to anchor. We drift.

***

Morning comes as a blade of insistent sunlight cutting through a gap in the blackout curtains. It’s the wedding day.

Sebastian is already awake, propped on an elbow, watching me. The blue of his eyes is almost shocking in the clear morning light. There’s stubble darkening his jaw, and his hair is a glorious, sleep-tousled mess. He looks younger. Ravaged. Beautiful.

“Hi,” I say, my voice morning-soft.

“Hello.” He leans down and kisses me. It’s not the desperate, hungry kiss from the beach. It’s slow. Deep. A confirmation. His tongue slides against mine, tasting of sleep and him. He cups my face, his thumb stroking my cheekbone, and for a hundred years, there is only this.

He pulls back, rests his forehead against mine. “We have to move. You have to get to the bridal suite. Protocol.”

The real world crashes back in. “Right. Protocol.”

We get up. We move around each other in the suite with a quiet, domestic synchronicity that feels both brand new and ancient. He uses my toothbrush without asking. I steal a clean t-shirt from his bag. We dress in silence, the air thick with unspoken dread for the day ahead.

When it’s time, we leave my suite together.

He stops at the door to the bridal suite. Turns. The look he gives me is pure heat.

He closes the distance in two steps, his hands already framing my face, his mouth already claiming mine. This isn’t a goodbye. It’s a brand. A hard, deep kiss that steals my breath and my balance. I taste coffee and him. My fingers claw into the front of his shirt. He makes a low sound against my lips, one hand sliding into my hair to hold me right there.

It’s not a peck. It’s a statement. Firm, possessive, full on the mouth. I gasp against his lips, my hands coming up to grip his forearms.

When he breaks away, we’re both breathing hard. His forehead rests against mine. His thumb strokes my cheekbone, rough and tender.

The door to the bridal suite swings open.

Amelia stands there, already in her champagne-colored silk pajama set, a steaming travel mug in her hand. She takes in the scene: me in Sebastian’s t-shirt and shorts, him in his rumpled clothes from last night, his mouth just leaving mine.

Her expression doesn’t change. She takes a slow sip from her mug. Crosses her arms. “Sebastian. Your presence is required inside. By your brother.”

Sebastian’s jaw tightens. He gives my waist a final squeeze. “Go,” I whisper.

He goes, brushing past Amelia with a nod. She watches him disappear into the suite, then her eyes land on me. She steps fully outside, letting the door swing shut behind her.

“So,” she says.

“So.”

“You and Professor Proper.”

“It would seem.”

“You blew up your life. And his. And, by extension, a significant portion of mine, on the eve of my wedding.”

“That’s… a fair summary.”

She studies me. Her gaze is clinical, like she’s assessing a rash. Then, something in her face softens, just a fraction. “You look like you actually slept.”

“I did.”

“And you’re… sure? This isn’t another one of your dramatic whirlwinds that ends with you sobbing in a bathtub quoting Sylvia Plath?”

“I’m sure. And I make no promises about the Plath.”

A tiny, almost imperceptible smile touches her lips. She uncrosses her arms. “He looks at you like you hung the damn moon, Imogen. Even when he was pretending not to. It was exhausting to witness.”

My throat gets tight. “Yeah?”

“Yes. And for some inexplicable reason, you look at him like he’s… I don’t know. The annotated bibliography to your chaos.” She sighs, a long, world-weary sound. “It’s going to be a mess. Mom and Dad are going to have fifty-seven questions. Arthur is going to be awkward about it forever. Holiday dinners are going to be a psychological minefield.”

“I know.”

“But.” She steps forward, puts her hands on my shoulders. Her grip is firm. “You’re my sister. And you look… anchored. For the first time in maybe ever. So, I’m excited for you. And also deeply, profoundly nervous for the family dynamic. Both can be true.”

Tears well up, hot and sudden. “Really?”

“Don’t start crying. You’ll ruin your face for the photos.” She pulls me into a brief, hard hug. She smells of lemon verbena and coffee. “Now get in here. We have approximately four hundred things to do before I walk down the aisle.”

The bridal suite is a controlled cyclone of silk, hairspray, and women with headsets. Eleanor is stationed in a far corner, a fortress of silence around her as a woman works on her updo. She doesn’t glance our way.

Amelia points me toward a garment bag hanging on a framed mirror. “Your dress. Get steamed and into it. Hair and makeup is next.”

I unzip the bag. And stop.

It’s not the silver sequined mini-dress we picked out a year ago, the one that screamed “fun, single sister.” That dress was a costume.

This is a dress. A long column of heavy, latte-colored silk crepe. It’s sleeveless, with a high, draped neckline that will hug my throat, and a back that plunges deep. It’s simple. Severe. Elegant in a way that has nothing to do with sparkle and everything to do with line and silence.

I stare at it. “This isn’t the one.”

Amelia comes to stand beside me, holding two different pairs of earrings up to the light. “No. I had it changed last month. The silver one felt… loud. This is more you. The you that’s emerging, anyway.” She finally looks at me. “Do you hate it?”

I touch the fabric. It’s cool, liquid under my fingers. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t hate it.”

It feels like a mirror. It feels like a challenge. It feels, for the first time, like what I might wear to stand next to him.

“Good,” Amelia says, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “Now put it on. Let’s see if I was right.”