“You ready to do the rehearsal?” I asked, testing the waters. I reached out and helped pull her to her feet, taking her hand as we walked toward the others. “You seem a little quiet.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said simply, and moved to stand where Kristin had indicated.

Okay then. I looked up at the sky, actually expecting clouds to have formed overhead.

The thing that had always driven me crazy about Chloe was that I couldn’t ignore her, whether she was in a room, or out of it. It had been that way since the day we met. I wanted her every second of every day, and it pissed me off. I’d lash out at her for distracting me and she’d dish it right back. This only resulted in my wanting her more. Always.

Even now, standing on the other side of the aisle as we listened to the Honorable James Marsters, our officiant, explain where we would be and when, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

“Bennett?” I heard someone say, and looked up, surprised to find everyone watching me, waiting. The distinctive sound of Max’s laughter floated up from somewhere over my shoulder and I mentally flipped him off. “Are you ready to run through it?” Kristin said, slowly, as if it wasn’t the first time she’d asked.

I frowned, annoyed to have zoned out. I was pretty sure it was important for me to know what the hell was going on. “Of course.”

“Okay then. Guys?” Kristin said. “Can we get the wedding party to line up?”

A murmur of voices surrounded us and we turned to watch as everyone got into their places near the end of the aisle.

As best man, Henry lined up first, offering his arm to Sara.

“All right, everyone,” Kristin announced, “let me explain what will happen. Best man and maid of honor will line up on this section of Windsor lawn. The chairs will begin here,” she said, moving down the aisle and motioning to a spot near the edge of the grass, “and move this way up toward the beach. Approximately three hundred and fifty of them—just beyond the two orchid arrangements—which will be placed right here.” Kristin reached for Henry and Sara and moved them into their spots. “Okay, first bridesmaid and groomsman?”

Julia stepped forward, but so did both Max and Will.

Max clucked his tongue at Will, reaching out to take Julia’s arm. “This lovely one’s mine, mate.”

“But I thought—” Will asked, searching the area. “Where’s my bridesmaid?”

“Right here, pretty boy.” I looked behind Will to see our fourth bridesmaid, Sara’s assistant, George, step up to the line, and reach for Will’s arm.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Will said, then jumped and let out what could only be considered a manly squeak as Chloe’s aunts passed by, one of them laying a sharp pinch on his ass.

“Looks like you might have a bit of a fight on your hands there,” Max said to George. “Those two ladies look like they could take you if things went badly.”

“Oh hell no,” George said in the direction the aunts had gone. “Those two cougars better watch their Raquel Welch wiglets because until that hot piece of ass and the ice queen are married tomorrow night, Sumner here is mine.”

“And mine,” Mina said, taking Will’s other arm. “This lucky man gets both of us.”

George leaned over to smile at Mina. “Are you willing to be inappropriate at all times?”

Mina winked. “Every second of every day.”

Chloe turned to Kristin. “Will there be an open bar? Like, at the end of the aisle? For me? Can I request that?”

“What is even happening here?” Will said, looking to each of us and then back to wherever the cougars had wandered off to. “Am I drunk? Hanna, they just pinched my ass and this one”—he motioned to George—“wants to claim me for his own. A little help?”

Hanna took a sip off her frilly girl drink, complete with big pink umbrella and some sort of neon glow stick. “I don’t know, you seem to be doing pretty well on your own there,” she said, then took another long pull of her straw. Hanna really wasn’t much of a drinker; I was willing to bet anyone at that resort that she’d be asleep in the sand within the hour.

“Jesus Christ, is everyone on something because I want some of whatever it is,” Will grumbled, reaching for George’s arm and looping it through his. “And don’t try to lead,” he told George, before offering his other arm to Mina.

“Now that that’s settled,” Kristin said with a sigh. “Let’s get everyone lined up.” The wedding party fell into place and stood quietly, paying attention. For once. “Okay, good. Chloe, you’re back here. Father of the bride?”

Frederick took his spot next to Chloe and we moved through the ceremony. Thank God all I had to do was walk my mother to her seat because really, this all seemed very complicated and Chloe’s breasts looked amazing in that dress.

When my bride-to-be finally reached me at the altar, I took her hands and we both turned toward the officiant, the increasingly senile older gent with thinning gray hair, and dull blue eyes he had to narrow in order to focus on the text.

Chloe was unusually quiet, nodding in all the appropriate places but not offering anything more. A part of me was beginning to worry that this amounted to more than just a case of pre-wedding nerves. I’d just made the decision to take her aside as soon as we’d finished when the Honorable James Marsters said, “And then I will pronounce you man and wife, and then Bennett . . .”

I watched Chloe’s head snap up, her brows drawn together as if she had to have misheard.

“What did you just say?” she asked, waiting intently, and for a moment I thought, Yes, there’s the fire, there’s the woman Max was talking about this morning.

And then I realized what the judge had actually said that got her riled up. Oh no.

“Which part, young lady?” he asked, finger moving back over the worn words in his book, attempting to track down a phrase he could have skipped or mispronounced, something to have caused such a quick response.

“Did you say man and wife?” she clarified. “Man. And wife. As in, he remains a man but I will now only be referred to as something that belongs to him—no longer able to have my own identity and existing solely as someone’s wife?”

I heard Max’s voice rise above the din of confused murmurs. “Does anyone smell rain?”

James reached forward and patted Chloe’s arm above where I held her hands, wearing a fatherly smile. “I understand, sweetheart . . .” he said, turning his eyes to me for help. “Isn’t this the version of the ceremony you requested, Bennett?”

Her head whipped to me, eyes blazing. “What?”

“Chloe,” I said, and tightened my grip on her hands. “I understand what you’re saying and we’ll make the adjustment. They asked me if I had any ceremony preferences and I only—”

She took a step back, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You?!” she shouted in the world’s most enormous overreaction, and I was actually a little impressed by how much anger and contempt she was able to form into a single word. “You gave him that? Those are the vows you chose?”

“I didn’t choose those lines specifically,” I said, horrified, albeit admittedly a little turned on by the furious rise and fall of her chest. “But that section was in the—”

“I don’t need you to explain anything to me. He’s reading from some ancient text that promotes the bullshit idea of patriarchal ownership. A version you picked out. I’ve been to church, Bennett. ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands?’ Fuck. That. I didn’t put myself through college, and grad school, and an internship all while putting up with your condescending ass just so I could lose my identity and be known only as the little wife. And another thing,” she said, taking a much-needed breath and turning toward Kristin, who, could only stand there, frozen, lips parted in concern as if she were worried moving could trigger more Chloe rage. “What the fuck kind of mom-and-pop cleaners drops off thousands of dollars’ worth of dresses and tuxedos looking like they just came out of some frat boy’s duffel bag?”

Excitement, lust, and the thrill of anger blurred the edges of my vision. “What the fuck do you mean by my condescending ass? Maybe if you’d put as much effort into your personality as you did into behaving like a raging bitch all the time, I would have been a little more pleasant to be around!”

“Ha! And by pleasant, do you mean bringing you your coffee and stupid little chocolate Danishes and pretending not to notice the way you were staring at my tits?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have stared at your tits if they weren’t in my face all the time.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t have been in your face all the time if you didn’t call me into your little hellhole of an office for every little thing. ‘Miss Mills, I can’t read the handwriting on this expense report. Miss Mills, I specifically asked that these documents be collated by ascending date, not descending. Miss Mills, I’ve dropped my pen, perhaps you could bend over and retrieve it from the floor near my chair because I’m a giant fucking pervert!’”

“I never said that last one!” I shouted.

She got right in my face, breasts pressed to my chest and eyes full of fire as she met mine. “But you thought it.”

Fuck yes I did. “I also thought about firing you about seven hundred and fifteen times. Let’s hope I made the right choice not acting on that instinct, too.”

“You are such an egotistical asshole,” she growled.

“And you’re still a man-eating shrew!” I shouted back. And God, this was so familiar and felt so fucking good, it was exactly what we needed. I wanted to throw her down, pin her to the sand, and tear through her clothes so I could bite and mark the skin underneath.