Page 17

Oh. I must’ve dropped the flowers. I flex my fingers, noticing that my hands are empty, and swallow the hysterical laugh bubbling up my throat.

He’s dead.

Dead.

Dead. Dead. Deaddeaddead.

And the man who killed my groom? Is stalking toward me as though the people screaming, running, escaping the pews aren’t anywhere near enough of a distraction to keep him from getting to me.

He’s definitely a distraction onmyend.

I haven't seen Adrian Heller in almost a decade. He's as fiercely beautiful now as he was then, though the gun held lazily in his grip makes him dangerously so.

I hope I’m not too late.

To kill Desmond? To make me some kind ofpre-widow, killing my groom before we could even get to the ‘I do’s?

Oh, no. He’s right on fucking time.

I notice small differences as the world falls away, leaving just the two of us standing here. His hair is a little darker than it used to be, making his eyes seem even lighter in comparison. He wears his suit like a second skin, only he doesn’t have on a tie like the other wedding guests. His dress shirt is slightly unbuttoned, a sliver of his bare chest on display. A pair of small golden hoops wink in his left ear. His lazy expression hides the heat in his gaze.

Me. He’s looking atme.

And I’m looking back.

Because it’s Adrian.Adrian.

That does it. It might’ve taken me longer than it should to realize what was happening, but as reality zooms back in, I look around, seeing that there aren’t any wedding guests left. Everyone has fled from the man with the gun until only me, Adrian, and the dead Desmond are arranged near the front of the church.

Run, I think.Run.

Grabbing my ruined dress, cursing my unwieldy heels, I turn from Adrian and start toward the empty first pew.

In my mind, I know I’m not getting away from an unrepentant murderer. I’m getting away from Adrian Heller.

From my past.

Fromhim?—

“Not so fast, Loni,” murmurs Adrian. The gun is gone, tucked away or tossed aside, but his hand is empty enough that he can grasp my upper bicep. The touch of his skin on mine short-circuits my brain, the sound of my long ago nickname in his suave voice only adding to it, and I stop.

I just… stop.

He’s not squeezing my arm. He’s not grabbing me, yanking me, pulling me the same way that Desmond did the other night at my dad’s place. He just has a firm, possessive hold on me as he easily guides me back to the altar.

And it hits me: I’m not getting away from anyone, am I?

I walk around Desmond, grateful that he fell facedown so that I don’t have to see the last expression on his face before Adrian killed him. He leads me, kicking Desmond’s shoe as he tucks me into his side, careful that I don’t come too close to the corpse.

I don’t have any idea what he’s doing. Killing Desmond… desecrating the church… showing up here when I haven’t seen him in so damn long… none of this makes sense. Moving me toward the altar of an empty church? That makes evenless.

Only it’s not empty. Not entirely. The rest of the wedding guests have all rushed for the doors—including Dad—but there are still two others waiting to meet Adrian and me at the altar: Father Francis and Dallas Collins.

Dallas has a weapon of his own out. Holding a gun in his grip, standing right behind the priest, he nods at Adrian. Like he’s in on it. Like this was all some kind of plan…

In front of me, Father Francis is trembling. Speechless.

Terrified.