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He was completely serious. Maybe the most serious he’d ever been, about anything.

“I love you more than I love my own secrets. I don’t need privacy from you. We aren’t separate. You can have anything I have, know anything I know.”

Nothing had ever mattered more to Cole than his secrets, but when he said that he would give her all of them, she knew he meant it. This, more than anything that had happened today, broke her.

And she did break. Finally, she broke open and fell into Cole’s arms, weeping.

“Okay,” he whispered gently. “I didn’t think this would result in you becoming a melted puddle.”

“You love me,” she sobbed, and he rocked her.

“I want you to have this cry,” he told her through her hair, because he had gathered her completely into his lap like a baby, which would have mortified her at any other time but right now felt safe and perfect, “and we’re going to have a much longer conversation about what you thought was happening the past twenty years and also why you’re trying to work yourself to death, but I do think we should get to the reception. And if you cry during it, people are going to think you’re absolutely devastated about your breakup.”

“I am devastated about my breakup,” Tara blubbered.

“I meant your breakup with Miriam,” he clarified.

This sobered her. She did need to cry, a great deal, but she was neither willing to miss the reception nor make a scene for the gossips. Not on account of her pride, but because she didn’t want people to remember Miriam and Noelle’s wedding as “the one where the ex cried the whole time.”

Levi pulled a makeup wipe out of his pocket. He held Tara’s face gently and wiped the mascara off her cheeks. “I cry a lot and I wear a lot of eyeliner,” he said in answer to the unasked question of why he was carrying around makeup wipes in his pocket.

Once he was done, he and Hannah stood on either side of her, their arms around her waist. Cole walked in front of her, effectively blocking her from prying eyes. She felt like a celebrity being hidden from the press, and it was ridiculous.

“We’re putting you at the Matthewses’ table so people don’t keep asking you all night where Holly is,” Noelle told her.

“Oh my God, y’all. Everyone go be in the wedding party. I’ll hang out with Esther.”

“It’s true.” Esther nodded. “Mom and Dad and I will protect her. Go. Do whatever you have to.”

Dinner was served, and the food was delicious, of course—it was Levi’s menu, and the man was a force of nature in the kitchen. Because Noelle’s parents were gone and Miriam hadn’t trusted Ziva with a microphone, the couple had opted to forgo the traditional speeches. Instead, Hannah had made a video with well-wishes from loved ones around the country. For several minutes at a time, Tara was able to focus on celebrating. Every time she started to slide back into misery, somehow, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews knew and put an arm around her or squeezed her hand or drew her into conversation.

“I’m sorry I ruined your wedding day,” she said to Miriam and Noelle when they came by the table to do their rounds.

Noelle waved her off. “Please. What’s a Carrigan’s event without us getting overly involved with each other’s drama? You basically saved our wedding day, when you think about it.”

Behind them, Ziva appeared in a cloud of perfume and jangles. “What on earth could you do to ruin this day, Tara? You didn’t even object!” She tittered at her own joke, not noticing that no one else was joining her.

Panic rose in Tara’s throat, and she flipped through lies she could tell Ziva.

Levi, who’d been sitting at the other side of the table talking to his dad and wife, caught her eye, put one finger up to his lips, and winked.

He elbowed Hannah, and she whispered, “What, right now?” with the sort of long-suffering exasperation that Tara was learning people often used when talking to, or about, Levi Blue Matthews.

Levi grinned the most cat-among-the-pigeons, self-satisfied smile she’d ever seen. She wondered, idly, how the man didn’t get punched more often.

Hannah turned in Ziva’s direction and loudly announced, “I’m pregnant!”

The entire room exploded in noise.

Mr. Matthews started to cry, Mrs. Matthews started to dance, Miriam did a cartwheel in the jumpsuit she’d claimed she couldn’t bend over in. Cole jumped so high in the air, she was grateful the room had such high ceilings.

Mrs. Matthews and Hannah’s mom, Rachel, immediately started arguing about Ashkenazi versus Sephardic baby naming traditions. No one paid any attention at all to Tara or asked her what she was going to do next about Holly.

Levi leaned across the table toward her and smirked. “You’re welcome.”

That sweet little weasel had planned this whole thing.

Chapter 26