Page 9

The last thing she wanted was to be the reason for any bridesmaid drama.

She straightened, pulled up the dipping cleavage again, and smoothed her hair.

The thick, dark waves pulled into a half-crown braid, framing her face with soft ringlets, the rest cascading down her back in polished, bouncy curls.

She winced at the pins in her bun.

Thank heavens she wasn’t wobbling around in heels.

She thought of Lelah’s initial choice of footwear, silver stilettos that sparkled with embedded chips of starlit quartz.

The thought made her feet ache in shining combat boots hidden under her dress.

Still, her smiles and waves to the bride and groom hid the fact that she was still rattled by her encounter earlier with a deadly missile and her unknown knight in freakin’ wolf skin.

Savvine smiled as she raised her glass to Laleh and Dorian. They kissed again, radiant in their matrimonial glow.

Her gaze followed their dance, and they held each other, close bound, eyes closed, and foreheads pressed together.

An old ache stirred.

Not bitterness, not envy. Just a craving that lived under her ribs and tugged in lonely moments like this one.

‘Yearning,carafiglia?’

She turned to see Enrico, the ship’s Chief Engineer, and her father appear at her side with his usual crooked grin.

Tall and lean, he loomed over her, his silver and brown hair receding at the top, his expression laced with tenderness underneath his amusement.

He wore his old naval dress coat, his medals polished, and his beard well trimmed.

Her mother, Gaya, followed.

She was diminutive, dark-haired, jade-eyed, in a sea foam wrap dress, hair in a loose bun, a beauty at sixty-four.

Gaya looped an arm around Savvine’s waist.

‘We’re not judging,’ she said. ‘But, we’re just wondering if we should start tracking down Auntie Domina, she’s ace at arranging marriages.’

Her parents were her safe space. The two people in the entire flotilla who accepted her for who she was, with all her fierceness and ingrained loyalty.

Also, unabashed matchmakers who were both dying for her to get married soon.

‘Did you just leave NICU, ma?’

‘Naam, why? Do I smell of babies, sterilizer, and lullabies? Speaking of babies, when are you going to give me some?’

Savvine groaned, but her smile gave her away. ‘Can I not enjoy a wedding without being ambushed by Enrico and Gaya Bianchi’s marriage bureau?’

Her father raised a brow. ‘You were gazing with wistful sighs at the kissing couple.’

‘Was not,’ she lied.

‘Oh, yes, you were,’ Gaya teased, squeezing her. ‘It’s alright, love. Your knight will come riding his proverbial horse to sweep you away, and he’ll be totally smitten.’

If only,Savvine sighed, her mind flitting unbidden to the spectral stranger.

She tilted into her mother’s shoulder, letting the laughter and lights blur just a little.