Page 3 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)

speak now

LEXI BYRNE

The wedding ceremony was proceeding perfectly.

Mason Johnson, Jimmy’s father and the president of Johnson Construction, walked me down the aisle of the Las Vegas chapel, the lace hem of my froufrou alabaster dress and crinolines underneath brushing the worn blue carpet under my shoes.

The chapel smelled desert-dusty and a little stale like it could use a good airing, but the carnations in my bouquet wafted their sweet scent up to my face.

Everyone had flowers, whether boutonnieres, corsages, or bouquets, so maybe people wouldn’t smell the chapel’s dry rot, I hoped.

I felt personally responsible for the olfactory experience of everyone in that Las Vegas chapel, and I was dying inside that it might not be perfect because they might think less of me. The desiccated-decay odor would ruin the whole wedding for them. They would snipe about it behind my back.

But the wedding. I had to think about the wedding. I had to look like the perfect Johnson bride for the wedding.

Jimmy’s mom, Melissa, was sniffling prettily in the first pew on the groom’s side, touching the inside corners of her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. Her blue eyeshadow streaked the white cotton.

My eyes grew misty, but I didn’t reach for the frothy hankie stuffed into the back of my right glove. My heart thumped happily under all that white lace because I was finally marrying the man I’d fallen in love with while we were in high school.

Each step I took toward Jimmy, who watched me with his chin held high and a sharp smile on his face, felt like a promise I was making to him, to love, honor, and cherish, to finally consecrate our love before God and his family.

This was it.

Walking down the aisle was the transition, the liminal space where I floated like a white soap bubble on the breeze, wafting through the in-between from my old life to my new one.

Everything from now on would be my real life, my whole new life that I’d spend with Jimmy, having a family and growing old together.

I could hardly wait to begin. All my stuff from my one-room apartment had been moved to Jimmy’s house last week, and I’d been camping on an air mattress and watching TV on my phone ever since.

Not that I’d had a lot of stuff. I’d been saving all my money for four years for this wedding and honeymoon, not buying tchotchkes.

Maybe we could get a dog or a cat. I’d always wanted a pet. My mother didn’t like the mess of animals, and I hadn’t been able to afford one, what with socking away every spare cent into our wedding fund. Besides, living in a studio apartment would have been cruel for an animal.

After we made our vows, after the ceremony, once we’d signed the marriage license and were husband and wife in the eyes of the world and God and the law, we’d spend our honeymoon together in Las Vegas and then go back to Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

There, I’d work at their construction company until we started a family in a few years, and then I’d switch to part-time like all of Jimmy’s sisters, cousins, and sisters-in-law.

And then my life would be playgroups with my kids’ cousins and coffee and wine with my sisters-in-law, and days and nights of love with my husband.

When we reached the end of the aisle, Jimmy’s dad lifted my veil and smoothed it back over my hair.

I smiled at him, trying to look pretty and blond enough for their family.

As I’d integrated into the Johnson family over the years, my dark brown hair had acquired highlights, then streaks, and then the blond had overwhelmed my maple brown hair. Fussing with my roots had become a hobby.

Mason smiled down at me, which was hopefully a good sign, and left me at the altar.

Jimmy held my hand in his warm fingers as we turned toward the minister together.

The evangelical Southern Baptist minister—for Jimmy and his family had insisted that the minister be sufficiently evangelical to support their family’s conservative Christian values—smiled over our heads and invoked that fatal, terrible challenge, “If anyone here knows why this man should not be joined with this woman in holy matrimony, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

There should have been silence behind us.

The heavy wooden beams that held up the chapel’s roof should have absorbed even the tremors of breeze from the air conditioning, and the air should have been completely, absolutely shocked-still.

No one should have goddamn breathed.

But a woman’s voice cried out, “James! I can’t stay silent. I love you, and we belong together.”

Jimmy jolted like a ghost had shoved him, and his horrified glance at the chapel widened his light hazel eyes.

Ice condensed on my skin under the polyester and scratchy lace of my dress, needling inward, solidifying my skin and muscles, and I froze.