Page 121 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

“Dad!” Juliet smiles tightly as she takes a step back, her cheeks pink. “You were looking for Will?”

“I was.” He grins at her, then turns my way, lifting his eyebrows. “Have a minute?”

I nod, my heart suddenly sprinting in my chest. “Yes, sir.”

Juliet threads her arm through mine, but Bill leans in and rests his hand over hers. “JustWill, birdie.”

Juliet frowns as she glances between us, withdrawing her hand from my arm. “Oh…sure.”

Bill winks her way. “Your mother and I want to pick his brain some more about that, uh…property down the road that we were looking at.”

Her eyes widen. “You’re looking at houseshere?”

Bill tugs at his collar. This man is as bad at lying as I am. “Looking, yes. You know, in a casual…looking…way.”

“Jules!” Kate calls, waving Juliet toward her, Bea, and the photographer with their camera clasped in hand across the dance floor. “Sister picture!”

Juliet’s smile returns. “Coming!” She turns and presses a quick, gentle kiss to my cheek. “Come find me when you’re done.”

I nod, cupping her face, my thumb grazing her cheek. Her smile deepens. “I will. Promise.”

Her father and I watch Juliet start toward her sisters. Bill sighs with relief. “That was close.”

I turn toward him. “I would ask how you knew I wanted to talk to you, but apparently I’ve got intent broadcasted on my face.” I scrub at my jaw, missing the thick beard that I often still keep, to hide my expressions so well. I shaved it short, to nearly scruff, for the wedding. And for the look it put on Juliet’s face that led to very pleasurable activities that made us nearly late for the rehearsal last night.

“Call it a hunch,” Bill says. He claps an arm around my shoulders and grins. “Now, let’s go see you turn Maureen into a puddle of joy.”

Juliet

I’m sore everywhere. And it’s for the best reasons. Dancing for hours, jumping up and down as we closed the night with “Shout!,” getting way too physically demonstrative as we played Pictionary turned charades in pajamas with our friends and siblings who hung around at Will’s place after Jamie and Bea drove off the Orsino property in their vintage car, headed for Jamie’s upstate home just fifteen minutes away.

And, of course, being thoroughly, deliciously ravished by Will last night, starting the second he shut the door behind the last straggler and pinned me against it.

I sigh happily as I roll in bed onto my back. I open my eyes and blink against the bright sunlight, knowing what I’ll see—Will in bed beside me, propped up on one elbow, peering down at me, a soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

But today, there’s no smile. Just an arresting, beautiful stare. Those wide, pale gray-green cat eyes, morning light warming his skin.

Gently, I poke at the small cleft in his chin. “What are you looking at?”

“The most beautiful woman in the world,” he says quietly.

A wide smile breaks across my face as I shake my head and trail my finger lightly down his throat, playing connect the dots with each cinnamon freckle leading to his chest. “Nonsense.”

He gently combs his fingers through my hair, smoothing it off my face. “The truth.”

I clasp his wrist and stare up at him. My heart is so full, so happy, glowing like the sun outside. Every morning, I wake up, even on the sorest, stiffest days, the days my chest is tight withanxiety and fears sneak through the cracks of my confidence, so impossibly happy that he’s here, that Will sees it all, that he loves me for it.

I’m one big ball of love and hope and joy.

And it’s not the wedding last night talking, though Iama sucker for weddings—I’m a hopeless romantic, after all. It isn’t just that I’m soaring from the thrill of seeing my twin happily married and sharing that incredible joy with Will. It’s not because I witnessed heartfelt vows and danced and laughed and played the night away with my favorite people, as beautiful as that was.

I’m just dizzyingly desperate to marry him. I have been for so long, I can’t even remember when I didn’t feel this way, so ready to tell him I want him not just for now but for always.

I have never known love like this, and I know that I never will again. The way Will and I love each other is like those beautiful flowers creeping up the trellis outside our home—growing, bending, weaving together, nurtured with care and nourished richly, so they can thrive and blossom, changing with the seasons yet always entwined even in the harshest months, on the coldest days. The woman I am when I love Will is my best self, and that’s notbecauseI’m always at my best, but because Will loves all of me and I’m safe to love him just as much, as we share our flaws and fears and frailty, knowing our love isn’t burdened by those truths but strengthened for having weathered them, and nothing could be better than that.

“Will,” I whisper, my hand settling over his heart.

His eyes search mine as he sets his hand over mine and tenderly rubs at my knuckles. “Juliet.”

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