Page 97 of The Likelihood Of You

Tonight would be a breeze, and I’d enjoy it like I was supposed to, all because Jacob would be by my side through the entire thing.

He pulled away from me for a second, those brown pools falling on me and dumping a tone of fuel to the fire already burning inside me. “We could always skip the premier. They’re boring anyway. How about we just stay in bed and—”

“Uh-uh. Nope. We didn’t spend a month looking for this dress for no one to see it.” He rolled his eyes playfully. “And this is probably the only movie premier I’ll go to with you where my name is physically in the credits. I’m not missing this.” Without warning, Jacob grabbed each side of my waist and hoisted me in the air, twirling me around and forcing thousands of giggled squeals out of me.

“Put me down, arsehole; we’re gonna be late.”

“I’m the lead actor, Florence; premier doesn’t start until I turn up.” He laughed, still spinning me.

“Oh, how very humble of you.”

“Oh, get lost, tosser.”

We both erupted into laughter, Jacobs’s feet slowly coming to a halt and gracing my heels with the safety of the floor again. I shuffled down the tulle that had risen again, patting away the few beads of sweat that had appeared, and calmed down my breathing. Jacob did the same, straightening his tie and smoothing the panels of his blazer.

“You ready now?”

I smiled, my heart warming and the butterflies in my stomach taking flight in a way I hoped would happen every time I existed under the gaze of the man who helped make my dreams real. The man who called me his dreamer. The man I’d somehow ogled in a coffee shop a year ago and now got to wake up beside him every morning.

“More than ready,” I whispered, to the man who knew my heart, in the same beautiful way I knew it myself.

"How the hell do you do this all the time? I'm so bloody nervous I feel like I'm gonna vom," Flo confessed in a whisper, my heart aching for her.

On thecar ride over, I’d caught her shaking her fingers in a rhythm before spreading them out like stars, and after two seconds of interrogating her, she confessed that she was nervous. Or scared shitless, as she put it. So before we left the safety of the blacked-out windows, I did them with her, calming both our hearts and readying ourselves for the red carpet ambush.

"Breathe, baby. You're a natural." I whispered into her ear as we were halfway down the carpet. "You're doing so well."

She rose on her tiptoes again, her lips barely brushing my ear. "We're getting take-out after this, right? It's the only thing keeping me from collapsing."

I squeezed her waist gently, steadying her, just in case. "Oh, absolutely, but not before we raid the free bar in there."

"God, I love you." She sighed, so dangerously sultry, the sound reaching a part of me that wasn't ideal, considering we were in front of eight million cameras.

I managed to gain some control as I shifted my attention to the flashing lights before us, while Flo remained frozen next to me. The only thing moving was her eyes, a trick Addy had taught her a few days ago.

Let the cameras do the work; you stay still. Remind them that you are in control of that moment.

That was the same bit of advice she’d given me before the firstDefenderspremiere.

But instead of my eyes being on the cameras, they were fixed on Florence, enchanted by how she held herself, barely moving a muscle. I hoped the cameras were picking up on that, and in the morning there’d be a new flood of articles showcasing how madly in love wewere. I already couldn’t wait to read them, with Florence wrapped up in my arms, under a pile of blankets, while we ate breakfast from bed and spent the day not moving from it.

“Who is that man?” Flo asked discreetly, her face not budging for the cameras.

“What man?” I asked, scanning both ends of the red carpet, to which there were many men she could have been referring.

She turned to me briefly. “The one to the left of you. Green suit. Velvet. He looks so familiar.” Her eyes pointed over my shoulder. “Don’t make it obvious if you look at him.”

We both straightened up, returning to the poses we’d adopted while being photographed. But I managed to shift my eyes to the left slightly, finally spotting who she meant.

She was right; there was something familiar about him. But after being screamed at by that face for months on end, it was easy to recognise it was Wesley Paige.

Without his signature porno moustache.

“No fucking way,” I whispered, before bringing my mouth down to Flo’s ear. “Picture that man demanding pastry’s from you.” I saw her eyes grow comically wide in my peripheral. “Recognise him now, British pastry girl?”

She brought a hand to her mouth to conceal the smirk that was beginning to crescent on her face, and I had to do the same, not letting our hands down until he’d shuffled down the carpet and out of sight.

Standing in front of a wall of paparazzi, each one of them armed with a camera and a deep heckling voice, had never felt easier than it has with the woman I love by my side.

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