Page 3 of Wedding Whitney
“The two of you are going to make a laughingstock out of me!” he cries, throwing up his hands. “Do you know how it’s going to look to my friends and business associates that I’m sitting there in the audience and not walking my only daughter down the aisle?”
“So this is about you, not me?” Whitney speaks up for the first time.
“Of course, it’s not about you.” He stares at her as if she’s stupid. “This is all about the optics. What, you think your grandmother is hosting a wedding for five hundred for you? This is about her. Me. The family. The business. The Ravensworth Cosmetics cover model is getting married—and to a professional athlete, no less—this is the Dallas social event of the year!”
I glance over at Whitney, whose cheeks have turned a faint shade of pink.
“But it’s still our wedding,” I say when no one else says anything. “Still our day. And if Whitney wants her grandmother to walk her down the aisle, that’s who’s walking her down the aisle. As you all know, she and I would be perfectly happy eloping. So whatever she wants, that’s what she’ll get.”
Canyon looks over at me disdainfully. “You should mind your own business,” he says quietly. “This is?—”
“What if you both walked her down the aisle?” Whitney’s mother, Delilah, almost never speaks up, so everyone turns to stare at her in shock.
“What did you say?” Canyon demands.
She clears her throat and takes a sip of water. “I said you could both walk her down the aisle, as a show of how much she loves both of you. Then you won’t be embarrassed, and Whitney can still have Lillian at her side.”
No one speaks for a moment, then Lillian chuckles. “It’s always the quiet ones,” she says, smiling at Delilah.
“I suppose that’s not the worst idea ever,” Canyon says, glancing at Whitney. “Whitney? Is this acceptable to you?”
“That’s a compromise I can live with,” Whitney says after a moment, though she reaches for my hand under the table.
I lean back, glad this is settled because I’m going to fight for anything and everything she wants since we didn’t want this wedding in the first place. If she wants a freakin’ kangaroo to walk her down the aisle, I’ll make it happen.
Hopefully, it won’t come to that.
Dinner is pleasant after that, talk turning to how the Dallas Cowboys are going to do this season, when I’ll start training camp, and the cities we’ll see on our honeymoon.
“Paris.” Lillian smiles. “Your grandfather and I went there for our tenth wedding anniversary. It was the only time we were there together, and I cherish those memories. Neither of us dreamed one of us would pass away so young.”
“Dad was always so lost in his books and laboratory experiments, he lost sight of everything else,” Canyon says.
“Your father was a brilliant, special man,” Lillian says sadly. “I miss him every day.”
“Is that why you never remarried?” Whitney asks.
“I never remarried because I would never love anyone the way I loved my Canyon, and as far as companionship goes, I never met a man I found interesting enough who wasn’t after my money. I figured it was just easier to be alone.”
“That sounds so lonely,” Whitney says.
“There’s more to life than romance,” Canyon says. “Ask your mother.”
Delilah lifts one perfectly arched brow. “Oh, there’s certainly more to life than romance. God knows, Canyon wouldn’t know romance if it bit him in the ass.”
Canyon glares at her, but Delilah merely lifts her wine glass and takes a sip, meeting his gaze over the rim almost defiantly.
It’s always like this whenever we’re around her family.
Her parents don’t like each other much, her mom usually drinks too much, her brother mocks everyone and everything that isn’t part of his inner circle, and Lillian merely tolerates everyone except Whitney.
Tonight, Delilah has been nursing the same glass of wine for an hour, her brother Brett isn’t even here, and yet, the dynamic is almost exactly the same. No wonder Whitney left at eighteen and only came back when her grandmother asked her to sign another contract modeling for the family cosmetics line.
Our wedding is supposed to be different, though.
I’ve made it clear I want whatever Whitney wants, and I don’t really give a shit about anyone in her family beyond Lillian. Whitney says she doesn’t care either, so I’ve promised myself and her that I would have her back no matter what. It’s ironic that it was Delilah who came to the rescue tonight, which I don’t think anyone expected.
“Brett and I are going golfing on Thursday,” Canyon says to me before he and Delilah leave. “I’d love it if you joined us. It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other man to man.”
