That’s what he’d told himself.
Now the only words floating through his mind were liar . . . selfish . . . cheater. All of them on repeat. Well, he was tired of the labels. Weary of the mental taunt. There really was only one way to rectify that grievance, only one way to make the accusations stop launching toward him like hand grenades aimed straight for his head.
He just hoped he could actually bring himself to go through with it.
April was annoyed with her sister. Fed up and sick of her demands and weary of being Kristin’s personal punching bag for the last week. No one should be treated the way she’d been treated the past several days, and she’d had enough. More than enough, and she was ticked off.
So why in the world was she crying?
Because her sister was getting married, and she would miss everything about their one-on-one relationship. Quiet conversations late at night from the living room sofa in the apartment they’d shared for the past three years. Fights over which one of them used the last of the conditioner and placed it back on the shower shelf for the other to discover it empty. Grocery store trips and split bills at the checkout—always in half and always annoying because Kristin’s tastes ran decidedly more expensive than hers. Living with her sister was a pain in the butt. She was bossy and messy and lazy and selfish to the core.
But Kristin was her sister. April would miss her so much it hurt just thinking about it. She swiped at a tear threatening to run down her cheek and smear her perfectly applied makeup. But then another one followed it and she gave up. It didn’t matter if anyone saw her cry. She loved her sister; it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. Their love ran deep.
“April, pay attention,” Kristin whispered. “Why are you choosing my wedding to daydream?”
Their hatred . . . it also ran deep.
“I wasn’t daydreaming,” April shot back. “What do you want?”
“It’s time for the rings. If you’re not too busy, could you hold my bouquet?”
April forgot her tears as her gaze turned hot. “Stop complaining and hand it over. Geez, you’d think this moment was all about you.” She grinned at her unintended words, and just like that her anger dissolved.
As did Kristin’s. It didn’t take long until both of them were giggling. Onstage. In front of everyone. At a wedding. A wedding that had cost a lot of money and time and effort to impress the socially upward. At the exact same moment, they remembered their mother and the heated glare she was likely sending from her spot on the front row. April tried to catch a glimpse of her, but as luck would have it, her eyes connected with Jack’s and stayed there before she had the chance.
And then, of course, April forgot all about her mother. Because Jack was staring right at her, the sweetest look of concern lining his features. She could get used to that look. She could swim in it and hang out inside it for a while and probably never want to leave. And more than anything else at that very moment, it was what she wanted.
April blinked. Why, of all the men she could one day meet, was she thinking these things about Jack Vaughn? And why, when she was standing at her sister’s side, holding her bouquet, listening to their heartwarming handwritten vows that she had personally written and rewritten a half dozen times, did she suddenly wish she were a bride in her own wedding?
That was a problem. One so big, April barely recognized herself.
And as she listened to her sister exchange vows and rings and a kiss with the man who had just become part of their family, April didn’t see an end to this problem.
Worse, as she chanced a look at Jack out of the corner of her eye, she no longer thought she wanted one.
The moment April stepped into the reception hall with the rest of the wedding party, she knew. She halted her steps, sucked in a breath, listened to Kristin scream, and she knew. The entire room had Jack’s fingerprints all over it, because who else had this kind of money? Her parents were well-off, but they had been given strict instructions by Kristin not to go overboard. Kristin wanted a normal Nashville wedding.
But this. This was anything but normal.
One look at Kristin’s face, though . . . Clearly her sister was just fine with it.
The room had been transformed into something so grandiose, April had never seen anything like it. Reminiscent of five-page spreads in InStyle magazine, April almost expected celebrities to be sprinkled along the perimeter— holding crystal goblets filled with Dom Pérignon, decked out in tailored Armani tuxes, draped with sparkling twelve-carat diamonds.