And maybe Jacob had decided to turn over a new leaf and not be such a selfish prick, I thought with a sigh.
Pausing in front of the picture hanging beside the door, I adjusted the bowtie as best I could before tearing the door open and jogging down the hall. Jacob’s tux was a little big for me, and his shoes a little small, but those were minor discomforts compared to what my psyche was putting me through.
The ring.
Fuck.
After sprinting back to the office, I wrestled the ring box out of the pocket of my jacket, along with my wallet and phone—just in case I didn’t make it back here anytime soon—then I kicked my suit behind a bookcase in the event that someone stumbled into the room to find an abandoned suit and started asking questions.
My dad’s face was red by the time I made it inside the sanctuary, but when he saw me, his face relaxed and he smiled. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t smiling at me—he was smiling at Jacob.
Dad never really smiled at me too much. Smirks were more the way of it.
“Where the hell’s Matt?” one of the groomsmen, Hunter, whispered when I passed.
God, this church was stuffed to capacity. And hot. And lacking in oxygen.
“Barfing up his guts,” I answered quietly, reminding myself that I was Jacob and needed to talk and sound like him.
The groomsmen rocked with silent laughter. They were all Jacob’s friends; none were mine.
“Go figure. We’re the ones drinking places dry, and it’s your brother, the DD, yacking his insides out today.”
My shoulder lifted in the dismissive way Jacob’s did. “Some guys have all the luck.”
“And some guys named Matt Adams have none,” Aaron, another groomsman, whispered up the line.
Didn’t I know it?
They didn’t make any more jokes or jeers at my expense because they knew better. Jacob and I might have seen things differently and been as unalike as two people could be, but we were twins. He stood up for me and vice versa. He had my back, I had his.
As my current predicament proved.
The orchestra broke into a new song—the "Wedding March". The collar of Jacob’s dress shirt felt like it was strangling me at the same time it felt like someone had just dialed up the temperature in the room by twenty degrees.
What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is it right? Or wrong?
The answers to those questions didn’t have a chance to form because that was when I saw her. Like the thousands of times before, the world faded away when Cora Matthews walked into the room. When she started down the aisle, I swayed a little and had to step out of line to keep myself from toppling into the minister.
“Easy there, big guy,” Hunter said under his breath, elbowing me. “Too late for cold feet. Bride is en route.”
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t cold feet I had, but something else. It was the feeling of being so sure of something that the rest of the world seemed off-kilter. So sure of something that the rest of the world just didn’t make sense. I’d never been as certain of anything as I was about the woman walking toward me, about to marry me.
Under false pretenses.
I had to remind myself of that when Cora’s eyes found mine and her plastered-on smile crumbled behind a real one. She was smiling at me the way she smiled at him—like I was her world.
Matthew Adams had never been her whole world, but unknown to her, she’d been mine. That was why I was standing here now, posing as my twin brother, as his fiancée took the final steps toward me. I was doing this for her because I knew she loved him, and I didn’t want to see her hurt again at my brother’s hand.
Marry the woman you love, Matt, then let her spend the rest of her life with the man she loves.
The orchestra was just playing its final chords when Cora stopped beside me, her eyes matching the real smile still on her face. God, she was beautiful.
Too beautiful, I thought again, as I noticed the line of groomsmen appraising her with more than just casual regard. Cora had always been more than another one of the pretty girls; she was the standout. Every guy knew the type. The girl who shouldn’t be real, but there she was, passing you in the hallway every morning. The girl who’s noticed by every person she passes, male or female. She was so beautiful on the outside, few people took the time to get to know the beauty hiding underneath, but I had. I knew she was beautiful everywhere.
Jacob. Channel Jacob, I reminded myself as everyone took a collective seat behind us.
“Hey,” I whispered to her, winking.
Hey? What a moron. Who says hey to the woman he’s about to marry when she stopped beside him looking so damn perfect. I couldn’t feel my lungs.
“Hey,” she whispered back, like she didn’t think anything of it.
Because, yeah, Jacob totally would have said hey to his bride like a moron.
Cora had been versed in moron for practically two decades.
As the minister started droning on about something I probably should have been paying attention to, I tuned out. This wasn’t my wedding. This was hers. This was his. So instead I watched Cora, memorizing every detail of her face as she stared at the man across from her, who loved her like she was both a poison and an antidote.
When the pastor asked if I promised to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, until death do us part, that was the easiest question I’d ever had to answer. It was the simplest part of this mess of a day.
“I will.”
I was a married man. I’d married the woman I’d loved since we were eight years old.
Then why was my mood so damn grim? I splashed some more cold water onto my face at the sink of one of the many first floor bathrooms inside the house I’d grown up in. Outside, the reception was well under way. I could hear music and celebration spilling across the estate. Why did I feel like I’d soaked my world in kerosene and was about to drop a match?
The wedding had gone fast. Too fast. It felt like five minutes after I’d slipped into Jacob’s tux, Cora and I were being announced as husband and wife. If she suspected anything, she hadn’t shown it. She’d just said her vows, slipped a ring on my finger, and we’d exchanged an innocent kiss that didn’t make me feel innocent things.
I could still feel her lips on mine, the warmth of them seeping into mine, the slightest hint of mint on her breath. After nearly two decades of fanaticizing about kissing her, I finally had. At her and my brother’s wedding. How was that for a story to one day tell the grandkids?
Provided I had any since, yeah, Cora. I’d been so hung up on her, I’d gone on a pathetic handful of dates in my twenty-seven years, and after that kiss . . . fuck, I knew I’d spend the future just as hung up on her.