Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Damian

The question hung in the air between us.

What if we had a real wedding?

I stared at Harper. She stared back. Waiting.

“We already had a wedding.”

“A courthouse wedding,” she said. “With a scandal hanging over our heads and lawyers standing behind us like bodyguards.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“That still counts.”

“It counts legally.” Harper set the brochure on her lap. “I want something else.”

“Define something else.”

Her eyes lit up immediately. Dangerous.

“White flowers. Ocean view. My mother crying in the front row because she’s happy instead of terrified.”

My chest tightened at that. Evelyn deserved to see her daughter happy for once. So did Harper.

“You’ve been thinking about this.”

“For a while.”

“Since when?”

She hesitated. Then smiled, small and shy in a way she rarely allowed herself. “Since the beach. Since the sand.”

I laughed. “So the universe really is involved.”

“Apparently.”

I looked at the brochure again. At the photograph she’d pointed to earlier. White chairs lined up facing the water. A simple arch covered in flowers. Nothing like the mansion’s ballroom, nothing like the wedding Victoria would have planned if she’d been given the chance.

Small. Real. Ours.

“Lily would want to be there,” I said.

Harper’s whole face softened. “Lily needs to be there. She’s basically the reason we survived the first six months.”

That was true. Our daughter had held this fragile thing together more times than either of us liked to admit.

“She’ll want to pick the flowers herself.”

“She’ll want to pick everything herself,” Harper said. “Including my dress, probably.”

“God help us.”

Harper laughed, and the sound rolled out over the balcony, mixing with the waves below. I could have listened to that laugh for the rest of my life and never grown tired of it.

“So is that a yes?” she asked.

I studied her face. The hope she was trying to hide behind casual teasing. The vulnerability underneath the confidence.

“Harper.”

“Yes?”

“I would marry you a hundred times if you asked.”

Her breath caught, the same way it had the night before on the beach.

“That’s a very dramatic answer.”

“I’m a dramatic man.”

“You’re really not.”

“For you, apparently I am.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling too wide to argue properly. She leaned into my side again, and I wrapped my arm around her, holding her against me while the sun finished sinking into the water.

“We’ll need a date,” she said after a moment.

“Not tonight.”

“Not tonight,” she agreed. “Tonight I just want to sit here.”

“With your stolen blanket.”

“With my stolen blanket,” she confirmed. “And my stolen fries. And my stolen husband.”

“I was never stolen. I walked into this willingly.”

“Sure you did.”

We stayed there until the sky went dark and the stars came out over the water. Harper’s hand stayed in mine the entire time, and neither of us seemed to need words anymore. Some silences were comfortable that way. Ours had become one of them.

Later, once we’d gone back inside, Harper sat cross-legged on the bed with the brochure open in front of her, flipping through pages of flower arrangements and table settings like she’d been planning this for years.

“Ocean blue or ivory?”

“For what?”

“The tablecloths, Damian. Pay attention.”

I sat beside her, glancing at the two nearly identical shades of fabric swatches. “They look the same.”

“They are not the same.”

“They’re both blue-ish white.”

Harper gave me a look that suggested I had deeply disappointed her. “This is why men shouldn’t be allowed to help plan weddings.”

“I helped plan the first one.”

“The first one was a legal document with a cake.”

“A very good cake.”

“That’s not the point.”

I laughed and pulled the brochure gently from her hands, setting it aside. “Choose whichever one you want. I’ll agree with it before you even ask.”

“That’s cheating.”

“That’s marriage.”

She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue. Instead she curled into my side, resting her head against my shoulder the way she always did when the day had worn her out in the best possible way.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“For what?”

“For saying yes. For meaning it.”

I tilted her chin up so she’d look at me. “Harper. I would say yes to anything you asked me. That’s not going to change.”

Her eyes shimmered slightly, and she blinked it away before it could turn into anything more. Some habits took longer to unlearn than others. Vulnerability was still new to her. Still something she had to remind herself was safe now.

I pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting the moment settle instead of rushing past it.

“We should call Lily tomorrow,” she murmured against my chest. “Tell her the news.”

“She’s going to demand to help pick everything.”

“I already told you that.”

“I know. I’m dreading it already.”

Harper laughed softly. “She’ll want a unicorn theme.”

“God help us both.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it keeps being true.”

We fell asleep not long after, tangled together beneath the blanket Harper had claimed as her own the night before. Outside, the ocean kept moving against the shore, steady and endless, the same way it had every night since we arrived.

I hadn’t expected peace like this. Not after everything. Not after Richard, after Victoria, after every attempt made to tear apart what Harper and I had built together.

But here it was anyway. Quiet and real and entirely ours.

In the morning, sunlight spilled across the room, and Harper stirred beside me, eyes still half closed.

“Still married?” she mumbled.

“Still married.”

“Good.” She burrowed closer. “Keep it that way.”

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

She smiled against my shoulder, already drifting back toward sleep. “Forever, then.”

“Forever,” I agreed.

Outside, the waves kept rolling in, patient and constant, carrying us quietly into whatever came next.