“I’m tired.”
“That too.”
For the first time that night, I really looked at her. Allison was beautiful in a composed way, but up close I could see the tension beneath it. The careful breathing. The way her fingers kept worrying the edge of her wedding band.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
The question startled us both.
She looked toward the ballroom, where Nicholas was laughing a little too loudly with two investors.
“I think I wanted to be,” she said.
That answer settled between us.
“I don’t mean I don’t love him,” she added quickly. “I do. Or I love parts of him. The charming parts. The determined parts. The part that can make you feel like the whole world is about to open.”
“I know that part,” I said.
Her eyes returned to mine. “But tonight I saw another part. And I realized I’ve seen it before. With waiters. With assistants. With people he thinks don’t matter.”
I said nothing.
“He told me you asked to sit at the children’s table because you didn’t know anyone.”
I let out a quiet breath.
“No. He put me there.”
Allison’s face tightened.
“I thought so.”
From inside the ballroom came applause as someone requested a dance. The sound felt far away.
“I’m not telling you this to hurt your wedding day,” I said.
“I know.”
“And I don’t want to stand here acting like Nicholas is only one thing. He’s my brother. He can be funny. He can be generous when he forgets to be impressive. When we were little, he once stayed up all night helping me build a cardboard castle for school because mine collapsed.”
Allison smiled faintly.
“That sounds like him too.”
“It is him. But so is the man who told me not to ruin the image.”
Her eyes glistened.
“I need to know both.”
“Yes,” I said. “You do.”
She reached for my hand.
“Will you have coffee with me after the honeymoon? Just us?”
The offer moved me more than I expected.
“I’d like that.”
We returned to the ballroom together, and for the first time all night, Allison walked beside me not as my brother’s bride, but as someone who had chosen to see me clearly.
Near the terrace doors, Emmett stood in conversation with a woman I recognized from a financial magazine. When he saw me, he excused himself and came over.
“Everything all right?”