He Kissed My Sister on the Day I Was Forced to Wed novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Men in Black

She walks down the aisle alone, Roan kisses her for the front row, and she says her name is Landry to sixty people.

At ten minutes to four I stood outside the chapel room in my mother's ivory slip dress, because the one my stepmother picked had been too tight in the ribs.

I had changed in the pantry and told nobody.

My father came up beside me with his hand out for my arm.

His eyes were red, and he smelled like the whiskey he'd had for breakfast.

"Sutton, sweetheart. I'll walk you in."

"No."

"Sweetheart..."

"You walk in and sit down, Dad. I'm walking in alone."

He looked at the floor and then he went.

The room was the old ballroom with the dust sheets pulled off, and sixty people in dark clothes turned around at once when the doors opened.

I kept my eyes on the end of the aisle.

Roan Draper stood under the tall window in a black suit with the jacket open and a white shirt open under it.

Beside him, in a row, stood the other three.

The one with the scarred eyebrow, the one with the ear studs, and a huge, silent man whose neck was wider than my waist.

All four of them had the shirts open, and nobody in the room said a word about it.

The front row was on my left.

My stepmother sat there in navy silk, with her pearls on and her chin up.

Camryn sat beside her in a pale blue dress.

And beside Camryn, close enough that their shoulders touched, sat Reed.

He had on the grey suit I'd helped him pick for his graduation.

He wasn't looking at the bride.

He was looking at his hands.

I walked carefully, and I got to the front without tripping.

"Dearly beloved," said the officiant, and his voice shook, because even the officiant knew who owned the building.

Roan didn't take my hand until the officiant told him to.

His palm was warm and dry, and it covered my whole hand.

He turned his head and spoke so only I could hear.

"You don't have to look at him."

"I'm going to anyway."

"Then look at him," Roan said. "And I'll look at you."

I said my vows in a clear voice.

I said "I do" with my eyes on Reed.

He finally lifted his head, and his face went the color of paper.

Camryn put her hand on his knee.

I watched her do it.

"You may kiss your bride."

I thought it would be a peck, the kind you give an aunt.

Roan tilted my chin with two fingers.

Then he put his mouth on mine, slow and sure, and when I gasped, he took it.

His hand slid to the small of my back and pulled me flat against him.

He tasted like coffee and mint.

My fingers closed in his open shirt, on warm skin and a thread of ink, and I heard somebody in the audience say "Oh, my God," and somebody else drop a glass.

It wasn't a peck.

It was an answer.

When he finally lifted his head, my knees had stopped working, and he was still holding me up.

"That," he murmured, "was for the front row."

"I know," I said, and my voice came out wrecked.

"And this part wasn't."

He kissed the corner of my mouth, lightly, once.

Behind us, the man with the ear studs said, loud enough for the room, "Well, I'm crying."

The silent one gave him a look.

Somebody laughed.

It wasn't a kind laugh, but it broke the room, and I was grateful.

The reception was a long table on the wharf lawn, set for sixty, with the lake behind it.

I sat at Roan's right hand and ate a roll because I couldn't taste anything else.

Camryn drifted up behind my chair around the third toast.

She had a champagne glass she wasn't drinking from.

"You look so pretty," she whispered. "I really mean it. I'm not even jealous."

"Where's your plus-one?"

"Getting me a plate." She tilted her head, and her blonde hair swung. "It was only ever a dare, Sutton. You know I'd never hurt you."

I turned my whole body to look at her.

She was eighteen years old and she had her mother's smile, and I wanted to say forty things.

Roan said one.

"Camryn."

He hadn't looked up from his plate.

"Yes, Roan?" she said, in her sweet voice.

"Go sit down."

She left.

My shoulders came down, and the man with the ear studs leaned across the table.

"I'm Nash," he said. "That's the Silent One, that's the Eyebrow, and the guy you're married to is the one we have to apologize for. Welcome to the family, Mrs. Draper."

"It's Landry," I said.

The old man's wheelchair had stopped at the end of the table.

He had a glass in his hand.

He tapped it with a spoon, and sixty people shut up.

"A toast to my grandson's wife," he said, and his eyes were wet stone again. "Who will sign the registry on Monday as Mrs. Roan Draper, because that is what a Draper wife is called in my house."

Every head turned to me.

I put down my fork.

I stood up in my mother's dress, with my hands flat on the white tablecloth.

"My name is Sutton Landry," I said. "It was Landry yesterday, it's Landry today, and it's on a letter from Hartwell University that's in my pocket. You can call me what you like at your table. It won't change what's on the paper."

Nobody breathed.

The old man looked at me for a long moment.

Then he looked at Roan.

Roan lifted his water glass.

"To Sutton Landry," he said. "My wife."

Nash stood up and raised his glass.

The Eyebrow stood up.

The Silent One stood so fast that his chair fell over.

The old man set his glass down without drinking.

"Very well," he said. "You've won the toast."

He turned the chair to leave, and he said over his shoulder, as if he were asking about the weather:

"The boathouse suite is yours. My housekeeper will check the bed in the morning."

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