Ranieri had planned every part of this wedding. Including the dress she wore now, because he’d known that its elegant sweep would highlight her beauty perfectly. He was pleased to see it did. She looked graceful and ethereal, a vision in white.
He had slowly come to terms with the reality of Annika over the past few weeks. Perhaps it was simply that once he’d kissed her, all the blinders he’d kept firmly in place for years had come crashing down.
Annika was a beautiful woman. Full stop. What she was not, he had found, was overly concerned with maintaining and showing off that beauty. He doubted she thought much about it at all. Just as she did not care overmuch about fashion the way everyone did—including him—because it was considered a calling card in these circles.
She had never been interested in calling cards. If she was, she would not have secreted herself away in this funny old museum.
And Ranieri knew this: if she had truly been as embarrassing and awkward as she and everyone around her pretended, she would not have inspired the kind of snide commentary that forever followed in her wake. That sort of thing only came about when jealousy was involved.
It made sense. A beautiful woman so unselfconscious could only be considered a threat to some.
Not that this explained his long-term aversion to her and what he liked to think of as her bedraggled state. Kissing her had brought other memories back, too. He could recall his first introduction to her. She’d been standing there in the stunning foyer of her apartment, beneath the Baccarat chandelier with her father, and he had taken a quick initial impression of her. He’d seen the long, silky hair. Her lovely oval of a face. An hourglass figure in a lovely dress. He’d noticed, because of course he noticed, how pretty she was—
And in the next moment she had been introduced to him as Bennett Schuyler’s daughter and he had shut all of that off. So completely that it was as if he hadn’t truly seen her again until now.
But it made sense to him why her sartorial choices had always irritated him so deeply. Why he had only been able to see the careless hair, the oddball choices of dress. If asked, he would have banged on about the stain upon the Schuyler name, which affected him personally in his position. He often had, at length.
Now he rather thought the truth of it was, deep down, that he’d always known exactly how pretty she was. And it offended him, connoisseur of all things beautiful, that her loveliness was obscured. When all it would take was a little work on her part to showcase it.
Today, he’d done the showcasing himself.
And he had done it well.
What he hadn’t been prepared for was the punch to the gut he felt when he laid eyes on her for the first time in the dress he’d picked out for her, walking toward him as if she’d chosen this.
As if she’d chosen him.
It was as if that violin was scratching out the bridal march inside him.
Annika had opted to walk down the aisle herself. And though Ranieri knew she’d done it because she thought that somehow made what was happening less real, he thought she’d miscalculated. It didn’t make her look removed from the proceedings, but the opposite. She could not have made her father more present here in any other way.
All anyone could possibly see as she walked was his absence. The afternoon shadows almost seemed to make it possible to imagine him walking proudly beside her as she made it down the aisle and faced Ranieri at last.
And he felt everything far too keenly, though he told himself it was the sweetness of his victory here, nothing more.
He reminded himself of that victory when she took his hands. When he said his vows and her green eyes darkened. When she repeated them, her voice gone ever so slightly scratchy on those old words that he knew she would say did not apply to them.
Love. Honor. Cherish.
Then it was done, so Ranieri hooked a hand around her neck and pulled her close to kiss her. Once more for a crowd.
They were getting good at it, this kissing thing. He had staved off God only knew how many humiliations this way, and now was done. The marriage her father had demanded, sealed with a kiss.
Now if either one of them wanted to walk away, it would take a divorce.
The reception kicked into gear as they walked back down the aisle and posed for a few pictures, because not doing so would look strange. When the photographer had snapped what must have been hundreds of shots, Annika murmured something about tending to the guests, and excused herself.
Ran away from him, more like, but Ranieri could allow it. There was nowhere for her to go, after all. He did his own rounds of the party, checking in with the usual heavy hitters he always found himself talking to at parties like this. He liked that the caterers Annika had recommended were deft and seemed functionally psychic, replacing a drink the very moment a guest noticed it was empty. Or producing a plate of appetizers to choose from at the very moment someonealmostfelt hungry.
He was tempted to imagine that if they wished, the two of them could do well together. Stuck as they were with each other for the year. Today, it seemed less a bitter fate than before.
The events coordinator oversaw the removal of all the chairs from the ceremony and swiftly set up the single long table down the length of the courtyard as the sun began to set. The courtyard was lit all around with lanterns, a bright glow against the October evening, with heat lamps placed every few feet to keep the warmth of the day. Schuyler House stood there before them, its old walls surrounded them, and Ranieri almost thought he understood Annika’s connection to the place now. It was beautiful, in its way. A slice of old New York and, having grown up in so many old places himself, Ranieri felt drawn to it.
When really, he should’ve been basking in his triumph. His complete and utter victory, despite much provocation from Annika herself. Despite the pink monstrosity that was still overtaking his desk andunicorn figurines.
But in truth, all he could think about was the honeymoon. About getting away from all thesepeopleat last and taking her somewhere that there would be no eyes on her at all, save his.
The violinist was joined by three other musicians to form a proper string quartet, and they played classical standards as the party was called to dinner. Ranieri wasn’t hungry. Not for food. But what he liked was that it gave him a good excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway. He found his way to his bride’s side, intending to take her hand and tug her away from the conversation she was having with the group of women he knew were the college friends she sometimes spoke of. Not to him, but to the staff when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.