Normally, the alpha was dressed in neat, dark suits that cut an imposing figure on him, but today he was dressed in a white tuxedo that seemed to soften the patriarch of the Keane clan.
His black hair had been scraped out of his eyes and styled immaculately, his golden eyes had an almost unearthly quality to them as the light from above hit the both of us and I found myself staring at him far longer than was appropriate for our current situation.
“You look handsome.” The words spilled from my lips before I could catch them and I felt my face warm as Edison’s grin turned into something more genuine than before.
He didn’t get the chance to reply to my compliment, though, because the priest was cheerfully beginning the ceremony in a thick Irish lilt.
We moved through the motions together and I only half-listened to the words as Edison’s thumb ran smooth circles on the side of my hand.
About midway through the ceremony, I leaned over to Edison and whispered into his ear. “Where on Earth did you find swans on such short notice?”
The birds in question were making their way through the crowd, hissing at anyone who dared to try and reach out to touch them.
The corners of Edison’s mouth pulled up into a wry smile. “I know a guy.”
It was exactly as Rhodes had said, but I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of meeting with someone to rent swans for the day.
“You know a swan guy?” I asked, a little too loudly.
The priest’s words stuttered as he continued his prayer over us, but he managed to keep going with a sharp look in my direction.
Chastised, I lowered my voice.
“You know a swan guy?” I repeated much quieter than before.
“He’s not just a swan guy. He also raises pigeons and other birds. He just so happened to also have a pair of swans.”
Edison was clearly having a good time watching my incredulous expression because a chuckle rumbled out of the alpha, making the priest falter in the middle of his words again.
“You’re distracting him,” I whispered, my body flushing with heat when he gave my hand a squeeze in response.
Realistically, it shouldn’t have done anything to me. It was just holding hands in front of a priest and all of the people in the audience. It should have been the most innocent of contact, but something about the way his thumb traced the lines on my palm was making every dirty little thought I’d had about the handsome alpha over the past few weeks rise straight to the forefront of my mind.
It’s a contract, I reminded myself as the priest gestured for us to come in closer. Just a contract.
“Now we will exchange the rings as a sign of commitment that these two individuals hold together,” the priest announced as he held up a plush tray with rings on it.
I hadn’t seen what would become my wedding ring before, but I was surprised to find how much I liked it. It was a silver ring with a gray, oval stone surrounded by clear ones that sparkled in the sunlight. With it came two silver bands that fit so snugly on my fingers that they must have measured for them while I was asleep because no one had asked my ring size.
Edison’s ring was a darker silver, and as I slid it on his finger, I realized that his hands were bare of his usual set of rings, making it stand out for all to see. He wasn’t even wearing the signet ring that had become synonymous with what I thought of when I thought of Edison Keane.
When we were going over the wedding details, Edison had explained that this wedding would be a more informal Catholic ceremony than the Roman Catholic one that I had to spend the weeks leading up to it learning.
It’s Catholic light,just like me, he’d joked one evening while we sat around the dinner table.
So it didn’t surprise me when, after only maybe a half-hour of listening to the priest, he finally declared that, in front of the eyes of God and the congregation, that we were now husband and wife.
The next part I thought I’d rehearsed in my mind enough that it wouldn’t surprise me, but when Edison’s lips descended on mine I found that my brain was short circuiting.
He told me that I had to make the kiss look real. To act like I wanted it more than anything.
And, honestly?
With the intensity with which his lips were moving against mine, I was pretty sure that we were doing an Oscar-worthy job of it.
I’d never kissed anyone before—well no one besides Tommy Peters in the first grade—but I wasn’t counting that.
The hoots and hollers from the crowd cheering us on were utterly drowned out by him. From the way his overwhelming vanilla scent, mixed in with just a hair of chocolate, or the way his lips moved against mine, testing to see how far I would let him go in front of all of these people.
I barely even registered that my feet were no longer on the ground until he was spinning us around, much to the delight of the onlookers.
“Good job, pet,” he whispered in close to my ear, his fingers tracing the line of goosebumps that were racing down my bare back from his attention.
For just a moment I was worried that I was the only one so affected by our kiss. That it truly was only a farce to please the audience in front of us.
Then I searched his face, my eyes meeting his and finding that his pupils were completely blown, nearly blocking out the gold of his irises.
Not only that, he was also breathing heavily, his lips red and swollen under the sheen of the shimmery lip gloss the makeup artist had put on me this morning.
No, Edison wasn’t just playing a part, and for some reason, that made butterflies erupt in my belly as I reached up to gently brush the gloss from his lips with my thumb.
“Thank you,” he rumbled, his fingers dimpling the flesh of my back as we turned to face the crowd who were also playing their part as Edison’s family, happily cheering on our nuptials.
“For what?” I asked as we descended the platform, hand-in-hand, and started to make our way back up the aisle, grinning for everyone to see.
Edison shook his head as he waved smugly to some of the older members of the Keane family as we passed. Their smiles didn’t quite reach their eyes as they watched us go, clearly unhappy with the wedding they’d just witnessed.
“For going through with it—the wedding I mean.”
