Somewhere Between Us

Chapter 4: I Do (Sort Of)

The dress fit like it had been made for someone else's life, which, Zoey supposed, it had. Silk instead of the polyester blends she was used to, a hem that didn't need pinning, sleeves that didn't pull at the shoulder when she raised her arms. She stood in front of the mirror in the private room off the Sterling estate's garden and didn't recognize the woman looking back.

"You look like you're about to rob a bank," said Priya, who'd been smuggled in as moral support and immediately declared the entire event "unhinged, but in a fun way."

"I feel like I'm about to rob a bank."

"Well, don't. The dress doesn't have pockets for the cash."

Zoey laughed, mostly because the alternative was letting the nerves win, and let Priya fuss with a strand of hair that didn't need fussing. Through the window, she could see the garden filling with people she'd never met, all of them dressed like the wedding of the season, which, according to three separate news outlets, it now technically was.

The ceremony itself passed in a blur of borrowed vows and rented flowers, small by Sterling standards, which still meant more roses than Zoey's entire apartment building had seen in its lifetime. Dylan stood at the end of the aisle looking unfairly composed for a man committing legal fraud in front of a judge, and when she reached him, he leaned in close enough that only she could hear.

"You clean up well, Ms. Adams."

"Don't start."

"I would never." His eyes were laughing even though his mouth wasn't. "You look terrified."

"I am terrified."

"Good. Terrified reads as genuine emotion. Very convincing." He squeezed her hand once, quick and businesslike, and then the judge was talking, and then, impossibly, it was done, a ring on her finger that cost more than her mother's medical bills combined, a certificate with both their names on it, a year of her life signed away in eleven minutes.

The kiss, when it came, wasn't in the script exactly, but the judge said the words and three hundred phones lifted at once, and Dylan didn't hesitate. His hand found her jaw, gentle, and his mouth met hers, brief, warm, far too convincing for something that was supposed to mean nothing. Zoey felt it land somewhere she hadn't given permission for, a small electric shock that had no business happening at a fake wedding to a man she'd known for three weeks.

He pulled back first, smirk already sliding back into place like nothing had happened. "For the cameras," he murmured.

"Obviously," she said, and hated that her voice came out steadier than she felt.

The reception was where the real performance began.

Marguerite Sterling found her within the first ten minutes, gliding across the lawn in silver silk with the particular grace of a woman who'd never once tripped in heels. She was beautiful in a way that seemed engineered rather than accidental, warm brown eyes, a smile that reached exactly as far as it needed to, hands that closed around Zoey's like they were old friends reunited.

"There she is," Marguerite said, kissing the air beside Zoey's cheek. "The woman who finally caught our Dylan. I confess, I was starting to think it would never happen."

"It's been a whirlwind," Zoey said, which was, at least, not technically a lie.

"The best marriages usually are." Marguerite's gaze flicked, briefly, unreadably, toward Dylan across the lawn, then back to Zoey with a warmth so complete it felt almost rehearsed. "I do hope you'll let me help with things going forward. Family dinners, holidays, I've always wanted more of us at the table. It would mean so much to me if Dylan finally felt like he had a real family again."

There was something underneath the sentiment, something Zoey couldn't quite name, not insincerity, exactly, but a texture to it, like a held note that hadn't quite resolved. She filed it away without knowing why.

"That's very kind," Zoey said.

"Not kind. Necessary." Marguerite squeezed her hand once more before drifting off toward another cluster of guests, leaving behind a faint cloud of expensive perfume and an impression Zoey couldn't shake.

The stepbrother was harder to miss and easier to read. Julian Sterling had his mother's easy bearing but none of her warmth, and he shook Zoey's hand like he was doing her a favor.

"So you're the one," he said. "Congratulations. You've married the golden boy. Everyone will tell you how lucky you are."

"Are they wrong?"

"Ask me in a year." He smiled, thin and quick, already looking past her toward the bar. "Enjoy the ride, Mrs. Sterling."

He left before she could decide whether that had been a warning or just garden-variety sibling bitterness. She glanced toward Dylan, who was watching the exchange from a distance with an expression carefully wiped clean, and understood, without either of them saying anything, that this particular tension predated her by years.

Claire, by contrast, arrived like a small burst of sunlight, younger, unguarded, hugging Zoey before either of them had been properly introduced.

"Ignore Julian, he's like that with everyone," she said. "I'm so glad Dylan finally found someone. He deserves it, even if he's terrible at showing he wants things."

"He does seem to have a policy against wanting things out loud."

"You have no idea." Claire laughed, easy and real, and for a moment Zoey let herself relax into the genuine warmth of it, grateful for one honest face in a garden full of performances.

She found Dylan later, near the edge of the property where the string lights thinned into darkness, standing alone with a drink he wasn't drinking and an expression she hadn't seen on him before, something quiet, unguarded, entirely without the smirk. On his other hand, half-hidden by his sleeve, was a photograph, small and creased at the corners, the kind kept in a wallet rather than a frame.

"Hiding from your own wedding?" she asked.

He startled, just slightly, and tucked the photograph away before she could see more than the edge of it, a man's face, dark-haired, unsmiling. "Recharging," he said. "There's a difference."

"What's the picture?"

"Nothing." The word came too fast, too flat, and then, softer, like he was correcting course: "My father. Old photo. I don't know why I brought it, honestly. Sentimental impulse, apparently, on today of all days."

"You don't talk about him."

"No," Dylan agreed, and something closed over his face like a door swinging shut. "I don't."

She let it go, mostly because she recognized the shape of a wound when she saw one, had enough of her own to know better than to press on someone else's. But she watched him a moment longer, the careful way he'd folded the photograph away, the stillness in his shoulders that hadn't been there an hour ago, and thought, not for the first time, that Dylan Sterling was carrying something heavier than his smirk ever let on.

"Your family's a lot," she said instead, gentler than she meant it.

"Told you." He exhaled, and some of the ease came back into his face, though not all of it. "You handled them well. Marguerite adores you already, which is either a good sign or a terrible one. I can never tell."

"I'll take it as good until proven otherwise."

"Wise policy." He looked at her then, really looked, in a way that made the string lights and the music and the three hundred strangers in the garden seem very far away. "Thank you. For today. I know none of it is real, but you made it look real, and that's more than I had any right to ask of you."

"It's what you're paying me for."

"Sure," he said, and something in his voice suggested he didn't entirely believe that anymore, though neither of them said so out loud.

Somewhere behind them, the band struck up something slow, and Marguerite's laugh rang bright and warm across the lawn, and Zoey stood beside her husband of four hours, watching him watch nothing at all, and wondered exactly what kind of family she'd just married into.