“It’s not,” Quinn soothed. “Not for you.”

  “Because I’m immature? I wanted to believe destiny kept bringing us together. It was just coincidence and fixation. Lust. Micah always says that love is a lie people tell themselves to justify having sex. He’s right.”

  “Your brother is a very cynical man. I’m pretty cynical myself, but we both love you and your big-hearted optimism, don’t we? It’s not immaturity to see the world in a brighter light. It’s necessary. Otherwise we’ll all sink into bleak pessimism. If Remy is too blind to see what a gift you’ve offered him with your love, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

  “He does, though! That’s the worst of it. He’s a good man, Quinn. He’s honest and strong and caring. He loves his family so much, but he doesn’t love me. He can’t.”

  Quinn’s brow furrowed. “Because of Micah?”

  Eden took a breath, thinking...kind of. But that would open up more questions and she couldn’t reveal the secret Remy carried about Yasmine.

  Her breath left her in a sob of despair. She curled herself tighter into the sofa, feet on the cushion next to her, whole body leaned weakly into the back.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Quinn rubbed her shoulder. “We’re going to take this one minute at a time, okay? I’ll make some tea.” She glanced to the kettle and coffee maker on the sideboard.

  Eden wasn’t thirsty. In this moment, she really didn’t care if she evaporated from dehydration, but she could tell Quinn felt deeply helpless.

  “Water is fine,” she rasped.

  Quinn nodded and rose, but halted when her phone rang. They shared a look, both aware it was likely Remy.

  With a wince of persecution, Eden nodded that it was okay for her to answer.

  “Hello? Yes, she’s here.” Quinn held the receiver to her breast. “He wants to know if you’ll meet him in your room?”

  Eden briefly dropped her brow onto her upraised knees, but the one thing she had learned from her first wedding was that it was better to cancel it rather than hang on to whatever expectations she’d had for her future.

  She nodded and forced her feet to the floor. “I don’t have my card for the elevator.”

  “I’ll take you up with mine. She’ll be there in a minute,” Quinn said and hung up, then said, “If you need to, pack your things and come back here. Or call me to help.”

  “I will. Thanks.” She lifted empty hands as she realized she hadn’t even put shoes on before she had fled.

  With her mouth in a flat, sympathetic line, Quinn picked up her own key card and led Eden to the door.

  Outside, they heard a woman speaking. “Call me when you can.”

  Then it sounded like Remy’s unmistakable timbre. “I will. I love you.”

  Quinn’s eyes goggled with outrage.

  Eden was so shocked she could only watch in horror as Quinn flung open her door to see if it was really him.

  It was. Remy was embracing—

  “Excuse us,” Quinn said stridently.

  “It’s okay!” Eden squeezed Quinn’s arm, holding herself upright as shock and relief collided within her, making her feel punch-drunk. “She’s his sister.” What a farce!

  The startled pair in the open door across the hall broke their hug to stare at them.

  “Hi, Yasmine.” Eden’s smile was an act of bravery and a very poor one. Yasmine must have rushed to fly in for their wedding and now it was yet another disaster.

  Eden wanted to hang her head and scurry into the swamp. If any of this wound up in the press, adding to her first humiliation... Oh, who was she kidding? The paparazzi were probably outside right now.

  She couldn’t even look at Remy as they started stiffly to the elevator. Inside, a freshly married couple in full wedding regalia were beaming and staring with adoration into each other’s eyes.

  Eden was downright sick by the time Remy opened their suite and they walked into the luxurious rooms. The space still wore the stamp of their messy occupancy—a tossed shirt here, a pair of discarded sandals there. The doors to the terrace were still open so the warm breeze wafted in with the hush of waves against the shore.

  Night had fallen, though. The rooms were shadowed and everything felt dark and empty.

  Remy flicked on a light. “Eden—”

  “I’m not pregnant,” she blurted.

  “Oh.” Remy straightened and squeezed the back of his neck. His voice became deeper. Heavier. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve had my period before. I’m pretty sure I’ll survive it.” She cringed, immediately regretting her snap. “What I’m saying is, we don’t have to marry.” She paced a few steps, but didn’t know where to go. “I’ll honor all the negotiations with the business. I still want Yasmine to have...” Her voice trailed into a pang as she felt completely adrift.

  It struck her that she really didn’t care what happened to her company. She and her mother would be fine. Not great. It would be a loss financially and a terrible blow to Eden’s sense of confidence in her ability to run a company, but BH&G had been in trouble when she took it over. She hadn’t caused the dire straits it was in. She was simply failing to rescue it.

  “Yasmine knows,” Remy said, voice not quite steady.

  “What? How? I didn’t say a thing,” she insisted as she flung around.

  “I know. It was my aunt. Which makes me feel like a coward for not being the one to tell her.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But she knows now and that’s a good thing.”

  “Is it? Is she okay?”

  “She will be, I think. She’s not ready to tell Micah.”

  Eden nodded and hugged herself. “I can help when she is ready. If she wants.”

  “Thanks.” He nodded and licked his lips, searched her eyes.

  There was a long awkward pause that asked, Where do we go from here?

  “Once she’s ready to tell him, he can make his own offers of reparation.” Eden realized with a sick jolt. “You don’t want to go through with this.” Why would he? “I completely understand. Neither do I.”

  She swept her hand through the air, pacing again. Moving on because it was the only choice she had, but she was walking across the broken shards of her own heart, making every step an agony.

  “I’m disappointed,” Remy said. His hands were fists at his sides, his expression agonized.

  In her? So was she! Hot tears rose to her eyes.

  “I’m devastated that you’re not pregnant,” he continued, voice urgent. Unsteady. “It makes no more sense than any of this, but I wanted a baby with you.” He pointed at her, then waved at the world around them. “I wanted all of this. The marriage, the future that lasts forever. I wanted to help you fix your father’s company. Not for Yasmine, but for you. I want your love, Eden. I love you.”

  Cupid’s arrow went straight into her heart. It rose to throb in her throat and she was blinking hard, trying to clear her vision. “But—”

  “But I thought I shouldn’t want it. That I had to protect my sister. I was protecting myself. Love for family isn’t the same as what I feel for you. That love is not this crashing force that damn near knocked me down the minute I saw you. Do you know that when I walked away from you in the Louvre, I kicked myself for not getting your number? But then I stopped worrying about it because I knew that I’d see you again. I just knew. Make sense of that for me, will you?”

  She bit her trembling lips and shrugged. She couldn’t, but it had been the same for her. She just knew.

  “When I asked my assistant to meet us here, I had him go to my home in Montreal and get this.” He strode to the safe in the bedroom closet.

  She went to the door and saw him withdraw a velvet box. He opened it and offered it to her.

  “These are my mother’s rings. I wouldn’t give these to a woman who isn’t my forever, Eden. I knew that in here.” He tapped the spot on his chest over his heart, then his temple. “I didn’t know how to put that knowledge into what I knew up here.”

  “It has been fast,” she murmured, still trying to see him through her blur of tears. Bemused ones now. Bordering on joyous. Great bubbles were expanding in her chest.

  “It’s been five years,” he said helplessly. “Do you have any doubt that you’ll feel the same in five more? In fifty?”

  “No. I think you’re the only man I’ll ever love like this. After we’re both gone, I’ll look for you in heaven. Or in the next life and the next.”

  “What about here and now, though? Are you prepared to spend the rest of this life with me?” He came to where she was standing in the doorway and went down to one knee. “Will you marry me? Not for any reason except that we love each other?”

  She cupped his jaw and lowered to sit across his thigh, never breaking eye contact as she did, even though her whole body was trembling and unsteady. “It would be my honor to marry you, Remy Sylvain.”

  With reverence, he tried the ring on her finger. It was a little big, so he moved it to her index finger, then said wryly, “We’ll get it sized later.”

  “We’ll make all the adjustments we have to.” She looped her arms around his neck, so filled with love, she felt made of it. “The important part is that we’ll do them together.”

  “We will,” he said solemnly and gathered her closer, sealing their vow with a tender kiss.

  * * *

  Yasmine teased Eden that she would never forgive her for not letting her design her wedding gown, but she heartily approved of Eden’s choice.

  It was a small wedding, so Eden had picked a minimalist style while she’d been in Paris. It was the opposite of the confection she’d worn for her wedding to Hunter. The body-hugging slip dress with a cowl neckline was classic and elegant. Instead of a veil, Eden chose a modest crown of silk delphinium blossoms.

  Yasmine wore a wide-legged pantsuit in a darker blue. Quinn put on an ice-blue dress, cheekily musing that she should have worn the bridesmaid dress already owned.

  The pair had chatted while Eden and Remy were working out their differences.

  “She came across to assure me he really loves you,” Quinn told Eden. “Then we cracked a bottle of wine and talked about the sad state of our own love lives.”

  “Do you know how happy I am that my best friend has already bonded with my new sister-in-law?” Eden was brimming with happy tears and now had to dab a tissue beneath her eyes so she didn’t ruin her makeup.

  A few minutes before eleven, the women went down to the gazebo.

  Eden had no fear of being left at the altar this time. Remy looked up from his watch and his love for her was like a wall of bright sunshine that fell hot and bright against her as she walked toward him.

  Eden was vaguely aware of Remy’s assistant and the officiant, but couldn’t see anyone but her groom. He’d shaved and wore a simple gray suit with a vest shot with silver threads on royal blue silk. When he took her hand, her knees went weak.

  “That’s Mama’s engagement ring,” Yasmine breathed with awe.

  “Do you mind?” Eden bit her lip.

  “No. I just...” Yasmine blinked emotive tears and bit her wobbling lips. “It tells me how much you mean to him.” She hugged Remy and Eden.

  Impossibly, Eden’s heart expanded even more. She could hardly breathe.

  “Oh. Old, new.” Quinn pointed at rings and gown. “Take this.” Quinn worked off her bangle, one with blue sapphires that Eden had given her as a birthday gift years ago. “Borrowed and blue.”

  “Careful. I’m going to start thinking you’re sentimental.”

  “Guilty. I want that back,” Quinn said and they all laughed.

  “Ready?” the officiant asked, waiting for nods before beginning to read from a small book. “Today we witness...”

  This was really happening. With each word, everything between Eden and Remy changed. She placed her absolute trust in him. She gave him her future and herself, but he gave himself to her in the same way. The words—vows that they repeated very solemnly—were sincere, but also irrelevant. They were already one.

  They were joined in ways that no force could put asunder.

  In moments, she was startled to find herself placing a band on Remy’s finger. He put his mother’s on her and a fresh bubble of joyous laughter rose in her throat.

  “You are married,” the officiant declared simply. “Kiss, if you wish.”

  Remy’s warm hand settled against the side of her neck. Eden tilted back her head and looked into his eyes. She felt such calmness and certainty, such rightness, she closed her eyes to savor it.

  His mouth settled against hers. The kiss was chaste, but so deeply imbued with their love, fresh dampness gathered on her lashes. She loved him so deeply, the words formed on her lips as they clung to his.

  Into their exquisitely perfect moment, a furious male voice cried, “Eden!”

  * * *

  “Oh, my God,” Quinn gasped.

  With a hot jab of adrenaline, Eden broke away from Remy and spun to see Micah striding up the flagstone path toward them.

  “Oh, my God,” she echoed. “I know you are not here to ruin my wedding.” She moved to the rail of the gazebo. “No one in this world would be cruel enough to do that to a woman shortly after the last time it happened to her.”

  “Did you tell him?” Remy snapped at Quinn.

  “That you were here? No.” She looked and sounded as shocked as Eden was.

  “No, she didn’t.” Micah sent a scowl of betrayal in Quinn’s direction. “I figured it out all by myself when you two were all over the headlines after that party in Paris, but I couldn’t find you the next day. Flight plans are public record and there’s only one reason you would bring her here. It’s not to see the Barbary macaques.”

  “Micah.” Eden gripped the rail of the gazebo. “This has to stop.”

  “No, this has to stop.” He pointed at the gazebo. “Have an affair if you have to, but leave it in the Bermuda Triangle. In fact, don’t even do that. He’s exploiting you when you’re vulnerable, Eden. He’s trying to get his mitts on your company. Come. We’re leaving.”

  “No, he’s not,” Yasmine defended hotly. “They love each other.”

  Micah’s gaze shifted to penetrate the shadows of the gazebo.

  “We’re married.” Remy stepped up behind Eden. He squeezed bolstering strength into Eden’s upper arms, feeling her tremble, but also used his bulk to shield his sister from Micah. “It’s time for you and I to put down our swords and move on.”

  “When you’re pulling stunts like this? Like. Hell.”

  Remy felt the jolt that went through Eden. Odious as he found the man, he didn’t want to get between his wife and her brother. Or his sister and her other brother, for that matter.

  “You hypocrite.” Quinn suddenly threw herself forward to stand next to Eden. “Get off your high horse. You’re upset about your sister getting married in secret? What about your secret?”

  Micah’s head went back. “Stop right there, Quinn. That has nothing to do with this.”

  “Micah and I have been having an affair. It’s been on and off for ages,” Quinn announced.

  “What?” Eden breathed.

  “Why are you doing this?” Micah’s temper was condensing like a nuclear reactor getting ready to blow. “Why here? Now? Like this?”

  “It was completely consensual,” Quinn quickly assured everyone. “I’m not accusing him of anything more than appalling double standards. Your sister is allowed to marry whomever she wants. She can save her company however she wants. She can flush it all down the toilet if she wants to. You are not the boss of everyone just because you think you are!”

  Micah stared so hard at Quinn, she should have incinerated on the spot.

  “It’s me you’re angry with,” Remy began.

  “No. It’s not.” Micah gave one cold blink that dismissed Quinn. His expression became so ruthlessly implacable, Eden pressed backward into Remy. He closed his arms around her in reassurance.

  “Are you coming with me or not?” Micah asked.

  “We’re married. I love him.”

  “You really believe that?” Micah choked on a humorless laugh. “You can all go to hell, then.” He pivoted and stalked away.

  “Micah!” Eden cried.

  * * *

  Eden had never felt such a tear of allegiance. She wanted to go after her brother to smooth things over, but when she glanced at Remy, she saw he was looking at Yasmine, who was wearing a look of teary shock.

  Yasmine was staring at Quinn. Quinn was staring into the space where Micah had disappeared. She had such a devastated expression, Eden reached for her.

  Quinn shook her off and pressed a pained smile onto her lips.

  “I’m okay. I picked him because he would never hurt me.” She flicked her gold-red hair over her shoulder. “It wasn’t serious. We only kept it from you because you’ve always said you wanted me to marry him. I didn’t want to give you false hopes. You know my feelings on marriage. For me. This is totally fine for you.” She was forcing cheerfulness that was clearly false. “Congratulations.” She hugged them both, short and hard. “But I’m going to take a beat...” She thumbed over her shoulder then hurried away.

  “Quinn!” Eden started to go after her, but Yasmine touched her arm.

  “I’ll go. She did that for me. I told her.” Yasmine shrugged helplessly. “We had some wine and she said she knew Micah. I didn’t realize she knew him. You two just...be happy. Please?”

  Eden let her go and looked in the other direction, but Micah was long gone.

  “Regrets?” Remy asked.

  She took a deep breath and sighed. “No.” She slid her arm around his waist and leaned into him. “Just sorry that I’ve hurt him. That Quinn felt such a need to protect me that she’s hurting now, too.”