From Ex to Eternity(31)

It was the only reason she’d spilled everything to her sister. Every last horrible detail.

“That’s good. But if you can’t do this, no one would notice the hole in the lineup.” Meredith nodded at Cara’s dress, her gaze chock-full of sympathy. “We have five other designs to show. It’s enough.”

How did her sister always know the right thing to say?

“Bless you, honey. But Mulan is the first dress I designed because I wanted to, not because I had an order. It’s my best work.” She bit her lip and struggled not to take the easy out. “I need to wear it and I need to participate in my own show. People will love it.”

More therapy. Obviously she required a lot. But she had a burning need to prove something to herself, and walking down a runway in a wedding dress somehow had become part of it.

Music piped through the sound system, and one by one the girls paraded down the runway, twirled, paused to a barrage of applause and returned to the backstage area. Cara went last.

Her smile was genuine.

She’d come full circle. Cara Chandler-Harris Designs had started as a way to get her through. And it would continue to provide her satisfaction and purpose. Nothing had changed, other than the fact that Cara could finally accept the truth.

She was always the bride, but never married. And that was okay.

Weddings were fun and she got to participate in the centerpiece of every one—the dress.

And before she’d come to Grace Bay, Cara had let the glamour and romance of the event itself seduce her into forgetting that “I do” wasn’t the end of the wedding but the beginning of a marriage.

Flashes around the perimeter from professional cameras burst in rapid succession. Photographs. Of her dresses. These were magazine photographers and wedding bloggers capturing her designs to show to their readers. Which might lead to more customers.

At the end of the runway, she pivoted and held the pose to thunderous applause. Lord above, they were clapping for her dress. And her design. And Cara herself. It was heady and gratifying and fulfilling.

It flooded her all at once.

This is what Keith had meant by being cake. This feeling, this sense of accomplishment, this being in the essence of something she’d created from nothing. He’d encouraged her to forget about the frosting and focus on the substance underneath.

Cara Chandler-Harris Designs wasn’t a business; it was an extension of Cara, a manifestation of her wedding dreams. Those dreams would live forever, caught in visions of silk and lace.

Marriage wasn’t the most important thing she could do in her life.

The realization was freeing in a way she’d never expected. During this time in Grace Bay, she’d liked that Keith saw her as an equal, but she’d never quite figured out that to him, marriage meant inequality.

That was an aspect of the man she loved that she’d never known before. No wonder he’d fled from their first wedding. In a misguided way, he probably thought he was doing her a favor. And really, he had, in so many ways.

Keith’s dark head rose above the crowd, catching in her peripheral vision as she walked back up the runway to the head of the stage, where the other girls stood in various poses. He hung back, arms crossed, watching her with a slightly hooded expression. But he couldn’t have hidden his six-three frame, not in a crowd. Not from her.

Her heart recognized him instantly.

They’d parted last night in complete agreement—their island fling was over. He’d go his way, she’d go hers. But she seemed to be the only one unhappy about it.

After the show ended, Cara turned to follow Meredith and the other girls back to their rooms. The dresses should go back into airtight bags as soon as possible, especially because Cara had a feeling she might be selling all of them very shortly.

“Ms. Chandler-Harris?”

Cara turned to the male speaker, an elegantly dressed man in his midthirties who obviously knew his way around a stylist and wasn’t afraid to be seen shopping at Bloomingdale’s. His name placard read Nick Anderson—Buyer for Ever After Boutiques.

She swallowed a great big ball of sudden nerves. “Mr. Anderson. How lovely to meet you. I’ve spent many hours in your boutiques.”

“Checking out the competition?” he asked with an innocuous smile as they shook hands.

“Daydreaming,” she corrected graciously. “That’s what we both sell, right? A bride’s dreams, plucked from her mind and brought to life in fabric.”

Hooking arms with Mr. Anderson, she walked with him along the beach and spun the tale of a woman who loved being a bride so much, she’d created wedding dress after wedding dress to celebrate that bright, brief moment when all eyes were on the most beautiful woman in the room.

And when it was Nick Anderson’s turn to talk, he smiled. “You’ve hooked me. What will it take to get your designs in my stores?”

“Well, my stars. You flatter me,” Cara drawled to cover the hitch in her throat. And she only wished it was because she’d just been handed a golden opportunity.

But that was secondary to the intense desire to leap into Keith’s embrace and tell him she’d done it. She wanted him to kiss her and say how proud he was.

Instead, she smiled through the twinge pulling at her heart. “Let’s get down to business, shall we, Mr. Anderson?”

* * *

Keith watched Cara stroll off with a man entirely too well put together to be trusted. And she was still wearing her long white dress. It was the same one she’d been wearing that first day, when he’d accosted her in the pavilion during the fashion show run-through—on purpose because he’d wanted to catch her off guard.

Of course, he’d been the one flattened.

She’d been just as stunning then as she was now and always had been. The white dress with the high collar and clean lines only heightened her lush beauty, as if she’d been born to wear that exact dress as she walked down the aisle toward a besotted groom. They’d promise to love each other forever and the poor dimwit would whisk her away to a honeymoon at a resort like this one, where they’d hardly venture out of their suite because they were too wrapped up in each other.

Maybe her groom wouldn’t be this too-carefully dressed expo guest, but she’d marry someone eventually.

Jealously—big, green and ugly—flared in Keith’s gut, and he did not care for it any more than the sharp longing and utter confusion Cara had provoked the moment she’d stepped out on that stage.

“Still got my eyes on you, Mitchell.”

Keith whirled. Meredith stood behind him, tapping one stiletto against the sand, which should have been impossible but the laws of physics apparently didn’t apply in the Chandler-Harris world.

“Great,” he growled. “You can watch me get back to work.”

The mock wedding was scheduled to round out the day’s events, and the crew still needed to tear down the runway from the fashion show before the chairs could be set up. A sunset wedding starring a couple of actors would put the cherry on top of the resort’s launch.

Without Cara’s help, he had a suspicion it wouldn’t go as well as the run-through. Mary would do her best but the resort still hadn’t hired a full-time wedding coordinator.

Thoughtfully, he eyed Meredith. “Since you apparently have nothing better to do than hang out with me, how about giving me a hand?”

“Are you out of your mind?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t help you if you were the last man on earth. Besides, I have a strict policy that I only help men who can repay me with sex, and I have a feeling that wouldn’t go over so well.”

“I’m pretty sure Cara wouldn’t mind,” he shot back without thinking and then cursed.

He might as well have come right out and admitted she’d messed him up. That he’d lain awake last night for hours trying to understand why he’d gotten exactly what he’d asked for—a short-lived affair, no pressure, no wedding bells—and he was miserable.

Not only was he miserable, Cara had already moved on, apparently, to someone who made her laugh as they strolled on the beach, arm in arm. So why would Cara care whom he slept with, even if it was her sister?

He never should have let even that much slip. This wasn’t a random drive-by. Meredith wanted something and she was smarter than nearly everyone gave her credit for. He’d never figured out why she hid it behind overblown sex appeal.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure she would mind. But I have a feeling you’d mind even more. Why are you standing here talking to me instead of going after her, anyway?” Meredith hit her head with the heel of her hand as if she’d just remembered something important. “That’s right, you’re an idiot.”

“Thanks, I appreciate your assessment,” he commented drily. “Is this your way of buttering me up before you get to the real point of this ambush?”

Meredith flashed him a smug grin. “Don’t tell Cara, but I’ve always liked you. For her, I mean. You’d drive me to homicide in under four seconds flat.”

“The feeling is mutual.” God help the man who fell in love with Meredith. He’d have to be made of sterner stuff than Keith.

Thankfully, he’d picked the right sister from the start. Cara was the only woman he’d ever considered an equal, the only woman capable of getting him to talk about his feelings—however brief of a discussion that had ended up being. The only woman who’d ever triggered such strange rawness in his chest.