What if there was no flight on Sunday evening?

What if Alex wasn’t threatened by his sexuality?

What if something more didn’t have to mean something he would lose?

Alex came on a shudder under Miles’s expert care, yet none of it really mattered, did it? Because there was a flight. Once Alex knew Miles was bi, things would change. And wanting what he couldn’t keep always ended in loss.

Chapter Twenty

Duncan

Duncan played the part of the fiancé who was grateful to make it back to his almost-wife. He had tables of inebriated Greeks and Scots in tears of laughter as he recounted the day’s ordeal, making light of what might possibly have been the turning point in his relationship with Elaina.

This was how Elaina learned the whole story—not directly from him but second-hand as he entertained their guests, Duncan’s father slapping him on the back in congratulations for taking a fist to the face in the name of love; Elaina’s mother kissing him on both cheeks and thanking him repeatedly in Greek, Efharistó. Efharistó, for the special token he’d brought for her daughter. Add to that the excitement of Jordan and Noah’s engagement that maybe wasn’t supposed to happen just then, and no one seemed to notice the growing tension between him and his wife-to-be, that they hadn’t touched or kissed other than when family members demanded a preview of that moment after they both said, “I do.”

But the show was over now. Elaina’s family was strict on tradition, so despite the many, many nights he and Elaina had spent in the same bed while they lived in Scotland, going home together the night before the wedding was severely off-limits. So Duncan lay in his hotel bed alone with a melting bag of ice on his face and the balcony door ajar so he could listen to the rhythmic beat of the waves lapping at the shore. He had hoped the cadence would lull him to sleep, but his brain refused to cooperate, so all he could do was analyze his reunion with Elaina and what it meant for the events that were supposed to follow in the morning.

He looked at his phone. One in the morning. Shite. He’d been laying there an hour already and felt no more sure about what was supposed to happen next than he had when he’d walked into the room. Alone.

Of course, this was how it was supposed to go—Duncan in the hotel and Elaina in her parents’ apartment. Tomorrow they were to spend their first night as husband and wife together in a suite that would be decorated by Elaina’s family prior to their arrival. Now he wasn’t so sure.

A soft knock sounded, and for a second he couldn’t tell if it came from his door or the one next to his room. He waited, and the sound came again, still light but louder than before, so he rose to see who it was. With his good eye to the peephole, he could see the back of Elaina’s head, but he was certain it was her. He gripped the door handle and pressed down, the audible click deafening in the tense silence. He’d only gotten the door open a crack when he felt resistance.

“Put the chain on so it will only open enough for you to hear me,” she said, and Duncan could hear that she’d been crying. His throat tightened, and his instinct was to throw the door open and pull her to him, to promise her that everything would be fine even when he knew that might be a lie. But he also knew her superstitions about the wedding day, and technically it was the day of the wedding. He wasn’t supposed to see her until the ceremony.

So he did as she asked, chaining the top of the door and pulling it open only as far as the chain would allow. Then he slid down the wall next to the small opening. Elaina did the same, keeping her back to him. He wanted to argue that she was bending the rules, that technically he could see her, but he refrained, not wanting to do anything that might send her away.

“You could have phoned,” he said. “Would have been easier, aye?”

She shook her head, her black waves tumbling over her shoulders. Elaina no longer wore the dress that had left him breathless but instead sat before him in an oversize cable-knit jumper and jeans. He recognized that jumper and realized it was the one that started the snowball effect of the day’s events. He’d removed it again at the party, lain it over a chair, and forgotten about it. Now here was his fiancée, face most likely tear-stained, and her body enveloped in his clothes. Earlier today he had hated that jumper. It was to blame, after all.

But now he wanted to bury his face in the itchy wool, breathe in his scent mixed with hers, and— Fuck. What were they doing?

“I don’t want this to be easy,” she said, and something in his heart lurched. What was this?

“Wha’ are we doin’ here, Elaina? Why’d you come?”

She cleared her throat, and he could feel that she was gearing up for something big.

“I was wrong,” she started, and he held his breath, not only for Elaina uttering words he’d never heard her say but because he wasn’t sure he could take whatever she said next. “I was wrong to say yes to marrying you when as much as I loved you, I hadn’t fully accepted you. Not the way I should have.”

Duncan had to tell himself to exhale. Then to inhale again. Breathing was no longer involuntary, and depending on what Elaina said next, he might not remember to take that next breath.

“You were right,” she continued. “I judged you and had expectations that were not based on who you are but on who I thought my future husband should be.”

He heard a hitch in her breath and watched Elaina’s shoulders rise and fall. If anything was clear to him tonight, it was that Elaina may have loved him, but she loved a version of him that didn’t exist yet and may not ever.

“I am sorry,” she said, her voice small and like nothing he’d ever heard before.

Elaina Tripoli was a force to be reckoned with, and Duncan wasn’t sure how to reconcile the woman he knew with the one sitting before him now. It looked like they both still had a lot to learn about each other.

“I love you, Duncan. But you deserve better than what I gave you today. You deserve someone who would never doubt you and who would never expect you to be anyone other than who you are. I know you might not believe me, but I fell in love with the boy you were when I met you.”

He reached a hand through the crack in the door, the tips of his fingers just barely making contact with hers. She didn’t flinch, and he told himself that if he maintained contact—an almost-touch—that this evening wouldn’t be the end they were barreling toward.

“Elaina,” he said, his strained voice unrecognizable to his own ears.

“Let me finish,” she said, and he waited. “I fell in love with the boy you were because I knew you’d become the man you were meant to be. And you have, Duncan. I should have seen that. I should have trusted that. But instead I conjured up unrealistic expectations of what I believed was perfection, and because of that I was not the woman I should have been for you. I see that now.”

She let out a long, shuddering breath, and he remained quiet. He did not move his hand, though, his fingertips still pressed to hers.

“I cannot promise you that I will change my way of thinking overnight, but I will try. For you I will try to be the woman you deserve. I will be at the church in the morning. If you come, I will marry you. If you do not—if I have put the final straw on top of the camel—I will understand.”

Duncan’s lips teased at a smile, if only for a second. He could spend the rest of his life listening to Elaina’s rephrasing of English idioms. He wanted to teach her some of his family’s sayings, like the one his great-gran always said when Duncan’s father would get on him about his marks in school: Failing means you’re playing.