While he’d obviously been the one his sister had turned to for months, this week it became crystal clear that he was the one the whole family turned to as well.
He was always willing to talk to them and listen to them—whether it was about Vangie’s silver and rose mint boxes or which medical schools Milos should apply to. He listened to his stepmother Gina fret about his brother Gabriel’s umpteen girlfriends and he spent a morning taking his youngest sister to the office and to a couple of his job sites so she could learn what being an architect entailed.
He managed to defuse half a dozen wedding-related crises as well. He was the one who stepped in and arranged for the limo when the one Garrett had contacted had a conflict. He was the one who saw to it that all his stepmothers had corsages when nobody else had. This morning he was the one who tied all his brothers’ ties.
And right after they got out of the car, he’d said to Neely, “Stand still.” And he used masking tape to go over her dress and make sure there was no lingering rabbit or kitten or dog hair on Neely’s dress.
“A master of details,” she’d teased him, grinning.
He’d smiled that crooked half smile of his and said, “Someone’s got to do it.”
Neely understood now that that someone was always Sebastian.
And now she sat with the wedding guests in rows of white chairs on the lawn overlooking the sound, waiting to watch him do yet another task—this one a task he had every right to—walking his sister down the aisle and giving her to her groom.
She hoped he would smile when he did so. He had the most beautiful smile. She wasn’t treated to it often. But he’d smiled at her the night they’d made love. He’d smiled that smile the next morning when he’d awakened with his arms around her.
And she dared to hope that she would see that same amazing smile someday soon at their wedding when he watched her walk down an aisle toward him.
Still, it was too soon to think about that.
The string quintet—one of the few things Sebastian had not had a hand in arranging—began at that moment to play the processional. Neely stood and turned with everyone else to watch as the bridesmaids proceeded in measured steps across the grass to where a handsome nervous Garrett and his grinning best man waited with the minister.
Little Sarah came first, her head high, her eyes straight ahead, her expression solemn, but every now and then Neely saw a flicker of a smile very like Sebastian’s on her face. Then came Jenna, her ash-blonde hair a striking contrast to the rest of the girls. The triplets—Ariadne, Alexa and Anastasia—followed. Neely still had no idea which was which, but Sebastian never seemed to have trouble telling them apart.
“Not now I don’t,” he’d said when she’d marveled at his ability. “But when they were little it was like three little indistinguishable dark-haired devils. Seriously scary.”
There was a pause in the music after the last of the triplets had reached the halfway mark of the procession, and then the quintet picked up the volume and plunged into the bridal music once more.
Everyone turned and twisted their heads and craned their necks to get their first glimpse of the bride.
Everyone except Neely. She was twisting her head and craning her neck to catch a first glimpse of Sebastian resplendent in black tie, white shirt and tuxedo jacket.
So she was poleaxed to see an older, craggier tuxedo-clad Savas male walking with Vangie up the path instead!
The bride was absolutely radiant, beaming at everyone, looking from side to side as she walked slowly toward her waiting groom. And the man was smiling happily and looking at her dotingly—as if he had a right to be there.
In one way, she supposed he did. She knew exactly who he was—Phillip Savas, the man who had given her life. He was her father in name. But who had been there for her every single day?
She looked around desperately for Sebastian. Where was he?
Not with his sister, that was certain. She had her father to give her away just as she’d wanted.
The way it should be.
Neely could hear the words echoing in her brain. They were the words Vangie had used. And Sebastian had reiterated them even as he’d refused at first to make the effort.
“She wants a normal wedding. A normal family,” he’d said. “That’s all she’s ever wanted.”
And this was what she wanted? A father who showed up for a few brief moments and stepped in at the last minute to give her away? As if it were his right when in fact he’d really given her away years ago!
It wasn’t his right! Neely was outraged. How dared he? Where had he come from?
And most important of all, Where was Sebastian?
She should have been watching the ceremony. But she barely noticed that Philip had handed his daughter off to Garrett and had gone to stand by his string of ex-wives. She was craning her neck trying to find Sebastian.
Ah, there. At the very back she spotted his dark head. He was perfectly composed, though she was sure she wouldn’t have been. He stood ramrod straight, looking for all the world like one of the ushers and not the man who had every right to have walked his sister up the aisle.
The wedding was short and sweet—at least Neely supposed it was. She barely noticed. Her mind was consumed with indignation for Sebastian, with annoyance toward his father. No one else seemed to notice.
The Savases looked like a normal family on the eldest daughter’s wedding day: mother with a tear-streaked smiling face, father beaming as he bestowed her hand on her groom, the bride joyful, the groom solemn.
And where the eldest brother was no one cared.
Except her.
Neely cared. And she barely waited until after the ceremony to slip away and go to him. But when she looked around, he wasn’t there. Vangie and Garrett, his parents and hers were in a reception line and everyone was lined up to go past and congratulate them.
Sebastian should have been there, too. If anyone deserved congratulations for getting Vangie married it was him. But she didn’t see him anywhere. She could have waited in the reception line and asked Vangie, but judging from the happily dazed expression on Vangie’s face, she wouldn’t have known.
She did ask Gabriel, “Where’s your brother?”
But Gabriel just shrugged and looked blank. So did Milos and the triplets. “He’s around somewhere,” Jenna said, waving her hand toward the hundreds of people milling about on the lawn.
It was Sarah who pointed. “He’s over there.”
Following her pointing finger, Neely spied Sebastian on the far side of the gathering. He was standing with a couple she’d never seen before. They were talking and he was listening. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of his black trousers. His dark head was bent.
He didn’t look shattered. He looked perfectly fine. But Neely couldn’t help cutting through the crowds of people to get to him.
“Ah, there you are!” She smiled brilliantly as she came up to him, and he lifted his gaze and smiled. It wasn’t the best Sebastian Savas smile, the one that could curl her toes. But it was warm and welcoming and he reached out a hand and drew her to him, looping an arm over her shoulders.
“This is Neely Robson,” he told the other couple, and to Neely he said, “My cousin Theo and his wife, Martha.”
He introduced her to more cousins and aunts and uncles, and was completely affable and pleasant. He never once mentioned his father, never said a word about