Page 104 of Last Wish Wedding

Mac broke away first, his breathing uneven. His hands framed her face, eyes searching hers in the dim light. “I’m sorry. For a lot of things.”

“Don’t,” she whispered, not wanting apologies, not now. “Not tonight.”

She kissed him again, pouring into it all the words she couldn’t say. Mac responded with equal fervor, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her flush against him as if trying to eliminate any space between them.

They stumbled toward the stairs, unwilling to break contact even as they navigated the steps. In the hallway, Mac pressed her against the wall, his mouth hot on her neck, hands sliding beneath her dress with possessive urgency. Kelsey gasped, her own fingers working at the buttons of his shirt, needing to feel his skin against hers.

In their bedroom, though it had never felt truly shared until this moment, Mac laid her on the massive king bed with a reverence that contrasted with the urgency of his earlier touch.

“Are you sure?” he asked, hovering above her, his body a shadow in the darkness.

In answer, Kelsey pulled him down to her. She needed the weight of him, the reality of his body against hers. They moved together with increasing desperation to imprint the memory of each other on their skin.

“Look at me,” Mac whispered as they reached the edge together.

Kelsey opened her eyes to find his fixed on hers, dark with passion but also something that looked jarringly like he was trying to commit this moment to memory. The realization sent her over the edge, a sob catching in her throat as pleasure washed through her. Mac followed moments later, his body tensing as he buried his face against her neck.

In the aftermath, they lay tangled together, the sound of their gradually slowing breaths the only noise in the darkened room. Mac’s hand traced idle patterns on her bare shoulder, his touch gentle now, almost reverent.

“I’m sorry, I—” he began, then stopped.

Kelsey waited, heart pounding, hope rising treacherously despite her best efforts to suppress it.

But Mac didn’t continue. Instead, he pressed a kiss to her temple, then rolled away onto his back.

Kelsey turned onto her side, studying his profile in the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains. “Sorry for what?”

His jaw tightened, the struggle visible even in the dim light. “I’m sorry I’m not the man you and Noah need.”

“You already are,” Kelsey whispered. The admission cost her more than she wanted to show. Mac’s hand found hers in the darkness, fingers intertwining. He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

They made love again, slower this time, each touch deliberate, as if storing up the memory of each other’s bodies for the long absence to come.

Later, as Mac’s breathing evened into sleep, Kelsey remained awake, watching the play of moonlight across the ceiling. Beside her, Mac’s arm lay heavy across her waist.

Tomorrow, she would need to be strong. Tomorrow, she would help Noah understand, would maintain the pragmatic approach that had gotten her through every other challenge in life to this point.

But tonight, in the darkness, she allowed herself to acknowledge the truth she’d been avoiding. Against knowing better, she had fallen in love with her husband.

In less than forty-eight hours, he would be gone.

Chapter 29

Kelsey opened her eyes to pre-dawn darkness and the sound of careful movement. The bedroom door closed with a barely audible click. Footsteps descended the stairs, deliberate and measured, avoiding the spots that creaked. The distant thud of the back door.

Gone. Just like that.

She rolled onto her side, facing the space where Mac had slept. The sheets were cool already. Had he been watching her sleep? Had he considered waking her for a final goodbye?

Realistically, Kelsey knew she had wanted to let him slip away with minimal fuss, minimal pain. Ensure that he couldn’t see how his leaving was truly affecting her.

Outside, the distant rumble of an engine drifted up from the water. Kelsey knew the sequence by heart now. He would use the auxiliary motor to navigate the channel, then there would be silence as the sails caught the wind.

She remained motionless, listening to the sounds of departure. The sensible thing would be to get up, to go to the window, to mark this moment properly. To bear witness to his leaving. But she resisted the ritual, as if refusing to acknowledge his departure might somehow keep a part of him here.

The space beside her felt impossibly vast. The king-sized bed that had seemed too intimate in those first awkward days of moving into his house now stretched before her like a miniature desert, empty and unforgiving. She traced her fingers over the pillow where his head had rested, catching the faint scent of his shampoo. How long before that, too, would fade?

The engine sound grew more distant as he headed out. Soon, he would be a silhouette against the dawn sky, and then not even that.