Too Late, Mr. Sterling—I’m Marrying Your Rival Chapter 13

He did it in three.

Rhys Calloway, a man who’d built a billion-dollar company from nothing, turned out to be terrifyingly efficient at weddings.

But he didn’t make it grand. He made it ours.

No Manhattan ballroom. No five hundred investors. The ceremony would be at the old white chapel on the cliffs above Gull Cove, with a reception in the lighthouse keeper’s meadow.

“Your mom would’ve wanted you here,” he said. “And I wanted the people who love you, not the people who want something from us.”

The whole town helped.

Mrs. O’Leary made a five-tier blueberry cake. The lobstermen strung lights from the chapel to the meadow. The hospital nurses-my nurses now-threw me a bachelorette party in the break room with sparkling cider and a stripper who turned out to be Dr. Whitaker’s very embarrassed nephew.

I hadn’t laughed that hard in years.

Three days before the wedding, I was cleaning out Mom’s attic and found a shoebox I’d never seen.

Inside were letters. Dozens of them. Unopened. All addressed to me.

Postmarked from Harbor Point. Every summer. From age ten to age eighteen.

The return address said R. Calloway.

My hands shook as I opened the first one.

Dear Ava, You probably don’t remember me. I’m the boy who pulled you out of the cove. Grandma says your mom moved you to Ohio. I hope you’re learning to swim. I’m practicing a lot so if you fall in again I’ll be faster. -Rhys

I read every single one. Sitting on the attic floor. Crying until I couldn’t see.

He’d written to me for eight years. Mom must have hidden them. Maybe she wanted me to forget this town, where she’d lost so much. Maybe she was protecting me from something I’ll never know.

The last letter was from when he was twenty-one.

Ava, I won’t write anymore. I think you’ve moved on and that’s okay. But if you ever come back to Harbor Point, I’ll know. I promise I’ll know. And I’ll be here.

I found Rhys in the kitchen, making pasta badly. He took one look at the letters in my hands and set the spoon down.

“You found them,” he said softly.

“You never said.”

“I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything.” He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy-this man who stared down boardrooms. “I wanted you to choose me because you wanted to. Not because some kid wrote you sad letters.”

I crossed the kitchen and kissed him so hard the pasta boiled over.

Neither of us cared.

The night before the wedding, I stood alone at Mom’s window, looking out at the moon over the water.

“I’m marrying the boy who carried me home, Mom,” I whispered. “I think you’d like him.”

The wind chime on the porch rang softly. I chose to believe it was her answering.

The next morning, sunlight poured through the windows like a blessing.

I put on my dress. Ivory silk. Simple. My mother’s sapphire on my finger. Sea lavender in my hair.

Mrs. O’Leary cried the moment she saw me. So did half the nurses.

At five o’clock, the chapel bells began to ring.

I took Dr. Whitaker’s arm-he’d asked, gruffly, if he could walk me down the aisle, and I’d hugged him until

he turned red.

At the chapel doors, I stopped.

My heart was pounding. Not from fear. From something so much bigger.

The doors swung open.

Every head turned.

And at the very end of the aisle, in a navy suit, standing in a pool of golden light-

Rhys turned around and saw me.

And the strongest man I’d ever known started to cry.