PIPPA mock rubbed her eyes with her fists.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” she said as Andi and Zander approached her. She pulled on Andi’s skirt for a minute as if a seamstress checking for a proper fit. “Damn, that looks amazing on you. See, Zander. That would have looked awful on me.”
“You clean up pretty well yourself,” Andi said as she admired Pippa’s melon-colored chiffon halter gown.
“I seriously wondered if we would ever get your sorry ass back to Monaforte,” Pippa said. “You had my boy so heartbroken I didn’t know if we could put him back together again.”
Andi gave Zander a sheepish look. “I’m sorry, Z. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She pulled his lapels toward her and gave him a kiss just as a flash went off, startling her and making her jump back.
“Relax, wildcat,” Zander said. “It’s merely one of the photographers documenting the event. All good.”
Andi felt her hands almost trembling, it had scared her so. “About that whole paparazzi thing.”
“Yes, it is going to be a factor for a while,” Zander said. “But I think you’ll get used to it pretty quickly. It’s just easiest if you let them get off a shot and then walk away.”
“Don’t worry, Andi,” Pippa said. “We all take care of each other here. You won’t be bombarded by anyone trying to get at you. Just a little here and there. Otherwise we cut ’em off at the knees.” She jokingly made a slicing motion across her throat.
“Plus,” Zander said, extending his arm as his younger brother came toward them. “Soon this strapping young man will find himself a woman and the paps will latch on to him instead. Even though I am the much-better-looking brother.”
Topher looked at him like he was crazy. “Yeah, right. Besides, don’t hold your breath on that,” he said. “The chances of my marrying any time in the next millennium are slim to none.”
“That’s what I said, and look at me now,” Adrian said as he walked up to the group. “Zander, looks like finally your invisible girlfriend here took pity on you?”
Zander introduced them all, and Andi congratulated Adrian, all while feeling downright starry-eyed that she was among this group.
“Andi, we’re just grateful that you can be in charge of keeping Zander under control now,” Adrian said. “We’ll all be lucky if the only photographs of Zander we see now involve him making out with you.”
Andi blushed.
“We weren’t making out, douche,” Zander said.
Adrian cocked his eyebrow at him. “Oh, really. What do you call that then?”
“We were celebrating. Right?” He looked at Andi, trying to enlist her support.
She nodded her head. “Yes, we were celebrating that we didn’t die when we jumped from the airplane. Since we had no glasses of champagne at the moment—”
“We had to find our own way to celebrate,” Zander said, finishing her sentence.
“Hate to see what you’d do in public if you didn’t have an entire bottle of champagne,” Topher said.
Zander spread out his arms. “Welcome to the family, Andrea,” he said to Andi. “Prepare yourself for these clowns giving you all sorts of grief.”
“What about me?” his sister Isabella, gorgeous in a lavender beaded bias-cut gown, said as she joined the group. She reached over and gave Andi a two-kiss greeting. “You’ve met the worst of the family, now you can meet the best,” she said, laughing.
Andi was feeling overwhelmed. “Thank goodness at least one of you isn’t giving us a hard time!”
They all laughed.
“I figure if you are going to be with Zander, you’ll have a hard enough time of it on your own,” Bella said. “Far be it from me to contribute to your strife.” She winked at the two of them and squeezed her brother’s cheek in jest.
Zander looked over to see Caroline and Darcy approaching, hand in hand.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the stubborn lovebird, come home to his nest,” he said to Darcy as Caroline reached over to kiss him.
“I’m pleased to see a much more chaste kiss than last time I saw you two together,” Darcy noted. “By the way if I ever see your mouth on my fiancée’s again, I’ll kill you.”
“Fiancée?” Zander said, looking at Caroline, then applauding. “Looks as if our performance worked! Brava to us!”
Caroline laughed. “Honestly, was he dense or what? And I see you managed to impress this one with your charming ways,” she said, pointing at Andi. “Isn’t this the woman you raced away from me to find at Pippa’s party?”
Pippa pretended to be horrified. “All of this going on right under my nose at my party? Perhaps someone should start calling me Cupid, what with my having a hand in these matchups.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Zander said, pretending to slap her.
“I must say, most intriguing of all is little Topher here,” Pippa said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were a scrawny kid. You’re looking awfully filled out.” She eyed him up and down with a look of hunger on her face.
“Down, boy,” Zander said, tapping on Pippa’s head. “I think Topher is allergic to girls.”
His brother discreetly flipped him the finger.
Emma, who had been running the gauntlet of greeting guests, finally came around. She was a breathtaking vision in an organza silk gown with lace overlay and a fringe diamond tiara.
“So, Zander,” Emma said after proper introductions had been made. “This is the woman who had you so sad and depressed? Thank goodness she came back for you. I don’t know how we’d have managed with you being so out of sorts.”
“Thanks, everyone, for reinforcing what a pathetic slob I was once Andi left me,” Zander said. “I know, I know, my life is not complete without her.”
“Did you pay him to say those words?” Topher asked with a laugh.
Zander held his hands up. “Enough already, people. I get it. I deserve this mockery. But tonight is a solemn occasion, celebrating the union of this lovely couple,” he said, placing his hands atop Adrian and Emma’s heads. “This is not the time to rip into Zander for all his stupid mistakes. So let’s all lift our glasses to the couple of the hour.”
The entire group all raised their champagne flutes and toasted.
Soon they all drifted away from the conversation. But Zander still wanted to talk about unfinished business with Andi.
“So, uh, you think you’re willing to deal with the public side of life with me?” he asked Andi as they walked, fingers entwined, to the seating for dinner. Andi was a little intimidated to be included in the long table at which the wedding party and intimate family members were seated. This all seemed so strange, particularly as she’d just arrived here from Kenya only a day earlier.
Andi nodded. “I’ve made my peace with it, Zander. It’s not necessarily what I’d choose, but I get that it comes with the territory. But one thing I was wondering...”
Zander cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.
“How soon till we can go back to visit Josiah, together, maybe?”
“Are you kidding?” Zander said. “I try to get over there every six weeks or so, if even for a day or two. You won’t have to force me to do that. It’s high on my list of priorities. Besides which, I miss my little buddy.”
Andi wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight, then looked into his eyes. “You’re pretty amazing, you know?”
Zander shrugged. “Not so much. I’m just me.”
“So is it really true you cried when I left?”
Zander’s eyes grew wide. “Where’d you hear that from?”
“Oh, nowhere in particular,” Andi said. “Maybe I was just hoping you cared that much for me.”
Zander leaned over and pulled Andi closer and gave her a long kiss. “My sweet girl, Andi. You know you’re the most important thing in my world.”
And as they walked toward the area where dinner was to be served, they passed a corralled area for the media. A host of flashes went off, accompanied by the whirr of digital cameras clicking a series of pictures of the two of them.
Andi took a deep breath, bracing herself as they strode through the gauntlet.
“It’s you and me, from Z to A?”
And Zander touched her nose with his. “From A to Z.” And he squeezed her hands tightly as they smiled broadly for the waiting press.
~*~