DUKE
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The venue was exactly as he'd sketched it — the compound's east meadow, chosen specifically for the golden hour light he'd studied across weeks, the specific quality that made everything look, for those precious minutes, like it was made of warm honey.
Duke stood at the center of it, watching Wren walk toward him, and felt every careful drawing he'd ever made of her collapse into insignificance beside the actual living reality of this moment.
She wore something simple, deliberately understated — she'd told him, weeks ago, that she wanted the day to feel like them rather than like a performance, and looking at her now, unadorned and radiant, he understood exactly what she'd meant.
"You're staring," she said, when she reached him, something amused in her voice despite the emot
