Lina's POV
The morning of my wedding, the sky broke open in gold.
I stood in front of the tall mirror in the bridal suite while Katrina fussed with the last pearl button at my spine, and I barely recognized the woman staring back at me. She looked calm. She looked happy. She looked like someone who belonged.
"Stop crying," Katrina warned, though her own eyes were wet. "You'll ruin the makeup Chloe spent two hours on."
"I am not crying," Chloe called from the couch, sprawled dramatically across it. "I never cry. I'm just aggressively emotional about my mom finally locking this down."
I laughed, and it came out shaky. "You're going to make it worse."
There was no contract this time. That was the thought I kept circling back to, the one that made my chest ache in the best
