Heart of the Country Read Free Page A

deal with myself that I wouldn’t let dreams and the hope of what could be ever rule my world again.
    “You know,” he said, “Candace knows Vera Wang. They do some charity thing together every year.”
    A Vera Wang wedding gown? I felt breathless at the thought. I looked at this man I was to marry, the one I’d felt I’d known my whole life. It seemed he wanted nothing more than to make me happy. I had seen this kind of love only once in my life and had believed I’d never see it again. How could I have been fortunate enough to find it?
    I turned my attention to him. “Luke . . . I can’t be one of these people . . . one of you people.”
    “I know. I would never want that.”
    “Then what do you want from me? There’s nothing that I can give you. You have everything.”
    “This isn’t everything,” he said, gesturing around us. “You are everything. I don’t need another second to know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
    “Are we really doing this?”
    “Yeah.” He touched my arm lightly, like he was making sure I was really there.
    “I have a wedding to plan!” I squealed for the first time since I’d left the country. It sounded good.
    Luke laughed at me. “Anything you want! Do you want it in the city? Or back in North Carolina?”
    I stared out the window, my hand in his, contemplating my options, envisioning myself in a white gown, long and shimmery. Beside me was my dad. At the front of the church stood my sister, holding a white bouquet. But they vanished right before my eyes.
    I had a new life here.
    I turned to him. “Let’s go away.”
    “A destination wedding . . . I like it! Hawaii?”
    “No. I mean, you and me. Just . . . you and me.”
    “It will always be about you and me,” he said.
    “Let’s do it now.”
    I could see it in his eyes. He needed no convincing. We gazed at each other and nothing else needed to be said. This was real.
    Luke leaned forward. “Ward, take us to MacArthur. And have the plane ready.”
    “Sir?”
    “Now,” he said with a smile. “Bermuda?” he asked me.
    I laughed. “Actually, I was thinking of the courthouse.” I looked down. I didn’t dream big anymore. I hadn’t in years.
    “Nothing is off limits,” he said. “Anywhere in the world.”
    Funny. I just wanted to be where he was, and the rest of the world could come and go as it pleased.

4
    LUKE
    S HE PULLED AT each of the sleeves on my jacket, tugging them so that the material sat close and tight atop my shoulders. Her smile gave glimpses of both pride and hesitation. Her calm eyes held mine. “I don’t completely understand why you’re doing this,” she said, “but I know that I completely trust you.”
    “That’s all I need,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “Wish me luck. Wife.”
    “You know I don’t need all this,” she said, gesturing around our Central Park West loft. “You don’t have to build an empire.”
    I nodded. “I know. Empires have never appealed to me.”
    “Do you think this will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do?”
    “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I promise. My father is a reasonable man.” A difficult swallow following that statement probably betrayed my confident demeanor, though Faith had a way of seeing through all my guises. After a year of marriage, I’d finally given up on trying any of them.
    Ward picked me up downstairs and the drive was quiet. I’d turned off my phone and everything else that might be a distraction, using the twenty-five minutes to focus and go over all the important things I wanted to say.
    I arrived at Carraday Towers   —the place Money magazine had described as a palace to capital, with an old-money touch   —a little after 9 a.m. Far from the gaudy gold of Trump, it reeked of staid power. I took the private elevator to the seventieth floor. Even after working here every day since graduating from college, it never felt comfortable to me. As the door swooshed open, I stepped out and