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years. And
what do I do when one finally rolls around? I go to a freaking wedding.”
    “ Daisy’s wedding.”
    “Any wedding. I hate them all.”
    She scowled at him. “How can you be hating on Daisy Bellamy’s
wedding?”
    Just hearing herself say the words aloud filled her with a
sense of wonder—not because Daisy had married the man of her dreams. That in
itself was wonderful. But the real miracle was that Daisy had gotten married at
all. Her parents’ divorce had been so hard on her. Back when Daisy’s dad and
Sonnet’s mom were first getting together, both girls had agreed that marriage
was too perilous and restrictive, and they’d made a pact to avoid it at all
costs.
    Now Daisy was soaring off to wedded bliss, and Sonnet was stuck
keeping her end of the pact. She cringed at the picture of her own romantic
future. Thanks to her impossibly busy career as a director at UNESCO, she had
almost no time to date, let alone get swept away and fall in love. She dreamed
of it, though. Who didn’t? Who didn’t want the kind of love Daisy had found? Or
her mother and Greg Bellamy? Or the head couple of the Bellamy clan, Jane and
Charles, who had been married for more than fifty years.
    Of course Sonnet wanted that—the love, the security, the
lifelong project of building a family with her soul mate. It sounded so magical.
And so unreachable. When it came to a serious relationship, she had never quite
figured out how to get from Point A to Point B.
    Lately, though, there was a glimmer on the horizon from a most
unexpected source. Her father—yes, her super-accomplished, goal-oriented
father—had introduced her to a guy. His name was Orlando Rivera, and he was
heading up the general’s run for office. Like the general, he’d attended West
Point. He was in his thirties, ridiculously handsome, from the eldest son of a
monied Cuban-American family. He had the dark appeal of a Latin lover and was
fluent in English and Spanish. And, maybe most importantly of all, he was in the
tight inner circle of satellites that revolved around her father.
    “I’m allowed to hate anything I want,” Zach said, grabbing the
champagne from her hand and guzzling it down.
    Defiantly, she picked up a half-empty bottle that was bobbing
in an ice bucket and took back the glass. “It was Daisy’s big day, and if you
were any kind of gentleman, you’d be happy for her. And for me,” she groused at
him. “I got to stand up at the altar for my best friend—”
    “Hey,” he groused back. “I thought I was your best friend.”
    “You never come to see me.” She feigned a dramatic sigh. “You
don’t call, you don’t text… Besides, I can have more than one.”
    “Best is a superlative term. There can only be one.”
    She refilled the glass and took a gulp, enjoying the lovely
head rush of the bubbly. “You and your rules. Both you and Daisy are my besties
and there’s nothing you can do about it, so there.”
    “Oh yeah? I can think of something.” He grabbed her hand and
pulled her down toward the dark, flat expanse of Willow Lake.
    “What the heck are you doing?” she said, twisting her hand out
of his.
    “The party’s over, but I’m not tired. Are you tired?”
    “No, but—”
    “Hey, check it out.” He led the way down the slope to the
water’s edge.
    “Check what out? I’m going to ruin my shoes.”
    He stopped and turned. “Then take them off.”
    “But I—”
    “Lean on me,” he said, going down on one knee in front of her.
He slipped off one sandal and then the other. She felt an unexpected frisson of
sensation when he touched her. “That’s better, anyway.”
    She sniffed again, unwilling to admit that the coarse sand on
the lakeshore felt delicious under her bare feet. “Fine, what are we checking
out?”
    “I saw something.…” He gestured at the water lapping gently up
the sandy slope.
    She saw it, too, a glimmer in the moonlight. Then she frowned
and lifted the hem of her dress to wade out and