Chapter 1

      Ava Bradley wasn’t often nervous. Her twin brother often said that she had cold water running through her veins, that she was an ice princess. But today, as she stood in the living room of her charming seaside cottage, she felt anything but cold. Her heart was racing. Pounding so hard she wondered if it was going to burst out of her chest.

      An enormous black garment bag had just been hand delivered to her by the designer after more than a thousand hours of work had been put into what was inside.

      It was his masterpiece, as he called it.

      Ava called it her wedding dress.

      Her $25,000, crystal-encrusted, frothy confection of a wedding gown.

      Most brides would be nervous, excited to receive their completed gowns.

      It symbolized closing the door completely on one life and starting another.

      But Ava didn’t feel excitement. She felt more like throwing up.

      This was her second wedding gown. She had purchased a simple but elegant one originally, which she had found in a shop right on Hideaway Island. It had been love at first sight. The ivory gown was vintage inspired, something a young bride might have worn in the 1940s, but that wasn’t the dress she was going to wear when she walked down the aisle.

      Her fiancé wanted her to wear something...better, he called it. Something luxurious and extravagant. It seemed like such an incredible amount of money. They could feed Miami’s homeless for years with that amount of cash, but her fiancé wanted her to have it, so she had it. It was like that with everything. The car she drove had to be top of the line. The handbag she carried had to be so exclusive that most people were on a waiting list for a year just to be able to buy it. He was extremely wealthy and powerful, and he wanted his woman to reflect that.

      “I only want the best, sweetheart,” he purred in his Belgian accent. “That’s why I picked you.”

      No, simple wouldn’t do for Maxime Vermeulen. He was forty-four years old. Never married. He told her that he planned to be married only once, and that’s why this wedding had to be the event of the century. Every time she had voiced her concerns about how much money they were spending, he would tell her that he had to spend it because she was perfect for him. And that she was beautiful and smart and lovely and all the things every woman wanted to hear from the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

      A perfect wedding, for my perfect bride.

      Ava had agreed to all of the pomp and circumstance to make him happy, although she had grown up in a working-class family in Maryland. Her father worked in a factory. Her mother had worked two jobs when things were tight. Yes, her older brother had made it big in the major league, but never in a million years did Ava dream that she would land someone like Max. Someone who had always had so much and had no idea what it was like to fly in a plane that he didn’t own. She’d met him by chance while she was working. She’d been a buyer for an exclusive chain of boutiques and had literally bumped into him walking out of a meeting. He’d dazzled her with his easy charm and devastating good looks.

      He was good to her. He spoiled her silly and proudly showed her off to his friends. It was why she made sacrifices for him.

      Small ones like quitting her job. And giving up her home and a tiny bit of her freedom. Max insisted that the wives of rich men didn’t have jobs. He told her that he would look like a fool if he let her continue to live in her modest townhome instead of a penthouse apartment in an exclusive section of Miami. And the thought of her grocery shopping or even doing something as simple as making their bed nearly sent him into a series of fits.

      We have people to do that for us, my sweet.

      She didn’t want to make Max look foolish. But she wasn’t adjusting to the lifestyle of the rich and idle too well.

      That’s why she had thrown herself into planning the perfect wedding. There had been no planner or assistant. It didn’t make sense for them to hire someone to do it when she could. Max indulged her on this. He thought it was because she was very particular, but the truth was she needed to plan this wedding because without her career she was bored.

      And now the ceremony was upon them. Five more days. Guests were coming in from all over the world. Heads of state, members of royal families, politicians. These were the people they needed to impress. That’s why Max insisted on the cake being made in the most exclusive bakery in New York and flown in the next day. He wanted flowers that were grown in special hothouses. A string quartet was being flown in from Belgium. And a celebrity chef and his crew of fifty were arriving to feed the hundreds of guests that were going to be present. There were so many moving parts, so many things that needed to be done on a deadline that it felt more like a job than the most meaningful day of her life. Maybe it was better that this felt like work, because the longer she focused on the work, the less time she had to think.

      Think about him and their future and how she would be spending her time as his wife.

      She hadn’t seen Max at all this week. In fact, she had seen him only twice in the last thirty days. He traveled a lot for work, and they agreed to spend the days leading up to the wedding apart so that their honeymoon would be more special. Ava was hoping that he would slow down once they walked down the aisle. He had promised her that he would. That they would put down roots. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be on this island, even though she had loved it since her parents had first taken her here as a little girl.

      Maxime was a restaurateur, and she had convinced him to open up a small bistro on the island and staff it with local people. Their idea to open an oceanfront eatery had somehow expanded into a plan to build a massive resort. But the residents of the island, led by the mayor, made it impossible for him to even purchase land. Maxime had been furious. He wasn’t a man that was used to hearing no. Ava had secretly been glad the plan had failed. A huge hotel would have taken away from the quaint, homey feeling of Hideaway Island, and that’s what Ava loved about this place. Miami was good for nightlife and culture, but this place felt like home.

      Maxime wanted nothing to do with it now. He had wanted her to move the wedding off the island, but she had refused. She would quit her job to make him happy, plan a wedding that would rival all weddings, but she was going to get married on Hideaway Island. In the place her family spent summer vacations. In the oceanfront home her father had helped her older brother pick out before he passed away. She had grown up in Maryland, but this was the place where she felt closest to her father. She remembered him being so happy here. And as she walked down the aisle toward Maxime on her brother’s arm, she would picture her father’s smiling face.

      Max wanted her to have a baby soon, but she wanted to wait a little while. She knew she couldn’t hold him off much longer because he was older than she was, and he wanted to be an active father. Children and family were extremely important to him.

      I want to have as many as possible. My children are my legacy.

      She wanted children, too, but she wanted to spend some time with just him first. He was away so much that there were times when she felt like she barely knew him at all.

      She tried to shake off the uneasy feelings that snuck into her chest and nearly suffocated her. She had been with him for more than three years. Of course she knew him. And if she didn’t, she would have the rest of her life to get to know him.

      Ava took a deep breath and finally unzipped the large garment bag that held her dress. She didn’t even have to unzip it all the