I turned to watch Marcus’s sister walking toward me and smiled. “Well, thanks, sugar.”

She looked me up and down and then she got misty.

I moved to her, my skirt swaying with me, and it had to be said, it felt nice. So nice, I never wanted to take that dress off. Not ever.

But if I didn’t, it wouldn’t stay as pretty as it was.

And it’d be difficult for Marcus to give me some wedding nookie. He could get creative. But I didn’t want any of his creative ruining my dress.

I got close and took her hands in mine.

“You gotta quit cryin’, darlin’,” I advised, doing so because she’d burst into tears no less than six times since she and Doug had met us up in Aspen two days before. “You got your makeup done too and you’re pretty as a picture. Marcus and Doug’ll be all upset you show puffy-eyed and red in the face.”

“Marcus won’t even know I’m there.”

He loved his sister but I reckoned she had that right.

She pulled a hand from mine, lifted it, and cupped my jaw. “I’m glad he waited to find the right girl.”

In response, I gave her the understatement of the century.

“I’m glad I was the right girl.”

We grinned at each other.

A knock came at the door.

“I’ll get it,” she murmured, moving from me.

Taking another one of the half a million (slightly exaggerated) opportunities I’d taken since I’d donned my dress, I turned and looked into a mirror.

It had all come together perfectly.

I was Daisy but Daisy did her wedding just a little bit differently seeing as it was the day she was going to become Mrs. Marcus Sloan.

That meant my hair was teased full at the top back, but the sides had three soft twists in them, pulling them back to a big, swirly bun that nearly took up the entire back of my head. There was a diamanté comb tucked in one side (a girl’s gotta have her sparkle, especially on her wedding day) and tendrils dangling around my ears. My bangs were full and brushed my brows.

I’d given up the smoke, the makeup girl bestowing on me subtle contouring, cheeks in pink, eyes in creams, browns, and pinks with magnificent shading and a set of fake eyelashes that I’d memorized the brand and style because they said perfection with a kapow!

My hair was romantically fabulous.

My makeup was understatedly dramatic.

My dress was d-i-v-i-n-e, divine.

It was white because I might not be a virgin but I was still a good girl and I reckoned I’d earned white, one way or another.

The bodice was a V-neck that went low (I might be going romantic for my Marcus but I was still Daisy, so if cleavage could be had, and I was a woman who could have a lot of it, it was had—and it was).

The whole top was made of lace, but the part from the built-in bustier over my shoulders, the lace was see-through. I had a rhinestone belt that was thin and pretty and made my waist look teeny-tiny. And the skirt flowed down in huge, soft, angelic, slanted vertical gossamer ruffles with a nice train at the back.

My wedding flowers (you could probably guess) were big cream gerbera daisies with little black buttons in the middle mixed with some cream roses, and subtle pretty pink velvet ribbons were bunched under the petals of the blooms so you could just catch a touch of their color.

I had the diamond earrings Marcus gave me the night I officially moved in with him in my ears. They looked like a passel of daises, so big they had to drop down in loop after loop. I also had the diamond bracelet on my wrist he gave me just because.

And of course, I had on the huge-ass diamond solitaire ring he gave me when he asked me to marry him.

He’d gone ostentatious with the engagement ring.

My man knew me well.

I’d picked a fluffy, wide, lacy blue garter for my blue and it was already on my thigh.

The dress and shoes (platform pumps with peek-a-boo toes covered in lace, with lace crawling up the back of my heel, a lace rosette at the toe with rhinestones in the middle, and high heels covered in diamanté—again, I was Daisy) were my new.

I had a lacy handkerchief that LaTeesha had given me stuffed in my cleavage that had been her grandmother’s. That was my old.

And my borrowed I’d been in a panic about until I saw the pearly pink fingernail polish that Michelle brought and had shown me that morning. I’d loved it so I immediately replaced the one I’d picked because hers was way more perfect.

I was set.

Like I said.

Perfect.

“You can’t see her,” I heard Michelle say at the door.

“Honey, I’m walking her down to the restaurant,” Marcus replied and I craned my neck to see down the hall in an effort to catch a glimpse of my man.

But Michelle had the door mostly closed, her rounded body in its pretty, pink bridesmaid dress wedged in the part that wasn’t.

“You’re meeting her at the door and walking her in,” Michelle returned.

“Will you just let me see my wife?” Marcus asked on a sigh.

His wife.

Oh my.

“She isn’t your wife yet and seeing her before the ceremony is bad luck! Heck, walking her to the ceremony is bad luck even if it starts at the restaurant doors! I don’t know how I agreed to this. Like I told you two dozen times, you should let Doug give her away.”

Michelle was freaking out.

And she was super sweet, if right now acting a little crazy. I’d thought that (except the crazy part) since I’d first laid eyes on her (okay, maybe the crazy part too).