First Comes Marriage (Aster Bay #3)

Chapter One

Sebastian Graham was sitting in the dunk tank at the center of the St. Anthony’s Bazaar, sweating his ass off in a Darth Vader costume, when the woman he hated most reappeared in his life.

And he had plenty of reasons to hate Sabrina Page.

First: the last time he’d seen her, ten years ago, she had destroyed his wedding. He wasn’t sure how exactly she had convinced her sister to leave him at the altar, not that how really mattered when the fact remained that he’d stood at the front of that church waiting for a bride that would never come while everyone he cared about watched.

Second: no sooner had she ensured his public humiliation than she had disappeared, fucking off to Morocco or Paris or who-the-fuck-cares-where and leaving him to clean up the mess she and her sister had made.

Third: despite the rest of the Page family having the good graces to avoid him at all costs, Sabrina’s great aunt Lucy remained in Aster Bay, clucking her tongue and patting his shoulder every time they crossed paths in the grocery store as though he were some kind of wounded animal. As if her niece deciding she could, in fact, live quite happily without him hadn’t been mortifying enough .

He had more than enough reasons to hate Sabrina, but the icing on the uneaten wedding cake was that before she’d dropped a grenade in the middle of his carefully laid plans for his picture-perfect future, she’d made him believe they were friends.

So when he caught sight of Sabrina’s auburn hair falling in loose waves around a face that he knew would be dusted with freckles, Baz knew he must be mistaken. The slightly too-loud, too-brash laugh floating on the summer breeze from the fried dough stand and smacking him in the face as he sat in the dunk tank couldn’t be hers. There was no way Sabrina Page had returned to Aster Bay. She was in Barcelona or Athens or Tibet, one of the countless places she’d always talked about visiting while they’d stood side by side stocking shelves at the food pantry, building a friendship that had clearly meant more to him than it ever did to her. She was not standing in the middle of St. Anthony’s Bazaar in a pair of pressed pants and a silk blouse, of all things. Not in his town . When the Page sisters discarded him, they may have taken his dignity, but he got to keep his town.

“Hey, stormtrooper! Take this!” a kid yelled as he hurled a tennis ball at the target.

The ball made contact with a loud crack and the seat beneath Baz fell away, dropping him into the water, helmet and all, but not before he heard Gavin groan, “Darth Vader was never a stormtrooper.”

Gavin’s lecture on the history of his favorite villain disappeared as Baz slipped beneath the water. He blew all the air out of his lungs and let himself sink to the bottom of the (admittedly shallow) tank. How long could he stay down there? Long enough for Sabrina to disappear again? Long enough for the rage and shame that burned in his chest to melt back into the disdain he’d cultivated in its place?

He pushed back to the surface, yanking off the helmet in the process and wiping water out of his eyes as he pulled himself back onto the bench. He found her again in an instant, taking a giant bite of her fried dough and laughing as she licked the powdered sugar off her lips. His eyes narrowed, as though her enjoyment was a personal affront.

Before he could put his helmet back in place, another ball hit the target, plunging him back beneath the water.

“Son of a bitch!” he cursed, sputtering, when he resurfaced, the helmet bobbing in the tank beside him.

“He swore!” the tennis-ball-thrower shouted, his arm outstretched, finger pointing at Baz.

Baz tried to pull himself back up onto the bench, but his hands tangled in the wet fabric of his cape and he slid off again. “Motherfu—” He disappeared beneath the water before he could finish the word, which was honestly for the best considering the size of the crowd gathering to watch Darth Vader be defeated by a ten-year-old with a tennis ball.

“Sebastian Graham, get back up on that bench!” Mrs. Greene’s shout cut through the hum of carnival rides and children begging for cotton candy as she marched across the field-turned-fairgrounds behind St. Anthony’s. She tapped the tank with the edge of her clipboard. “We have money to raise, young man.”

Baz wasn’t listening to her lecture, however. At the sound of his name shouted across the field, Sabrina had frozen, her shoulders stiff. He watched as she turned, searching, her auburn hair lifting on the breeze and all the color draining from her face.

She’d grown up in the ten years since he’d seen her last, her cheekbones somehow higher, her hips wider. A bright burst of awareness hummed through him as he took in the dip of her waist, the wisps of hair fluttering around her face.

Finally, she located him, her green eyes widening as they took in the sodden costume, his hair still dripping into his eyes. He tucked the helmet beneath his arm as he stood in the dunk tank, water waist high and sloshing against the enclosure walls, and refused to be the first to look away.

Their gazes locked and he swore he could hear her gasp even at this distance. He clenched his jaw and straightened his shoulders defiantly. This was his town, goddamn it, and he was not going to let Sabrina Page of all people rattle him, even if the awkward twenty-year-old he’d known had been replaced by a knockout of a woman in expensively tailored clothes.

“Are you listening to me?” Mrs. Greene demanded, practically stomping her foot.

“What’s going on?” Ethan asked, appearing beside Mrs. Greene.

“I got it,” Gavin said, stepping up to the edge of the tank and reaching for the helmet. “It’s my turn in the tank anyway.” He looked sadly at the helmet and handed it to Ethan. “No point in wearing the costume anymore, I guess.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll still dunk you,” Ethan said.

By the time Baz hauled himself out of the tank, Sabrina was gone.