—

“Will!” Sula and Margo’s daughter, Rowan, yells my name at the same moment she connects with my legs, her arms wrapping tight around me. “Let’s dance!”

“I just escaped Eleanor,” I whine to myself, but I still scoop up Rowan, because I’m a sucker.

Over the past year, I’ve become another honorary uncle to Rowan, my go-to Guess Who partner for game nights in the city, and fellow lover of dogs. I adore her, and if I weren’t the closest I’ve been to finally catching Juliet’s parents to ask for their blessing after trying like hell the past three hours, I’d agree to dance in a heartbeat.

Maureen and Bill are right there, talking closely with my parents. It would be perfect.

“Willllll!” Rowan pleads. “Dance!”

“Come on!” Eleanor yells from the dance floor, doing the moonwalk. “You just danced with me! What’s stopping ya?”

I sigh and look up to the sky, begging for a way out of this that won’t crush little Rowan’s heart.

When I glance back down, my gaze instantly finds Juliet across the dance floor, where she’s standing with Toni, Hamza, Kate, and Petruchio, her head thrown back in laughter. As if she’s sensed me staring at her, she turns; her gaze meets mine. A smile warms her face as she glances down at Rowan in my arms, Eleanor shimmying toward me.

“I really am such a sucker,” I grumble, spinning with Rowan toward Eleanor.

“Wheeee!” Rowan squeals.

We dance our way through the song with Eleanor—a snappy number I don’t recognize but that seems to hold a special nostalgia for Jamie and Bea, who are dancing their asses off on the dance floor, smiling wide. When the music finishes, I’m saved from a feisty preschooler’s demand for an encore when her mothers swoop in and scoop her up.

“Let’s give Will a chance to charm someone else,” Margo says.

Sula winks at me, then gestures behind her shoulder, to where Juliet’s parents are now sitting at their table on the edge of the dance floor, no one else around them. “Go get ’em,” she says.

“How did you…” I frown as she pats my shoulder.

“If your eyes had laser beams, you’d have burned right through them,” Sula tells me. “Plus, I watched you watching Jules walk down the aisle.” She winks. “I can put two and two together.”

Bianca, Juliet’s cousin, pops her head in, Nick right beside her. “Oh, are you going to do it? I can’t wait! When’s it going to be? Tonight? Tomorrow?”

“Do what?” Rowan asks.

Eleanor pops her head into our little circle, too. “I feel like we’re telling secrets.”

“Uh.” Bianca grimaces, realizing we’re in dangerous territory. Little kids cannot keep secrets. “We’re…planning to…play…Sorry!” she says to Rowan and Eleanor.

“Sorry!” Rowan yells, clapping her hands. “I want to play now!”

Eleanor’s already yanking Bianca toward the long table scattered with board games, glowing under the lights strung up between the trees overhead.

Nick gives me an encouraging nod and a wide smile as he walks backward, following Bianca and Eleanor. “You’ve got this, Will.”

“Good luck!” Margo says, a wide smile on her face.

“On what?” Rowan yells.

Sula tickles Rowan. “Come on, you. Let’s go grab some cake and play Sorry!”

As soon as they head off toward the game table, I take a deep breath and start toward Bill and Maureen.

“Will!”

I freeze, then slowly turn, my plan once again held at bay by the only person who could stop me now.

Juliet smiles as she walks toward me, then sets her hands on my chest, palms drifting up my dress shirt. “Hi.”

I swallow roughly, tight with nerves, as I wrap my arms around her waist. “Hi.”

She tips her head, her gaze searching mine. “Everything okay?”

I stare down at her, and all the stress and anxiety about finding her parents, asking them, taking this last step before I can ask her to marry me, melts away.

“Everything’s great,” I tell her honestly, “now that you’re here.”

She beams. “And you used to think you couldn’t flirt to save your life.”

“I couldn’t, and we both know it.”

A sigh leaves her as she wraps her arms around my neck. “Guess you’re a fast learner, then. You’ve been an excellent flirt for as long as I can remember.”

“I had an excellent teacher,” I remind her.

“I was your romance workout buddy.” She gives me a playful glare. “I wasn’t your teacher . What you figured out with me, you could have figured out with anyone—you just had to believe in that possibility, Will.”

“No,” I tell her quietly, tucking her closer. “I wouldn’t have figured it out with anyone ; I wouldn’t have wanted to with anyone else. Just you.”

Her eyes grow wet. She shakes her head. “I love you so much, Will Orsino.”

“I love you, Juliet Wilmot.” I kiss her tenderly. “With all my heart.”

Juliet leans in, her voice soft and low. “Will.” I know that voice, what it means, what she wants, when she says my name like that. My body hums with desire. “I kinda want to get out of here.”

“There you are, Will!” Bill’s voice shatters the moment, making Juliet jump in my arms.

“Dad!” Juliet smiles tightly as she takes a step back, her cheeks pink. “You were looking for Will?”

“I was.” He grins at her, then turns my way, lifting his eyebrows. “Have a minute?”

I nod, my heart suddenly sprinting in my chest. “Yes, sir.”

Juliet threads her arm through mine, but Bill leans in and rests his hand over hers. “ Just Will, birdie.”

Juliet frowns as she glances between us, withdrawing her hand from my arm. “Oh…sure.”

Bill winks her way. “Your mother and I want to pick his brain some more about that, uh…property down the road that we were looking at.”

Her eyes widen. “You’re looking at houses here ?”

Bill tugs at his collar. This man is as bad at lying as I am. “ Looking , yes. You know, in a casual…looking…way.”

“Jules!” Kate calls, waving Juliet toward her, Bea, and the photographer with their camera clasped in hand across the dance floor. “Sister picture!”

Juliet’s smile returns. “Coming!” She turns and presses a quick, gentle kiss to my cheek. “Come find me when you’re done.”

I nod, cupping her face, my thumb grazing her cheek. Her smile deepens. “I will. Promise.”

Her father and I watch Juliet start toward her sisters. Bill sighs with relief. “That was close.”

I turn toward him. “I would ask how you knew I wanted to talk to you, but apparently I’ve got intent broadcasted on my face.” I scrub at my jaw, missing the thick beard that I often still keep, to hide my expressions so well. I shaved it short, to nearly scruff, for the wedding. And for the look it put on Juliet’s face that led to very pleasurable activities that made us nearly late for the rehearsal last night.

“Call it a hunch,” Bill says. He claps an arm around my shoulders and grins. “Now, let’s go see you turn Maureen into a puddle of joy.”