If the Shoe Fits by Megan Mulry Read Free Book Online Page A

of his widower’s desolation. So, on a rebellious morning in June, one of those spectacular, breathtakingly clear, early summer days on Lake Michigan, Sarah packed a large backpack and informed her father that she was flying to France to stay with her grandmother.
    “I’m going to live with Letitia,” Sarah stated with mock self-assurance, referring to her mother’s mother. The older woman had always demanded Sarah call her by her first name—Letitia proclaimed that she was “simply too young to be a grandmother.”
    At the time, Nelson James sat behind his enormous mahogany desk, the desk he had used as a barrier to the rest of the world for the past four years. The nine-foot tall windows in the mansion’s library refracted the pure morning light of the lake over his shoulder and into Sarah’s eyes. Nelson found it nigh on impossible to look at his blond, willful, gorgeous daughter. The curve of her hair over her left ear, the sweep of her stubborn, honeyed eyebrows, her cornflower eyes that darkened to near-black sapphire at the edges: they were Elizabeth’s eyes and Elizabeth’s obstinate mouth and Elizabeth’s golden, thick, wavy hair.
    “You should,” he agreed simply. “That’s a good idea. Just leave the details with Wendy so I know where to reach you.” Then he returned to the spreadsheet he was ostensibly working on and held his pencil aloft as if to begin again where he’d left off before the interruption.
    Sarah wasn’t angling for a fight necessarily, but she certainly didn’t think her father would let his sixteen-year-old daughter walk out the door unaccompanied without a discussion at the very least. She felt the unfought fight drain out of her, double-checked that she had her well-thumbed paperback, The Razor’s Edge , in her messenger bag, turned on her heel, and left. Unbeknownst to her, it was the last time she would live in that house.
    Leaving that day ten years ago felt a lot like starting her own business. Come to that, it also felt a lot like meeting Devon Heyworth. Promising. Terrifying. Liberating.
    ***
    Devon never thought he would be grateful for the to-do list of tedious, filial obligations that kept him busy from the moment he returned to Dunlear until the moment he was standing at the head of the aisle of Fitzwilliam Chapel, having successfully ushered his mother to her seat in the front row.
    So far, so good.
    He patted his pocket for the fourteen thousandth time to make sure the ceremonial rings were still there, and walked slowly across the apse to stand at the right side of the altar, next to his fidgeting brother. The rustle of fabric and papers and shoes against the hard stone floor came to an abrupt halt as the single trumpet began Jeremiah Clarke’s Voluntary .
    Everyone in the chapel rose and Devon watched as his brother’s attention was drawn to the entrance of the nave. The large mahogany doors were drawn back and held open by two royal guards in full court dress.
    Bronte looked lovely in, well, enough lace to cover a polo field, her train trailing endlessly behind her.
    Since her father had passed away many years before, she had opted to walk down the aisle on her own. Getting Bronte to do the whole church business had been a sticking point at one stage of their courtship, then she had done a complete about-face and was now willing to do the whole church, reception, white dress extravaganza.
    Devon’s eyes wandered beyond Bronte’s shoulder and his heart started to slam in a hard, throbbing rhythm.
    Sarah James was leaning over the last edge of Bronte’s train, attempting to put the massive yardage in proper order before Bronte continued up the aisle. The first glimpse he had was of the top of Sarah’s head, where masses of loose golden curls were invisibly held together in a colossal, complicated pile. Devon had to quickly repress the desire to run the length of the church and catch her hair before it all fell down. Then Sarah looked up and winked to let