Your feelings for Kate are nothing like your feelings for Lara and me. And I know you, Kennedy. I know that beneath that gruff exterior of yours, you feel deeply.”
“No psychobabble, please,” he said with a wince.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“What do you want me to say?” he snapped. “She knows I’m here, but she’s gone out of her way not to talk to me or even acknowledge my presence.”
“Why?”
He took another sip of champagne. He may be annoyed as hell with Kate right now, but he wasn’t about to expose her vulnerabilities to others, even a friend like Sabrina.
But Sabrina knew her friend well. “It was Lara’s father walking her down the aisle, wasn’t it?” Sabrina asked. “I could tell she was upset. Poor thing.”
Kennedy didn’t bother to argue. Of course she was upset. Anyone who’d lost her father a month and a half earlier would be, but it was extra brutal for someone like Kate. Sabrina thought he felt deeply? He had nothing on Kate. Despite her efforts over the past few weeks to keep everyone—most of all him—at a distance, it wasn’t who she was. Kate didn’t do anything in half measures. She threw herself one hundred percent into everything. Her work. Her friendships.
Love.
Hadn’t she told him as much? That she was holding out for the head-over-heels sort of love that he’d always thought was fictional?
He knew better now.
The trouble was, Kate loved with all she had. And she grieved that way, too. Just as the old Kate had once believed with her whole heart that true love was out there waiting for her, the new Kate was just as determined to shut herself off from the pain.
“It’s not like I’ve asked her to marry me,” he muttered.
Sabrina blinked slowly and stared at him. “Sorry. What?”
Shit. “Nothing. I just . . . I couldn’t possibly have moved any slower with her. I’ve been trying to give her time and space, and the whole thing blew up in my face.”
“I thought that’s what might be happening,” Sabrina said with a sigh. “I have to take a little responsibility for it, too. I more or less told her to bone you to get you out of her system.”
He gave her a look. “Thanks for that.”
“Well, at the time, I didn’t know you were in love with her.”
Kennedy didn’t bother to deny it. “I didn’t know it, either.”
Sabrina sighed again and scooted closer, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kennedy.”
He pecked a brotherly kiss on the top of her head but didn’t say anything.
“For what it’s worth,” she said after a long minute of silence, “I’ve always thought you two were meant for each other.”
“Me too,” Kennedy said slowly, a little surprised at how easy the admission was. “But looking at her now . . .”
Kennedy winced as the song turned to a slow, drippy ballad, and Kate tugged Lara’s cousin onto the dance floor. Watching her laugh with another man had been hard enough. Seeing another man’s arms around her was a whole other kind of agony.
“I know. Which is why we need a new plan,” Sabrina said, standing as Matt headed toward their table to retrieve his wife for a dance.
“What are you thinking?” Kennedy asked tentatively. Normally he didn’t particularly relish advice on his personal life—or at all—but Sabrina had made a lucrative career out of fixing other people’s problems. If he was going to listen to anyone, it’d be her.
“I’m thinking maybe we were wrong about her needing space.”
“And?”
Sabrina studied her friend on the dance floor before glancing back at Kennedy. “She’s a little broken right now, but deep down, Kate still wants someone who’s not afraid to go all in—someone willing to put it all on the line. For her.”
“I know.” He said it quietly.
Sabrina put her hand on his shoulder. “Be that guy.”
“What is your problem?” Kate snapped at him as he pulled her away from the reception. “Blake and I were dancing.”
“Dancing is a stretch for what that was,” Kennedy grumbled. “His hands were about six inches too low for dancing, and the only movement I saw was you rubbing against him.”
“Oh, nice,” she said, trying to tug her wrist free from his grip. “Playing the part of the jealous boyfriend? Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously, Kate,” he said, spinning back toward her just in time to see surprise register on her face. “Tell me, what exactly was your plan here tonight? What was the goal? To dump me without actually having to say a