Updated Feb 14, 2026 • ~7 min read
Planning a wedding turned out to be more complicated than Harper expected.
Not the logistics—she was good at logistics. Spreadsheets. Timelines. Vendor contracts.
The emotional part. The part where everyone had opinions and Harper had to navigate them without offending anyone.
“Small wedding,” Harper said at the first family planning dinner. “Fifty people max. Intimate. Just close friends and family.”
“Fifty people?” Ruby scoffed. “Harper, your mother alone knows fifty people who would be offended not to be invited.”
“Then Mom can have her own party. The wedding is ours.”
Claire held up her hands. “I’m fine with small. Intimate is lovely. Don’t use me as an excuse to invite your entire social circle, Ruby.”
“I’m just saying, people will talk if they’re not invited.”
“Let them talk,” Mason said. “This is our wedding. Our choice.”
Harper squeezed his hand under the table, grateful.
They decided on late spring. A year after the proposal. Garden venue, outdoor ceremony, simple and beautiful.
Harper’s dress would be classic. Mason’s suit would be tailored but not traditional. The whole thing would be them—unconventional but honest.
“What about your father?” Claire asked carefully. “Will he walk you down the aisle?”
Harper hadn’t thought about it. Tradition said yes. Reality said their relationship was complicated.
“I don’t know. Maybe. If he wants to.”
“You should ask him.”
So Harper did.
She met Richard for coffee—their thing now, monthly check-ins to rebuild what they’d broken.
“I’m getting married,” she said.
“I know. Mason called to ask my blessing. Very traditional.”
“He did?”
“Two weeks ago. Said he loved you. Wanted to marry you. Asked if I had any objections.” Richard smiled. “I told him I couldn’t object to someone who makes you this happy. Even if the beginning was unconventional.”
“Everything about us is unconventional.”
“True. But happy. That matters more.”
They drank coffee. Made small talk. Then Harper asked: “Will you walk me down the aisle?”
Richard’s eyes filled with tears. “You want me to?”
“I want—I want my father at my wedding. Even if our relationship is complicated. Even if you messed up. You’re still my dad.”
“I don’t deserve—”
“Probably not. But I’m asking anyway.”
Richard reached across the table. “I’d be honored. Truly honored.”
“Good. Because Mom’s already handling flowers and Sienna’s planning the bachelorette party and I need someone on my side or I’m going to be outnumbered.”
“Your mother’s handling flowers? That’s brave.”
“She promised to keep it simple.”
“Claire doesn’t know how to do simple.”
He wasn’t wrong. Two weeks later, Claire presented Harper with three different floral arrangements, each more elaborate than the last.
“Mom. I said simple.”
“This is simple! It’s just roses and peonies and—”
“And six other types of flowers I can’t name. Simple is one type. Maybe two.”
“But the colors—”
“Mom.”
“Fine. Two types. Roses and peonies. Boring but yours.”
Harper hugged her. “Thank you for trying.”
“I’m your mother. Supporting your terrible taste in wedding flowers is my job.”
“They’re not terrible.”
“They’re boring. But they’re yours. So I support them.”
The bachelorette party was Sienna’s domain.
Harper made one request: “Nothing embarrassing. No strippers. No penis straws.”
“You’re taking all the fun out of this.”
“I’m taking the tacky out of this. Fun is still allowed.”
Sienna planned a weekend in the Hamptons. Harper, Sienna, Claire, Ruby, and a few close friends in a beach house, drinking wine and celebrating.
“This is perfect,” Harper said, watching the sunset from the deck.
“Better than penis straws?” Sienna asked.
“Infinitely better.”
Claire joined them with wine. “To my daughter. Who’s getting married to a man she hired to seduce me. The universe has a sense of humor.”
“Can we please stop mentioning that part?” Harper groaned.
“Never. It’s too good. I’m putting it in my mother-of-the-bride speech.”
“You’re not.”
“I absolutely am. ‘My daughter hired Mason to flirt with me. I’m so glad he had terrible judgment and fell for her instead.'”
Everyone laughed.
Harper protested but she was smiling. Because this was her family now. Broken and rebuilt. Honest. Real.
And they loved her. All of them. Despite her terrible decisions and trust issues and the fact that she’d hired her fiancé to test her mother.
That night, sitting on the beach with Sienna, Harper said: “I can’t believe I’m getting married.”
“I can. You love him. He loves you. It makes sense.”
“A year ago I was hiring him to flirt with my mom. Now I’m planning a wedding.”
“Best character arc ever.”
“Or worst. Depending on perspective.”
“Harper. You’re happy. Like, genuinely happy. Not performing. Not pretending. Actually happy. That’s what matters.”
She was right. Harper was happy.
Terrified, still. Worried she’d mess it up. Convinced the other shoe would drop eventually.
But happy.
Really, truly happy.
For the first time in her life.
Mason’s bachelor party was Caleb’s responsibility.
“Nothing crazy,” Mason requested. “Just dinner and drinks with friends.”
Caleb planned a brewery tour, photography walk, and poker night.
“This is the nerdiest bachelor party ever,” Owen observed.
“It’s perfect,” Mason countered, photographing the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset.
They drank beer. Played terrible poker. Talked about life and love and the fact that Mason was getting married.
“You nervous?” Caleb asked.
“Terrified.”
“But sure?”
“Absolutely sure. Harper’s—she’s it for me. Has been since she sat down at my coffee shop table with that insane proposition.”
“You have the weirdest love story.”
“I know. I love that about us.”
Logan, Mason’s photographer friend, raised his beer. “To Mason. Who took a job flirting with someone’s mom and somehow ended up with a fiancée, a gallery career, and his own studio. You lucky bastard.”
“Not lucky. Harper’s just—she’s worth all of it.”
They drank. Played more poker. Caleb won everything because he could count cards.
“That’s cheating,” Owen protested.
“It’s math. Not my fault you’re bad at math.”
Mason watched his brother bicker with his friends and thought about how far they’d come.
From two kids raising themselves after their mother died.
To this. Caleb in medical school. Mason with a career and a fiancée and a life he’d never imagined possible.
All because Harper Montgomery walked into his life with a terrible plan and changed everything.
“Thank you,” he told Caleb later.
“For what?”
“For letting me raise you. For trusting me. For—for being okay with Harper even though our beginning was insane.”
“She makes you happy. She helps pay my tuition. She’s great.” Caleb smiled. “Also she tolerates your mess, which is impressive.”
“I’m not that messy.”
“You left socks under her couch for six months.”
“One time. That was one time.”
“It was three times. She showed me.”
Mason laughed. “Okay fine. I’m messy. But she loves me anyway.”
“Yeah. She does. Don’t mess it up.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
They went home—Mason to the apartment he shared with Harper, Caleb to his dorm.
Harper was already in bed, scrolling through her phone.
“How was the bachelor party?”
“Perfect. Nerdy. Exactly what I wanted.” Mason climbed in beside her. “How was the bachelorette weekend?”
“Perfect. My mom threatened to mention our origin story in her speech.”
“She’s going to, isn’t she?”
“Absolutely. We’re never living it down.”
“Good. I don’t want to live it down. It’s our story.”
Harper set down her phone. “Three months until the wedding.”
“Nervous?”
“Terrified.”
“Me too.”
“But sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
They fell asleep tangled together.
Three months until they were married.
Three months until forever became official.
Three months until the woman who’d hired him to seduce her mother became his wife.
Mason couldn’t wait.
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