The following three-part Side Story takes place during the time skip between July and September in Chapter 104: Bleeding Hearts.

Over a month went by since that fateful night before the Whitley presentation. Iris tried her best to continue on with life and work in the meantime, yet her resolve crumbled whenever she let her mind wander back to all the wonderful dreams she'd experienced.

Keeping busy was her only option if Iris wanted to stay focused. If there was no time to dwell on them, perhaps those haunting, vivid phantoms would disappear over time. Fortunately, Iris was positively swamped with tasks, thanks to an unexpected glut of unfinished work.

It should have come as no surprise to Iris that Warren hadn't bothered to offload his work before taking a few days off from GC&S. The timing was less than ideal, but it was for a joyous cause.

Iris couldn’t be mad when Warren told her yesterday that he wasn’t coming in, as he needed to join his wife for some very important appointments. Despite their troubles over the last year or so, Piper announced that she was expecting, and had asked for Warren to attend some prenatal health checkups.

The plucky office assistant was so excited for her that she nearly forgot how cruel and miserable Piper had been in the past. With luck, maybe having a child would change the Makers for the better. Only time would tell.

And time, it seemed, was in short supply at GC&S. Teetering stacks of invoices and purchase orders needed signing off on, and Iris needed to find someone with clearances she lacked. Without Warren, the only other staffer who could do it on short notice was a man she’d tried so hard not to think about…

Iris approached the opulent office with her stack of invoices, only to hear an extra voice when she approached and peeked inside.

“Come on in,” Alden urged as his expression lightened. “We’re just wrapping up here.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“Not at all,” Alden added. “Iris, this is my brother, Alanbee. He was just leaving.”

“Hello,” Iris said with a smile. At long last, she finally had a face and name to match the stories Salvatore had told her. Alanbee was almost as tall as Alden, though he had fairer hair and a devious grin perpetually plastered on his attractive face. “It’s a pleasure, sir.”

She hadn’t realized it, but Iris was still smiling when the pair shook hands.

“Why’re you smiling, huh?” Alanbee asked with a mischievous hint of danger in his voice. The younger Cavendish was a fiend for jokes, especially if he wasn’t the butt of them. If this little office nobody was teasing him somehow, then she was about to regret it. “Is there something funny?”

“N-no, not at all, sir,” Iris stammered. “I just realized that when you were younger, you two and Mr. Salvatore would have been ‘Al,’ ‘Al,’ and ‘Uncle Sal,’ sir. I thought it was sweet, is all.”

At her reply, Alden chuckled. He actually laughed. Not some fake, polite gesture, but one with a genuine smile. Alanbee’s eyes darted back to the skinny office specialist, and this rare power she had over his elder brother.

“You know Uncle Sal?” Alanbee asked.

“Y-yes, sir.” Iris begged off as soon as she realized that she might have gotten too personal. It was just so exciting to meet the younger brother that Uncle Sal had told her about, and she forgot that he wasn’t the same little boy anymore. “Mr. Salvatore told me stories about you two as children on our way here sometimes.”

Oh, I see how it is…

Alanbee’s eyes narrowed and his smile sharpened for a second assessment of this purple-haired prodigy. Not only had she managed to get a laugh out of his stone-faced big brother, but she’d also coaxed the stoic chauffeur to share secret stories from their past to a total stranger. Now that was a rare find, indeed.

“Oh, don’t look so frightened, dear,” Alanbee replied with more casual charisma. “I was just surprised the old man would spend so much time with a handsome girl, that’s all.”

Alanbee’s comment caught Alden’s glare in a flash, much to the younger brother’s amusement. Alden’s expression had that same barely-contained displeasure that their mother had spent so long trying to extinguish in Alden’s youth. It wasn’t from Alanbee’s mild threats, but from how he’d called Iris “handsome” that sparked such ire.

Well, if Alden was going to be so easy to tease, then Alanbee would simply have to double-down on riling him.

“And your last name, Miss?” Alanbee pressed. But before Iris could even reply, Alanbee had grabbed the ID badge hanging from a retractable spool on her lanyard and tugged it toward his face. “Alcazar… Oh, so there’s four Al’s among us. What do you think of that, Al?”

Alden was shaking in his executive task chair, practically purple with rage for his rude sibling. Iris was flinching tremendously at the surprise contact from the younger Cavendish, who had managed to graze her chest and frighten Iris enormously while retrieving her employee badge.

“LEAVE, Alanbee,” Alden growled.

He knew how poorly Iris felt after being touched by strange men, and how tragic it was to find her shivering and crying in the stairwell after Warren had pulled a similar maneuver in front of Mr. Matheson. And now his own brother was tormenting her?

When Alanbee merely stood in stunned silence, Alden clarified with another angry scowl. “GET. OUT. NOW…”

“Geez, all right, all right. Touchy.” Alanbee collected his wits and made for the door, sidling past Iris and releasing her ID with a snap as he passed. “Just remember, you need to be there on Saturday with a ‘plus one.’ Ma says ‘no excuses,’ so I’ll see you then. Ciao!”

The heavy door to Alden’s private C-Suite office closed with a bang, sealing the two coworkers in like animals in a cage. At least the floor-to-ceiling curtains were drawn, so no one else could see that horrid display through clear glass walls. Secure that they were alone, Alden released a breath he’d been holding with a deep sigh.

“Are you okay, sir?” Iris asked, her shaking hands still raised to protect her chest. “Is there something wrong?”

Alden swallowed before answering. Once again, Alanbee had made an ass of himself in public, but this time, he’d made Iris uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry for his behavior. If you can see it in your heart to ignore him, I’d–”

“I-it’s okay, sir,” Iris interrupted and smiled weakly back at him. “He startled me, that’s all. I’m easy to rile, I guess.”

Easy to rile?

It was an interesting word choice, and Iris was probably oblivious to other ways of interpreting it, but Alden was keenly aware. A hint of red rushed to his cheeks, further leading Iris to think she needed to assure Alden of her well-being.

“I wasn’t worried, sir,” Iris added. “I knew I was safe, because you were here.”

Alden ran a hand through his slicked-back auburn hair, subtly checking his ears for how warm they’d just gotten. Iris had basically admitted to being easily riled emotionally and to feeling safe with him around.

There were times when Alden found himself completely at a loss when speaking with Iris. She had an innocent, casual way of getting under his skin, stirring up feelings in Alden’s chest, and leaving him helpless to cope with whatever truths she’d laid bare.

“I-I see,” Alden said as he leaned back in his chair. “Well, thank you, Iris. I take it you’ll need me to sign off on these orders then?”

“If you would, please.”

Iris waited patiently for Alden to review the stack of invoices, stamping and signing off on them so he’d have more time to speak with her. In the pressured silence that ensued, Iris caught sight of an ivory-colored invitation with elegant, navy-blue cursive writing on it.

“Friend of yours?” Iris asked.

Alden glanced up from his papers and realized what Iris had meant. “No, not really, well... Old schoolmate. It’s Ms. Sparks’s second son’s wedding. The whole executive staff got invitations. That’s what Alanbee came to bug me about earlier.”

“Oh? Is he going, too?” Iris asked politely.

A deep sigh seeped from the office manager as he put down his approval stamp and pen to meet Iris’s gaze again. “Yes, unfortunately. Our mother insists that we both attend, along with a ‘plus one’ for each of us. He’s bringing some model, or influencer, or whatever. He stopped by my office to poke fun and brag…”

“Do you have one?” Iris inquired.

“A plus one?” Alden flushed at her question, unsure of how to respond. “N-no, I didn’t think I was going to go until Mother insisted, and now I think it’s too late to ask anyone.”

“Would you, that is,” Iris offered. “Would you like me to accompany you, sir? I don’t have phones that day, and it wouldn’t be any trouble to–”

“R-really?” Alden interjected. “Would you come with me? To be honest, I-I wasn’t really sure who I could ask on such short notice, and… You don’t have to if it would make you uncomfortable…”

“Not at all,” Iris beamed. Her bright smile lightened Alden’s spirits, almost enough to forget Alanbee’s behavior from earlier. “I love weddings. Plus, that means I can meet more of your family, right?”

She wants to meet my family? Even after earlier?

A delicate, imperceptible jitter of Alden’s blue eyes homed in on the office specialist. When he looked at Iris, Alden couldn’t help but feel a lightness in his chest and waves of relief wash over him. Her smile had a calming, tranquilizing effect that he could lean on during this god-awful wedding, and Iris was an ideal candidate to bring with him for that reason alone.

“Yes, absolutely,” Alden replied. A smile crept across his lips, and pressure lifted from his tensed shoulders. “I’ll need to secure something for you to wear. I know it’s short-notice, but could you send me your measurements? I’ll forward them on to a designer friend I know.”

“Certainly,” Iris nodded. “Anything special they need? I actually do a bit of sewing, myself. Oh, I guess you already knew that…”

Alden remembered how handily Iris had repaired his torn shirt sleeve for the surprise visit from Mr. Hutchison and his staff. Surely Iris would have her own measurements to pass on.

“Yes, well, would you prefer a dress, or a pant suit?” Alden asked as he jotted down a few notes on his sticky pad.

“You can choose, sir,” Iris replied. “After all, we’ll want to match. Just let me know how much I owe you for the–”

“Iris, please. You’re doing me a favor. It’s only right that I pay for your dress and shoes.” Alden pulled up his designer’s contact information before adding. “Do you have any preferences I should be aware of?”

Iris froze where she stood, unsure of what Alden had meant. Her throat threatened to close up before Iris realized that he’d meant to ask about preference for her clothing rather than anything else.

“Anything’s fine, sir, as long as I’m covered here.” Iris smiled at him and gestured at her collarbones that needed coverage. “Short of that, anything you pick is fine with me.”

That was certainly a dangerous proposition for Alden to consider. The office manager stopped himself from commenting, but he couldn’t suppress the series of thoughts that ran rampant in his mind as Alden fantasized about progressively skimpier outfits on the woman in front of him.

“Well, I’ll see you on Saturday then?” Alden asked.

“Sure. I’ll meet you there, if that’s all right. I need to get my roots touched up before then.” Iris smiled before departing with the signed orders, leaving Alden to wonder how long he could possibly stand to wait for their outfits to be ready for delivery.

As it turned out, Iris and Alden didn’t need to wait long. By Friday afternoon, an express delivery had arrived at the shabby little apartment on Maple, bearing Iris’s custom-tailored, billowing silk gown in a muted, beautiful dusty rose.

The wedding colors were sage green, navy blue, and cream, so Alden had selected something to compliment the grooms’ favorite colors. David would have preferred dusty rose to sage green any day, but his fiancé was set on green and blue for the wedding instead. This way, at least Alden and Iris could be the pop of color that the younger Sparks had wanted.

Dave and Alden hadn’t spoken since their university days, but he still recalled a thing or two about the man. It wasn’t that the elder Cavendish hadn’t wanted to celebrate David’s wedding, he just would have rather not spent it sharing the same space as his annoying family.

Still, this was an opportunity Alden couldn’t possibly pass up. It was a chance to attend a formal function with Iris Alcazar, and Alden could think of little else until Saturday morning rolled around.

Pacing nervously by the venue entrance, Alden stopped dead and let his jaw go slack at the sight of a lovely, timid wallflower emerging from the backseat of an old sedan. Alden forgot to breathe as the dusty rose bloomed into a rare Iris right before his eyes.