Chapter Fifteen Venice
Christian
“W hat colors do you want for the wedding?” I ask, as Haven looks up from the wedding magazine she’s been scanning with a slight smile.
Sitting together in the living room, our little tryst in the pool house still fresh in my mind, I try to focus on our discussion regarding our upcoming wedding. This was one of the reasons I invited her over tonight, after all. I hadn’t intended on doing anything more than hanging out and discussing details of our arrangement, but seeing her in that little bikini, soaking wet from the pool… something in my brain had snapped. Then, when she’d taken out my cock and gotten on her knees…
I have to shake my head to dislodge the thoughts. Dressed and dry, Haven doesn’t look at all affected by what just happened between us. She’s totally locked in on wedding planning, it seems. Which I’m not going to complain about. Though her actions definitely took me by surprise. I never would have taken her for a girl to do something like that.
“Something traditional,” she says, pulling me out of my head. “You’ll be in a black suit, and I’ll be in a white dress.”
How original… maybe this will be easy to plan.
“We’ll have to book a venue. Flowers. It’s a lot of work. You sure you don’t want to hire a planner?”
“Maybe,” she muses, before giving a short laugh. “Having someone else in charge of all this might not be such a bad idea.”
“I can take care of anything you want. Money is no object.”
She stares at me from over the magazine, her brow raising slightly. “Is that so?”
“Yeah…” I reply slowly, slightly confused by her question. “Why would it be?”
She opens her mouth to speak, and quickly closes it laughing again. There’s clearly a point she wants to make but instead she doesn’t say anything. “Very well then… what about a honeymoon? Is that something we’re doing as well?”
“Why not. You can go anywhere you want to go.”
“Oh, anywhere?” she asks, her eyes widening as a sly smirk crosses her lips. “Venice… Milan?”
“I mean… if that’s where you want to go. Both are really nice in the spring.” I’ve been so many times, and never really stuck around to enjoy it, but from when I went I guess someone there to enjoy the scenes would find it beautiful. [1] [2]
A soft subtle expression crosses her face as she seems to contemplate what I’ve told her. Though she doesn’t push for any more details. Not that I could give her many. I mean I know details about those places, but it wasn’t like I was sight seeing or anything. I was there for work and so my experience doesn’t go much past that.
“Well… I think we should go there. If you want to,” she finally responds after a moment. “I think Oliver would enjoy it as well.”
The fact that she is bringing up Oliver when it comes to our honeymoon completely catches me off guard. “You want him to come on our honeymoon?”
“Why not?” She shrugs as if her wanting something like that is completely reasonable. “He’s part of this relationship as well. Plus, we could see if the nanny is willing to come too. She can watch him when we do stuff alone together—but we can also do stuff with him. If you want to?—”
“I’d love that,” I cut in, my heart swelling at the notion that she would think of my son when it comes to something like this. I’ve always wanted to take him abroad, to let him experience life outside of the world we live in but I’ve never had a chance to. Not to mention, he’s so young.
Most women wouldn’t even consider bringing him. I know Theresa damn sure wouldn’t have ever wanted to. But this simple gesture from Haven just further proves how different she really is to most women in the world.
“I’ll book it. We’ll go after the wedding.”
“About that,” she interjects, leaning forward slightly. “When is the wedding, anyway?”
“As soon as humanly possible.” I want to get this locked down sooner rather than later so I can focus on securing custody of Oliver.
“Why so soon? It’s going to take at least a couple of months to get everything together. Not to mention we haven’t even been together that long. Won’t people think it's a bit odd?”
As much as I want to say it won’t come off as weird, I can’t. Because it completely is. But right now that’s the farthest thing from my mind. “Perhaps, but it will be better for my custody issue and with the situation with your mom. The longer we wait, the more we’re both at risk of things going wrong.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she says with a sigh, her body relaxing back into the sofa she’s been lounging on as she seems to drift off into her own thoughts.
I’m not oblivious to the issues the two of us face. All of this is pretty unnatural by most standards but we both agreed to it, and while I’m sure a lot of her hesitations lay around her family I can’t deny something that she said before.
Garrett, her brother, doesn’t know yet.
I’d thought about calling him and telling him that I want to marry her. Being a man in the situation and asking him for his permission, which is what some may think I should do. And hell, if this was a normal engagement and we’d been dating for a while I probably would have. But I haven’t contacted him about it.
Simply because part of me doesn’t know if he wouldn’t do something to stop it.
And even though I care about her… I can’t help but be selfish.
I don’t want there to be a reason for him to try and talk her out of it.
“We have a lot of work to do,” she says, letting out a low whistle. “Like, a lot of work.”
“We really do,” I add as I pull out my wallet, placing one of my credit cards on the table in front of her. “Put anything you need on this.”
She hesitates, before reluctantly leaning forward to take the card between her fingers. “Um… okay. What’s the credit limit? Just so I know. I don’t want to max it out or anything.”
The fact that she thinks she could max out my card is cute. Just as much as the concern she has over possibly making that happen. My smile widens as her frown deepens.
“It doesn’t have a limit… does it?”
I shake my head, smiling.
“Jesus,” she mutters, causing me to laugh. “So, while we’re discussing things… you brought up your custody issues… what’s the deal with his mom?”
“She’s not someone capable of taking care of our son,” I slowly let out, gritting my teeth. “That’s really all that matters.”
“She isn’t going to go psycho and try to kill me, is she?”
“No,” I scoff in return. “She won’t get anywhere close to you.”
“Can I ask what happened with her?”
I know she’s simply curious what happened between Theresa and I, but the fact that she wants to talk about her right now is getting under my skin. She has every right to be interested, especially when this is going to affect her. But it’s the last thing I want to do.
“There’s nothing to talk about. She’s gone. She left a note saying she wasn’t cut out to be a wife and mother and just left.”
“You didn’t go after her?”
“Of course I did,” I snap.
She flinches and drops her gaze. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t push. It’s really none of my business.”
A swirling sense of guild fills me at being short with her. It isn’t her fault what happened with Theresa. Haven’s going to be Oliver’s stepmom, at least for a little while, so it’s probably only fair that she knows a little bit about my history with Theresa so she knows what we’re up against.
“I’m sorry. It’s just not something I like to think about.”
I had gone after Theresa, not for myself, but for Oliver. When I’d found her, it’d quickly become clear that she really wasn’t suited to be a mother, so I let her go without a fight. We’d agreed that we would keep Oliver a secret for as long as possible and not let it be known who his mother was. Theresa had wanted a total break from me and our son. Her mother, Agnes, who’s a cold-blooded and cutthroat bitch, supported her daughter’s abandonment of Oliver, more concerned about her daughter’s fledgling modeling career than the well-being of her grandson.
Since it got out that Oliver is Theresa’s son, she’s suddenly taken a greater interest in his life and wants him. I’m not fooled. She has ulterior motives for wanting Oliver, and I know they’re entirely selfish.
I hate Theresa for that, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive her.
“I understand,” Haven whispers. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“It’s all right,” I assure her. “We’ll have to deal with her eventually, but for now, I don’t want to think about her and just focus on Oliver. And on us, I suppose.”
“Us.” She grins and shakes her head. “That sounds so weird, doesn’t it? My family is going to freak out when we tell them.”
At the mention of our families, the lightness in the room shifts slightly, and I can sense the tension creeping back in. I know this is a conversation we can't avoid.
"How do you want to tell them?” I ask gently. “Your mom? And your brother?"
She sighs, leaning back against the couch cushions.
"My mom will be thrilled, no doubt, but I worry about how much to tell her—how much of the truth. If I tell her that I’m getting married just to make her final wish come true, that’ll just upset her. We need to convince her that this is real."
I nod. "I get that. Let her be happy about the marriage without letting her know it’s an arrangement."
"Exactly," she says, her brow furrowing slightly. “Then there’s my brother. He’s going to be… complicated. That’s for sure.”
At the mention of her brother, dread fills me. He’s my best friend and I haven’t bothered to include him in any of this. Which is clearly going to back fire on me when the time comes. Thank God he’s in the oil fields right now. It gives me time to come up with a plan to avoid getting my ass kicked.
“Hey, don’t worry,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice calm and even. “It’s all going to be okay. I’ll worry about your brother. You just focus on your mom and planning the wedding. We’ll make this work, I promise.”
She releases a long breath and slowly nods, appearing relieved by my words.
“Okay.” She gives me a small smile. “Okay. We can do this.”
“We’ll go see your mom tomorrow, yeah? I think you’ll feel better once you’ve talked to her.”
She hesitates, her smile widening once more as she nods. “You’re right. That sounds like a good idea.”
Feeling more assured that she’s not going to bolt on me, I release her hand and sit back against the back of the couch. She turns her gaze back to the magazine in her lap and I let myself relax, feeling as though I just side-stepped a disaster.
Now that we’ve started down this path, I’m going to make sure we pull this off, no matter what it takes.
@[email protected]'m not sure what you want me to look at here, but I did change it from saying " Venice... Italy." to "Venice... Milan." since both are in Italy and it makes a bit more sense to me that way.