Chapter 43 Avery #2
The room shifts. The chatter doesn't stop, but there's a new energy now. Anticipation building, the morning pivoting toward its purpose.
I stand. My fingers find the tie of my silk robe, and I let the fabric fall away.
Beneath, Eve's lingerie is a work of art—ivory silk and delicate lace, the pale blue ribbon accents a whisper against my skin. My “something blue” already in place. Eve makes a small sound of satisfaction from across the room.
"God, I'm good," she murmurs, and Kat laughs.
Serena's team moves into action with choreographed precision. The gown is lifted from its hanger, carefully, reverently, and carried toward me. Clara holds the skirt while Yuki guides me to step into the pool of ivory silk.
And then the dress rises.
The fabric whispers against my legs, my hips, cool and whisper smooth. The pleated bodice wraps my curves, soft asymmetrical draping that manages to be both elegant and sensual. Yuki's hands work the dozens of buttons at my back, each one a small pearl, while Sofia adjusts the fall of the skirt.
But it's the sleeves that steal my breath.
Sheer illusion lace slides up my arms, and with it, the cascading pearls. Tiny, luminous, flowing down from shoulder to wrist like elegant rainfall. They're cool against my skin. Delicate. Each one catching light as I move.
Pearls. Always pearls with Nick and me.
My mind goes to him again. To the first strand of pearls he gave me, the ones he wound around my wrists, binding me to him in ways that went far beyond his dark appetites. To every gift since. Every symbol of what we've become to each other.
I imagine his hands where Yuki's are now. Not careful. Not reverent. Urgent. Possessive. The way he undressed me the last time we made love, his mouth hot against my throat, his fingers making quick work of buttons and clasps and everything between us. The way he'll undress me tonight.
Heat pools low in my belly. I'm dressing for him.
Every layer, every detail, designed in anticipation of the way his eyes will darken when he sees me.
The sharp intake of breath I know will come.
The hunger that will flare in his face, barely leashed, before he masters it for the sake of three hundred witnesses.
But tonight, there will be no witnesses. No control.
Just him and me and everything we've earned.
"Avery?"
Tasha's voice pulls me back. She's standing before me now, a dark red velvet box in her hands, her eyes bright with emotion.
"The finishing touch."
She opens the lid.
The pearl and diamond infinity necklace gleams against the velvet. The double strands of pearls. The infinity symbol at the center, diamonds catching fire in the light.
My throat tightens, emotion nearly overwhelming me. It’s not sadness. It’s the sweet, affirming warmth of being claimed by someone who chose me completely.
"Here, I'll do it." Someone appears behind me to move my hair out of the way while Tasha carefully lifts the necklace free. Her fingers are warm against my nape as she works the clasp. "Your man certainly has good taste."
"I know." My voice comes out smaller than I intended. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"
She adjusts the necklace, the infinity symbol settling just above the hollow of my throat. The metal warms against my pulse, and for a moment I close my eyes, feeling him right here with me. The weight of his gaze. The feeling of being the center of his whole world.
"I wasn't talking about the necklace, girlfriend. But yeah, it's spectacular."
She comes around to look at me, her expression beaming. "You look beautiful. This is what everyone needs today," she says, gesturing to the hubbub of activity around us. "The chance to celebrate you. To see how happy you are. You deserve both, Ave. You deserve everything good in life."
"Thank you," I whisper. "For being here. For just being you."
"Okay, shut up now." Tasha's eyes are wet with welling tears. "You're going to make me ruin my makeup and then I'll have to stand next to you looking like a soggy raccoon, which would really put a damper on things."
I give a watery laugh, and Tasha squeezes my shoulders once before stepping away.
And then my mom is there beside me.
The room quiets. Something softer than silence settles over everyone. A collective recognition that this moment belongs to us, just me and my mom. The chatter fades to murmurs, the movement to stillness.
She stands before me, her hands cupped around something small. Her eyes are already shining, and the sight of my strong, loving mother trembling on the edge of tears undoes me even before she says a word.
"I've been holding onto this," she says, her voice unsteady. "Waiting for the right moment."
She opens her hands.
A hair comb rests in her palms. Antique, delicate. The metalwork is tarnished to a soft patina, the tiny pearls yellowed with age, but somehow more beautiful for it. Real. Worn. Loved.
"This belonged to my grandmother." Mom's voice is barely above a whisper.
"Your great-grandmother. She wore it on her wedding day in 1932, and she was married to your great-grandfather for sixty-three years.
Sixty-three years of love and partnership and raising a family together.
" She looks up at me, tears spilling now.
"She used to tell me that a good marriage wasn't about perfection.
It was about showing up for each other, every single day, even when it was hard. Especially when it was hard."
My breath catches high in my throat, and I feel heat flooding behind my eyes, a pressure building as my heart swells to fill my breast.
"I never thought I'd get to do this." Her voice breaks.
"Watch you get married. Stand beside you on this day.
After everything—" She stops short, takes a breath.
Her voice softens nearly to a whisper. "You know what I gave up to keep you safe.
I'd do it again, sweetheart. A thousand times.
But I never dreamed I'd get to be here for this. "
The weight of it crashes over me. After everything.
Her sacrifice. Years behind bars because she protected me. My childhood, stolen from us both. And now, standing in my penthouse, surrounded by friends, about to walk her daughter down the aisle to a man who loves me as much as I love him.
The grandchild she'll hold in a few months. The life stretching ahead of us.
"Mom—" My voice is strangled, thick with tears.
"I love you, baby girl." She reaches up, cupping my face in her hands the way she did when I was small. "And I love the man you're marrying." Her thumb brushes my cheekbone. "You found a good one, Avery. Hold onto him."
The tears come and I let them fall, hot on my cheeks, my hands shaking as I reach for her. The sound that escapes me is somewhere between a laugh and a sob, breaking open in the quiet room.
Someone shrieks, "The mascara!"
Suddenly there's motion everywhere.
"Don't touch your face!"
"Quick! Someone get tissues!"
Tasha's voice rises above them all. "Zoe, do not wipe your sticky hands on Aunt Avery's dress!"
Laughter breaks through the tears. The makeup artist swoops in with brushes and cotton pads, clucking her tongue.
Eve thrusts tissues at me while Tasha fans my face with both hands.
Zoe stands in front of me, asking why I'm crying, and my mom is laughing and crying at the same time, her mascara now as ruined as mine.
The chaos is beautiful. I look around at all of them. Tasha dabbing under her own eyes. Eve passing tissues while trying not to spill her champagne. Lita pretending she isn't sniffling. Serena misting up beside her. My mother's hand still warm in mine.
The love in this room is so close, so physical, it's like standing inside an embrace.
A few minutes later, with the emergency repairs complete, the makeup artist steps back with a satisfied nod. The hairstylist lifts my great-grandmother's comb and carefully slides it into my hair, securing it among the soft waves.
"One more thing," Serena says, and then the tiara is being lifted, positioned, secured. The final piece.
Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue.
All of it in place. Every piece carried here by someone who loves me. By Nick, my mother, Serena, and Eve. I feel the weight of each one against my skin, my hair, my throat. The history and the promise and the grace of it.
I turn to the mirror.
My gown falls in elegant folds, ivory silk catching the light, the pearl sleeves shimmering with every breath.
The tiara adds just enough fairy tale—a whisper of magic without being overwhelming.
The necklace gleams at my throat, the sparkling infinity symbol resting against my pulse.
And there, barely visible in my hair, the antique comb anchors me to the women who came before, the love that traveled through generations to reach me here.
This is who I am now. This is the woman I've become. Not despite everything I survived, but through it. Everything is waiting for me. The man who loves me, the child growing inside me, the future stretching out like a promise.
In a few minutes, I'll walk toward Nick. He'll see me for the first time in this dress, and I'll watch his face for the love he doesn't try to hide anymore. I'll walk down an aisle lined with people we cherish, and I'll marry him again—this time for the world to see.
And tonight, in the quiet dark of our bedroom, he'll take it all off. The gown, the tiara, the pearls. Piece by piece, layer by layer. His mouth on every inch of skin he uncovers, reclaiming what three hundred witnesses only got to admire. Until I'm just Avery again.
Nick's Avery.
His wife.
Counting the hours.
I press my palm flat against my belly and I look at the woman in the mirror.
She smiles back.
Go get your fairy tale, her expression seems to say.
My heart is on the verge of exploding, joyful and eager for the next step Nick and I are about to take together.
Yes, I think, and I nod to my reflection.
I’m ready.