Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
B eatrix
“I pronounce you husband and wife.” The minister barely gets the words out before a cheer goes up from the crowd squeezed into the chairs on the grass. Every one of them is filled, but no one is standing. I give myself a silent high five for estimating the exact number of last-minute no-shows and calculating the food and drinks perfectly for PJ.
Colin wraps his wife in an embrace, and my sister kisses him until a series of whistles and whoops from her guests brings her up for air. She holds her bouquet in the air and grins at Colin before moving slowly down the aisle. In her long white column dress and hair in a twist, she looks every bit the magazine bride. I watch them hug guests along the way until they disappear around the corner of the restaurant.
The rest of the wedding party couples off and walks back down the aisle, too. As maid of honor, I’m the last to go, on the arm of Trey, Colin’s best friend from college. The string quartet plays “Isn’t She Lovely,” and I have to laugh at Colin’s choice for his bride. It says everything a person needs to know about how much he worships her.
Trey and I walk slowly behind the rest of the wedding party. My arm is looped through his, but my eyes stay where they’ve been for most of the ceremony—pinned on the sly smile of Dominick Renaldi, who’s been watching me like a wolf getting ready to devour his dinner. If I thought anyone else noticed, I might feel embarrassed, but standing next to the altar with my pregnant belly, I feel beautiful.
There isn’t another person who could make me feel the way Ren does just by looking at me, and it’s not because he likes the way I look. I mean, he does, obviously. He’s made that clear, but what I feel when his eyes roam over me is that he appreciates everything I am, starting well beneath the surface. He’s special that way, and I’m just nervous that it’s too good to be true.
When Trey and I reach the end of the wedding area and move toward where the cocktail reception is taking place in the vineyard, I give him a hug. “Nice walking with you, Trey.”
“Likewise. Thanks for making sure I didn’t go too fast.”
“Ha. Yeah, no runaway groomsmen here.”
It was our inside joke that there’s always one nervous bridesmaid or groomsman who walks down the aisle really quickly like they’re on the run from the law. We each vowed to keep each other moving at a proper wedding pace.
“I’ll catch up with you later. Try the sauvignon blanc. I promise you’ll like it.”
“Good tip from a winemaker.” He gives me a high five and moves along with the crowd. Good guy. Easy. Nice looking. But he doesn’t hold a candle to Dominick Renaldi.
I turn around to find him where he said he’d wait for me. The wedding crowd is filing out, so I can’t see him at first. It takes a little navigating through the rows of white chairs on the lawn to get back to the spot where I left him earlier. And there he is, standing with a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
For a second, I think he’s plucked them from one of the pots lining the ceremony space, but these are daisies. Nothing like the ones my sister insisted on—all deep pinks and dark oranges. These are my kind of flowers. Of course he remembers. This man has probably been planning this for ten years. It gives me a whole new appreciation for Ren and all the faith I need that he’s in this for his own reasons.
Turning down a row of chairs, I make my way to him with a smile, touched by the flowers and expecting to see his usual easygoing grin in return. Instead, he looks serious as he holds up the bouquet of simple white blooms tied loosely with a raffia string.
“Hey.” I push my hands through my hair for the first time since our hairdresser sent me to the family photo session with strict instructions not to touch a strand. “Whew. Glad we took the photos before the wedding. Now, I can relax.”
Ren nods, but the concerned look doesn’t leave his face. “Are you okay?”
He nods.
I pull a hair tie from where I’ve hidden it inside my own bouquet and start to twist my hair up and out of my face.
“No.”
I startle at the gruff instruction, and I’m about to ask what the problem is when Ren takes the hair tie out of my hand. “Leave it down.” Then, possibly worried he sounds too bossy, Ren adds, “Please.”
“Okay.”
I stand in front of Ren, whose expression now borders on tortured, waiting for him to tell me whatever he has to say. For an agonizingly long time, he’s silent, and my brain kicks into gear. “What’s wrong? Did something happen with the team? Do you need to leave?”
“No. It’s not that, not at all.” He rubs a hand over his face, and I pray he doesn’t shove it into his hair because it looks so damn good and perfect in the tousled way it is. Then I kick myself for still being so dazzled by the way he looks that it’s stealing focus from what he’s trying to tell me.
“Ren, what is it?”
Seeming to remember that he’s holding flowers, he presents them to me. “These are for you.”
I put the bridesmaid bouquet down on a chair and take the proffered flowers. “They’re my favorites. Thank you.”
“I know.” Slowly, he drops to one knee.
My mind goes to the idea that he must have lost something, and I start to bend toward where he is to help him look.
I bend down right into an open ring box, which he’s holding out toward me. I’m hit by a wave of dizziness that has me clapping a hand across my chest. My heart flies into my throat and starts beating a million miles a minute.
“Beatrix…” Ren looks up at me and instantly bursts out laughing. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Am I… Ren, what are you doing?” I ask, taking a wobbly step backward. I’m really regretting the choice of two-inch heels right now, and I want to yell at Mallory for letting me talk her into them.
I must look a little wobbly because Ren yanks a chair from the closest row and brings it behind me. “Here, sit.”
I obey because the only other alternative is to pass out. For the life of me, my brain can’t compute what’s happening. A minute ago, I was half convinced that Ren had changed his mind about me. About us. And now…
“What are you doing?”
He laughs again and pulls a second chair over to face mine. “Well, I had an idea.”
Ren signals to the minister, who I notice for the first time sitting in the shade of a tree a few paces away. He has a book in his lap, and his foot crossed over one knee. The minister closes his book and walks over to us.
“He looked so comfortable. Don’t disrupt him,” I whisper to Ren, who shakes his head.
“Archer asked him to wait for us. That’s why he’s here.”
I don’t understand. “Wait for what?” The wheels whir off again of their own will, and my mind starts thinking that maybe Ren wants him to bless the baby or stage an intervention before I become a mother who can’t tell a breast pump from a boom box. My brain is still racing through ridiculous scenarios that require a minister when Ren again drops to one knee.
“Beatrix Corbett, I’ve already said this, but I want to say it again today. I am not with you because you trapped me with a baby. I’m not with you because you forced me into an impossible situation. I’m here for you. You are the reason I bought the winery in Napa, but what you don’t know is that I did it six years ago.”
I never knew what it meant when someone’s jaw dropped open until this moment. My chin feels like it’s on a hinge, my mouth gaping, no sound coming out.
“What?” I ask, finally.
“I bought the property six years ago. I did it through a trust, and it’s mostly been sitting dormant. I hired a property manager to keep the fields watered and do the minimum to maintain the place. He’s the one who hired the agriculturalist to plant the vines and fruit trees on the property. I mostly nodded and went on with my hockey career.”
“Six years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And I did it as a love-struck twenty-something, hoping he’d find his way back to the one who got away. So all that crap about trapping me, get it out of your head. I’m here because I love you. End of story. For ten years, my heart’s ached for you, and there’s no way in hell I’m walking away again. Zero chance. Zero. I give you my word right here today that I will be here for you always.”
“Ren…” I say when he stops to catch his breath. “I do love you too.”
He holds up a hand. “I’m not asking you to forgive me for ghosting you. It was wrong, and I regret it. And I can’t promise that I won’t fuck up sometimes because I’m a work in progress, but I’ll give it my absolute best. I’m asking you to have faith in me—in our future—because the only future I can imagine has you in it. I’m asking a lot, I know.”
It’s my turn to laugh because I can’t imagine him asking more than I already have of him. “More than me asking you to raise a child with me?”
He nods. “I’m asking for forever. I want you to be my partner, the love of my life, and my wife. And because I know you like efficiency, you can become my fiancée and my wife in one go. We can get married right now. If you want. Archer asked the minister to stay so he can perform a ceremony for us right here.”
Again, he holds the ring box out to me. When I take a closer look at it, I notice the diamond solitaire isn’t the only ring there. Beside it sit two plain, platinum bands. One for each of us.
I burst out laughing because I’m still not sure I’m understanding him right.
“Ren, are you serious? You want to get married right now? At my sister’s wedding?”
Ren picks up my hand and brings it to his lips. “Now, or not now. Whatever you want, honey. I just wanted to give you everything and anything you could possibly want. If you want to pull off the ultimate multitasking day, you can be a bridesmaid, a fiancée, and a bride all in a matter of an hour.”
When he says the words, I do feel a thrill of electricity hum in my veins, but for the first time, I know that being solely committed to my career is not my goal in life. Maybe it was, but it pales in comparison with what I see in front of me. The warm buzz of feeling I have is all for Ren and the possibility of spending my life with him.
“I love that you know me and my type A happy place,” I tell him, squeezing his hand. “But the reason I’m saying yes—yes to everything you just said—is not because I want to be efficient. It’s because I want to spend my life with you, Dominick Renaldi, so I say yes.”
“You’ll marry me?” He swallows hard as though the idea just occurred to him. “Hell yeah. Sorry,” he tells the minister, who nods.
“In the moment, people say all kinds of things. I’m used to it,” the minister admits before his voice is drowned out by a cheer in the vineyard just outside of where we’re sitting.
“PJ and Colin must’ve just walked in,” I tell Ren. We listen and hear glasses clinking and the rising chatter of happy guests, and I strain to hear more. Ren reaches over and cups my chin in his hand, turning my face to look at him.
“Hey, I don’t want to take you away from your sister’s wedding. Maybe this was selfish.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s amazing, but you’re right. This is her day, and we’ll have our own day. I’ll be more than happy being engaged to you for a while and spreading out the good stuff over a much longer time.”
“Yeah?” he asks. “No multitasking?”
I shrug. “Not today.”
We thank the minister for sticking around and make our way to the reception, Ren’s arm draped around my shoulders. The voices get louder as we approach, and I get ready to dance with my fiancé.
“Wait,” Ren says, halting our steps. He comes around to face me and drops again to one knee. “I screwed it all up. I never actually asked you to marry me.”
Looking down at this man who’s had my heart since I was twenty years old, I clap a hand over my mouth and shake my head. “Ren, you did ask.” I pull him to his feet and put my cheek against his chest, nodding as I wrap my arms around him. “And I said yes. I will marry you, Dominick Renaldi. Yes. I’m yours. Forever.”
Ren slips the engagement ring onto my finger and pockets the box with the wedding bands. “I’ll save these for another time, but I’m holding you to it.” He grins with that schoolboy charm I love, and my heart spills over.
With his arm draped over my shoulder again, we make our way to the reception, where we both drink sparkling water to toast my sister’s wedding and our engagement. I keep my ring finger hidden for the remainder of the night, so the celebration is only about PJ and Colin. But when Ren pulls me close and we dance to a slow song, he holds my hand right over his heart, and I never plan to let it go.