Chapter 31
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Pre-wedding jitters.
Maelin
Breakfast ramen. With my parents. Because I am a blabbermouth.
I just couldn’t keep our ramen plans to myself, now could I? No, I had to yawn and say, Morning, Mom. Morning, Dad. Do you have an answer for us yet? We want to get ramen for breakfast, before I was even fully awake.
Zakery, also not fully awake, had the awareness to exhale a laugh and smile at me before inviting my parents to come with us.
So. Now we sit. Chatting amicably. Over ramen. While I learn that it was not actually my wallet keeping me from finishing two bowls all by myself. Shocked and astounded, I am.
Whimpering, because my tummy hurts, I cuddle against Zakery on our side of the booth. His grace with chopsticks amazes me almost as deeply as how bottomless his stomach is. He’s finished his own bowl and is working on my leftovers without breaking a sweat.
I am not allowed to use chopsticks. Once, in this very building, I tried to. One wound up on the floor, and Morana took the other away before—and I quote— it winds up in your eye .
Zakery has just secured and eaten half a boiled egg without dripping soup on his clothes.
I am all amazement.
When he switches his chopsticks to his left hand in order to comb his fingers through my hair, we are all amazement. My mother, my father, and I together. It’s a shock a chorus of oohs and aahs does not rise from us three while we behold the beauty and grace that is Zakery Bachelor.
Once he’s managed to contain his awe, my father clears his throat. “Young man,” he says, authoritatively.
Zakery freezes, and the edge of his masking smile softens his lips. “Yes, sir?”
“I’ve made my decision.”
Zakery’s breath catches as his smile falls. “Yes, sir.”
“No, you may not marry my daughter.”
Zakery’s body weeps, going limp where I’m clinging.
“Taylor and I would like to marry you instead.”
Mom, helpfully, sips her soup and nods.
“I…don’t understand.” Zakery looks between my parents, who are goons, and not allowed to steal my man, thank you very much. I will elope this very afternoon if they keep up this nonsense.
Sighing, Mom sets down her bowl. “After the ball, and assuming Maelin agrees, what time and where will you both be getting married? We will meet you there.”
“Does this mean…” Zakery begins, looking at me, then looking back at them. “We…we have your blessing? We can get married next Sunday?
“If that’s what Maelin wants,” Dad begins, eyes narrowing, “and if you’re aware that hurting her will result in swift retaliation.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Zakery breathes.
Dad and Mom exchange a look. Then he smiles, and says, “Good,” before stealing the bill—from the billionaire.
Certainly, I have never seen Zakery more aghast, nor my father more smug.
?
One week.
That’s all that’s replayed in my head ever since my parents confirmed that—if I wanted to—I could marry Zakery with their blessing. I have a single week. During the drive home, while Zakery smiled and laughed and talked about how we might set up our life together, I took slow breaths and counted the days.
It’s real now.
Very real.
I don’t know what to do with the weight of this reality.
It’s all up to me now.
Saying yes , getting married, means moving out of the house with Morana, moving into the Bachelor manor, becoming Maelin Bachelor . It’s a lot of change to consider. A lot of change to consider…in a single week.
My parents approved, so I love Zakery. That’s what I said.
I said if they approved, I’d decide to love him.
And loving him means marrying him, and marrying him means change , and change is…scary. Uncertain. What if I’m making a mistake?
What if I’m not ready to love someone again?
Focusing on the dress before me, I try not to notice how very white it is. Pinning pink flowers and butterflies all over the layered skirt, I count my breaths and keep my mind from racing away. One, two, three, four…five…six…seven days.
Seven of them.
Six, really, since it’s already late today.
And does the day itself count? Probably not. So five.
Counting is not helping. Stepping back to see how I like the way I’ve arranged the accessories on the dress I’ve made doesn’t help either.
I can’t delude myself.
It’s a wedding dress.
It’s in my size.
And it’s exactly what I would want my wedding dress to look like.
It is beautiful.
Clenching my fist, I march from the room, across the hall, and into Zakery’s.
Startling, he turns from the panel he’s putting together and looks at me. A bright smile overcomes him, and my fears…stutter. “Hi, princess.”
My worries…lift.
Head tilting, he asks, “Is something wrong?”
“I’m nervous,” I blurt, and then I begin to pace, running my fingers through my hair. “About next Sunday. Not the ball. I’m looking forward to the ball. To riding in a limo. To walking up a red carpet into an elite event. I’m praying I don’t trip on the red carpet, but if I do, I’ll live with it. I’m excited to see what a ball looks like. I can’t believe I have the opportunity to go to one. It’s… afterward .” I suck in a breath. “It’s getting married.”
Rising, Zakery heads toward his open bedroom windows and draws the sheer white curtains over them.
My nervous heart stumbles, and I stop moving as I watch him.
Love is sacrifice. Love is thinking about the other person before yourself. Love… love is Zakery Bachelor.
I’ve just told him that I’m nervous about marrying him, and he’s ignoring that to make sure the sunlight isn’t too strong for me.
Yet, I find the gall to say, “What if I’m too scared to love you? What if you’re lying to me? What if everything falls apart, right when I least expect it? I don’t know what you get out of marrying me, but this is crazy, isn’t it? It’s been weeks.”
Zakery returns to his chair, sits, and stares at me.
My stomach dips as I wring my hands. I whisper, “I’m…sorry. I’m scared.”
“Maelin, you don’t have to marry me if you aren’t ready.”
“But I said . I said I’d love you if my parents approved. They’ve approved. And I knew they’d approve. I just wanted to make sure. Just in case I was being monumentally stupid again. But I think I was pushing the responsibility off onto them, and now it’s back on me, and I’m scared .”
Smiling gently, Zakery opens his arms. “Come here, princess.”
Helpless, I go to him, forget about the stupid dais step, and nearly face plant into his tablet. He catches me just in time to save his work, and my face, but my ankle smarts as I melt toward the ground, whimpering.
He soothes me the whole way down. “Are you all right?”
“My ankle, or my brain?”
He kisses my forehead, pushing my hair back over my ear. “Yes.”
Shoulders sagging, I refuse to meet his gaze. “No.”
“How can I support you?”
Dry laughter escapes. “Haven’t you done more than enough? Isn’t it my turn to do something for you? You’ve done so much for me, yet here I am, having second thoughts instead of just loving you a fraction of how much you love me.”
“Maelin…you experience emotions in ways I don’t. Loving someone is harder when you have to—”
“Don’t be stupid, Zakery,” I spit. “You forced yourself to love me through sheer terror that locked all your muscles up yesterday. I know that was hard. I know it was painful, even. But you did it, for me.”
“I did it because I want to marry you, Maelin. Don’t remove my motivation and make it seem like a wholly selfless feat.”
“There are ways to coerce me, without appeasing my demands.”
He lifts my face, so I can watch his brow arch. “Are there really? Didn’t work when Harry tried them, did it?”
“Harry is an idiot. You…aren’t.”
He smiles. “I appreciate that sentiment.” His thumb slips across my cheek, heating in the wake of the caress. “You don’t have to marry me, Maelin. Not next week. Not ever. I’ll love you through it. I’ll pine. I’ll suffer my desire as it rises and falls with no relief, grateful only that it’s yet to fade. Who knows? Maybe never appeasing my want will be what allows me to feel it forever. I’ll be okay with that. Wanting you is a feeling I always want to recognize.”
I grip his clothes. “I want to marry you. It’s just…scary.”
“Which part? The…wedding night? We don’t have to, until you’re ready, even if we’re married.”
Liquid heat pulses in my veins. “N-not that. The moving in part. Are your brothers okay with you marrying me?”
Zakery provides a very intelligent, “Huh.”
“Huh?”
“I neglected to tell them. That is occurring to me right in this precise moment.”
My mouth drops open. “You what ?”
Sliding his fingers into his hair, Zakery lifts a shoulder. “Viktor already approved letting you be my muse. I smuggled you into the seamstress mouse position. Nothing really changes if we get married now. You’ve already been spending half your nights here, completely not bothering my brothers. So. Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters! I’m going to be their sister! Morana will be their sister! They’ll be our brothers!” I’m…going to have four older brothers . Four of them. A whole army of brothers. I shall never be hurt again, probably, and whoever Morana falls in love with better be prepared to lose his kneecaps in the event he ever hurts her.
“Speaking of your sister, I assume you’ve told Morana? Does she have doubts? Is that why you are having them, too?”
I straighten. “I haven’t told her yet. But I have an excuse. In that I haven’t committed to the idea of it yet.”
“If you don’t want to move in, you don’t have to move in.”
“Are we getting married or not?” I ask. “If I don’t have to move in, if we don’t have to have a wedding night , why are we getting married right now?”
He laughs, tapping my lips with his knuckle. “Because, princess, I love you. Marrying you isn’t about playing house. It’s about saying you’re mine and I’m yours. Even if we’re apart. Even if we don’t go further for a while. I know I love you. I know I want you. I know. So I want everyone to know.” Leaning back on his hands, he nods, affirmative. “Including the US government. They’ll not get taxes out of you for your modeling, but they may have our marriage papers. Bless.”
Bless indeed…
He’s really painting this as very low stakes.
“Speaking of the government,” he murmurs, “we will need to apply for a marriage license this week, unless you firmly decide that you don’t want to go through with it within at least the next sixty days. If you think you might want to, we can have it on hand, even if it’s not next Sunday that it happens. If we get it, and you decide you’d rather not, it’s okay. We can just apply for another one later.”
Ah.
Yes.
Right.
Well.
That’s all good and fine and reasonable, isn’t it? Ducks in a row, options available and displayed clearly, for any eventuality.
It kind of makes me want to shake him. “How are you so perfect, Zakery?”
He beams. “It’s what I was raised to be.”
I wince. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey…” He curls a knuckle under my chin. “That was a joke. I like being perfect to you. Other than my brothers, you’ve seen the most of who I really am, and they don’t think I’m very perfect, so I really appreciate the part where you do.”
Everything inside me wants to curl up in his arms and go to sleep until this stress passes, even if I know that it’s only going to get worse if the day closes in and I haven’t dealt with it. Softly, I say, “What if you regret marrying me, Zakery?”
“Why would a mere mortal regret marrying a goddess?”
“I’m not a goddess. My only merits are that you think I’m pretty and I can sew.”
“Sewing is very important when I’m little more than a patchwork of broken parts, Maelin.” Pushing himself toward me, he locks his lips with mine, stealing some apprehension in a kiss. “Also, I don’t think you’re pretty . I think you’re divine, my every unsuspecting fantasy come alive, the first and only woman I have ever dreamt about, the first and only woman I have ever kissed or wanted to touch.” He touches a kiss to my chin, my cheek. Leaning over me while I sit on the floor beneath the dais step, he touches his forehead to mine and exhales warm air across my lips. “ Pretty .” He scoffs through a smile. “I believe I have told you to stop insulting yourself so.”
“I’m not good enough,” I say. “I can’t even follow simple instructions. I’ll disappoint you somehow. I just know it.”
“Is that the truth you believe, or the lies you’ve been fed?”
“I…” Swallowing bitterness, I whisper, “I don’t know. What if you’re the one lying?”
“I’m not.”
“But—”
He pecks my lips. “ I’m not. I can’t be. These are my educated and professional opinions. My facts. If they differ from yours, that doesn’t make them any less true for me.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am. Completely.”
Taking a deep breath, I search his eyes. “I’m sorry I’m so nervous.”
“Nerves mean this is important to you. You’ll not catch me faulting you for that. In some ways, I wish I could be more nervous for you.”
It’s hard going from a man who claimed I did everything wrong to one who finds hardly a fault in me. The whiplash is nearly unbearable, yet it’s easy to know which of the two deserves my time. “I want to marry you,” I say. “I want to love you. I want to decide to love you. I want my actions to reflect that decision. Will…you help me?”
Warmth seeps into his cold gray eyes as he says, “Gladly.”