29. Jane
CHAPTER 29
JANE
Hell is sometimes depicted as a place where your desires go unfulfilled. For example, gluttons are surrounded by delicious food that they can’t eat, or drunkards are swimming in liquor they can’t consume. Now, I’m not a sex addict, far from it, but the weeks before the wedding make me feel like one… in my particular version of hell.
Apparently, working out isn’t the only thing Adrian does shirtless. He doesn’t wear a shirt when he goes to the fridge at night, or when he sunbathes on his rooftop deck, or when he plays in the ball pit with Leo. And let’s not forget his shirtless skin-to-skin with Piper, of course.
That last one is why I’m beginning to forget the sting of his rejection. The more time I spend with the baby, the more I fall for her, and that makes me think that Adrian was right to say no to my GD proposal.
This whole marriage is for Piper’s sake, and I almost messed it up, even with him saying no.
As we get closer to the wedding, I don’t even have time to think about my GD. When I’m not working, most of my time is spent choosing a dress and liaising with the wedding planner (who seems to defer to the opinion of the bride on pretty much everything).
Before I know it, the wedding day arrives. As I get my hair, nails, and makeup professionally done, butterflies come to life in my stomach, and by the time I’m putting on my wedding dress, I have a major case of the jitters… as though I were a real bride.
Which I’m not.
I have to keep reminding myself of that as I put in my contacts—something I only do on special occasions.
I’m so busy doing that I don’t even notice when Mom, Mary, and Grandma join me in the fitting room. I only realize they’re there when all three of them start sobbing.
“Who died?” I demand.
“You just look so beautiful,” Mary says, sniffling. “Like a princess.”
“You’re not my little baby anymore,” Mom mutters over a hiccup.
“And I’m a social crier,” Grandma says, blowing her nose. “Always have been.”
“Can I go?” I ask Mrs. Dubois and the rest of the glam-me-up team.
Mrs. Dubois looks me over with her super-critical eye and nods, albeit grudgingly. “I still wish I had six months,” she says, her French accent in full force. “But given the current constraints, you look decent enough.”
Mary huffs. “Especially if by ‘decent,’ you mean ‘Disney princess-like.’”
“Or ‘queen-like,’” Mom adds.
I resist the urge to point out that it was, in fact, Queen Victoria who put the now-familiar white dress on the map for the countless brides who followed her.
The door opens and the event organizer rushes in, looking panicked—though that seems to be her default state of being. “The limo is here,” she rattles out. “We need the bride at the church. Stat.”
“Fucking amateurs,” Mrs. Dubois mutters under her breath. Noticing my grandma’s chastising glare, she adds, “Pardon my French.”
I let myself be herded into the limo, and when the car is en route, Mom asks, “Why St. George's Church? I don’t think it’s the biggest or most architecturally significant.”
I grin. “If today’s wedding had a theme, it would be ‘historical romance.’”
“I still don’t get it,” Mom says.
I roll my eyes. “If you’d read the books I’ve been recommending, you’d notice that all the fashionable weddings of the ton took place at St. George's.”
“But in London,” Mom says.
I shrug. “I figured this St. George's would be easier to book on short notice. Or did you want to fly today?”
Mom shakes her head. “Whatever makes you happy.”
“Actually, a quick, nondescript wedding would make me happy,” I say. “The kind they have in Vegas or at City Hall.”
“If you did that, you wouldn’t be able to do a historical romance theme,” Mom says.
I purse my lips. “We could’ve roleplayed. In my romances, they have quick weddings all the time. If the heroine is preggers, for example, the hero just gets a Special License from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
I’ve done some research on this, and in the real world, said license was granted infrequently and not lightly—in contrast to my books, where getting the license isn’t all that special.
“So it’s the groom who wants it to be fancy?” Grandma asks. “That’s not how it worked in my day.”
“Jane does too,” Mary says conspiratorially. “She just wants us to think she’s above such things.”
The limo stops at that moment, which is good, because I don’t have a witty retort to that statement.
“Don’t leave the car,” I tell everyone as they reach for the doors. “We need to wait for security.”
“Security?” Grandma looks out the window, her expression concerned.
I sigh. “The tabloids are interested in our… I mean, Adrian’s wedding. There will be paparazzi outside the church and the hotel where the reception will take place.”
“Oh.” Grandma grins. “How exciting.”
I’m not excited at all. I’m not sure why, but I feel icky knowing that Adrian actually wants those photos so that the whole world knows about the wedding. The security is just for appearances’ sake. The paparazzi will still snap a bunch of photos of the both of us. In fact, the last time Adrian and I had a tête-à-tête unrelated to the weather, he told me that his security team discovered that some so-called journalists have infiltrated the catering staff and will pose as waiters and the like so that they can later report on the wedding.
The limo door opens, and I’m blinded by the flashes of the cameras as the security team ushers us down a red carpet and into the church.
Someone covers my face with a veil, so my visibility becomes limited.
“I’ll walk you,” Mom says solemnly, as if reading my mind.
We walk into the church’s main hall. The place is packed to the brim, but the guests are hard to discern behind the veil, though I think I recognize the city mayor, a few famous actors, and even the billionaire who was in the newspapers recently because he plans to take a trip to the moon.
Yep. This is the modern version of the ton.
A live orchestra starts playing “Here Comes the Bride.”
My heartbeat skyrockets.
The official name of this tune is “Bridal Chorus,” and it’s from an opera called Lohengrin by Richard Wagner (who had the dubious honor of being one of Hitler’s favorite composers). It was played during the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter (also Victoria) and has been associated with weddings ever since—despite the fact that, in the opera, it was sung as the couple entered the bridal chamber, not as the bride (Elsa—without any snow-related powers) walked down the aisle. It’s also worth mentioning that in said opera, when separated from her new husband, Elsa dies of grief.
So, yeah. I’m not sure why everyone uses this tune given the associations, but in my case, it does seem fitting.
I know ahead of time that Adrian and I will get divorced, so I’d better shield my heart lest I end up like poor Elsa.