“We’d better get moving.” It was the third time I’d tried to remind my wife of a schedule we needed to keep this weekend. “I don’t feel like getting my eyes clawed out by Valentina,” I added.
“I’m sure it’s bad luck for a bride to claw out the
eyes of one of the groomsmen,” Rose pointed out
with a gentle laugh as she finished hanging up the
last of the bridesmaids’ dresses, then stepped back
with a satisfied smile. As always, seeing her like that filled my heart until breathing was tough. Before her, I didn’t know what it meant to watch the woman I loved take so much pleasure and purpose from her work.
This wasn’t about work, though. She would wear one of those dresses in three days, as would my sister, Sienna. The other two gowns were concealed by opaque garment bags, being stored in Rose’s office until the night before the ceremony. When I cast an interested look in that direction, Rose swatted me away. “You’re not allowed to look, remember?”
“I’m not the groom,” I reminded her. “Don’t worry. If either Miles or Evan wander in here to get a glimpse, I’ll keep them away. Whatever it takes.” I gave a sarcastic salute, and my wife rolled her eyes.
“I’m just saying…” running a hand through her soft, blonde hair, she sighed, “… this would be stressful enough for everybody if it were just one wedding, but a double wedding? That’s double the chance for something to go wrong.”
“I don’t remember you being this nervous for our wedding.” I slid my arms around her waist and touched my nose to the top of her head. The floral fragrance of her shampoo made me smile. The scent of lilacs always left me thinking of her. “That was different,” she insisted, snuggling into me. “Our wedding was just… the next natural thing to do. But this? The happiness of our friends and family hangs on this. Everything has to be perfect.”
“And it will be. It already is,” I reminded her, tightening my grip when she relaxed against me.
“Everything is going perfectly. Even for a double
wedding, it’s going off without a hitch.”
That didn’t mean there hadn’t been a fair share of drama. Valentina and Evan got engaged the day their daughter was born a little more than a year ago. They’d focused on building their life together, which meant raising their daughter and growing their businesses. It didn’t seem to matter to either of them when they were married. It took Aria and Miles’ engagement six months
later to light a fire under their asses. Aria had wanted to roll straight into wedding planning rather than wait, then soon, there were whispers of a double wedding. I shrugged it off as a joke for a while, but it was obvious the girls were serious. Since then, there had been countless conversations, plans were made and then discarded, but finally, it was decided the twins would be married at my family’s Hamptons estate, with Mom and
Aunt Evelyn in charge of the finer details.
“I will not have you stressing out over planning your own wedding,” Aunt Evelyn had told Valentina during a
family get-together when the wedding planning was first underway. “You are going to sit back, relax as much as a bride can, and let somebody else handle the
details for once. All you have to do is tell us what you
want.”
Right, like getting two strong personalities to agree on anything would be easy. Somehow, they’d made it work, and now we were three short days away from what the media was referring to as the wedding of the decade. The daughters of Magnus Miller, entrepreneur and philanthropist, are getting hitched in grand style. It was the sort of event people salivated over that would give engaged girls and those looking for a ring plenty to inspire them. Meaning Rose’s end had to be perfect to reflect the family brand. “Farrah Goldsmith couture will
come out looking like the obvious choice for any discerning bride,” I predicted, kissing the top of my
wife’s head. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sure Mom has
been pulling her hair out, handling last-minute stuff
while keeping an eye on Eloise.”
Just the mention of my daughter brought a smile to my face, even in the context of her being a holy terror when she felt like it. At eighteen months, she was a speed demon with the power to disappear at will and wind up exactly where she wasn’t supposed to be.
“I’ll only need a few seconds,” Rose assured me,
flipping the lights off around the store and double checking the lock on the door once we were outside.
It was a clear, beautiful night, perfect for a clambake
on the beach.
“Now, your only job this weekend is to have fun,”
I reminded her after opening the passenger door of
my Mustang. “Understood?”
“Ooh. Is that an order?” she asked with a flirtatious grin when sliding into the car and crossing one lean leg over the other. The hem of her pencil skirt crept up her thigh as she purred, “You know what it does to me when you get all growly and insistent.”
I leaned down, murmuring, “Tell me more. What
does it do to you?” Because even though we were on
our way to spend the evening with family, I couldn’t
resist flirting with my wife.
“I’ll show you later.” She quickly kissed me,
pulled the door closed, and left me laughing as I
rounded the car.
There was no laughing when I took hold of her knee as I slipped behind the wheel, letting my fingers creep under her skirt’s hem. Two years of marriage, and it still took nothing to excite me. Already my thoughts were buzzing with the possibility of sneaking off with her sometime tonight. As nice as it would be to get together with the family ahead of everybody else descending on East Hampton, I would much rather have spent the night
devouring every inch of the woman sitting beside me.
“You better behave yourself,” she teased, swatting
my hand away. “Remember. We have to play nice in
front of the grownups.”
The idea left me snickering as I pulled away from the store. “Please. You’ve seen the looks my parents still give each other when they think nobody’s watching.”
“Mine, too,” she pointed out, chuckling. “It’s nice, though. That will be us one day.”
She had a way of saying simple things like that and cracking my heart open to make more room. “You’re right,” I told her, took her hand again, and lifted it to my lips. There was no chance of life going any other way. I couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t need her the way I needed air. There was nothing like making the turn onto the grounds of the family estate when it was full of light and life. The sprawling house gleamed like a jewel, all the lights on the first floor burning bright against the dusk that had begun to fall. In three days, it would be transformed into something even more impressive than ever. There would be tents set up on the grounds and on the beach, lit by twinkling lights and torches before the reception, and the equivalent of an entire conservatory’s worth of flowers would be set up everywhere possible.
“We want to make this memorable,” Mom had insisted more than once. “All eyes will be on the family.” I couldn’t remember her being this anxious before my wedding, but then there was something extra special and attention worthy since two brides were now involved. I might have called it a gimmick in my more cynical days, but now I knew better. Rose had softened me in the best way. A dozen cars were already parked in the circular courtyard. “Looks like we’re just about the last ones to get here,” Rose observed, craning her
neck as she looked around. “I see Evan and Valentina’s cars. The Spectre belongs to Lucian, doesn’t it? So he and Ivy are probably here already.”
“There’s still plenty of time before dinner. We haven’t held anybody up.” Over the years, I had come to understand the ways we balanced each other out. Whenever she got a little too high-strung, too up in her head, I knew how to bring her back down to reality.
“I know, you’re right.” She laughed at herself and waved a hand, then unbuckled her belt. “Come on.
I’m sure Eloise misses us.” As usual, the mention of my daughter brought a smile to my face. She had me wrapped around her finger.
I had a spring in my step when I exited the car and took Rose’s hand, the two of us climbing the steps to the deep porch. The dull roar I could hear standing outside became something almost deafening when I opened the door. A wall of voices slammed into us, led by one of the brides. “I’m just saying, I think it makes more sense for us to go down the aisle separately.” We rounded the entry hall, heading into the main room where Valentina gestured with the wine glass she held. “So we could both have a chance to shine.”
A trio of sofas were arranged in a U-shape, and across them were our friends and family. Aria sat with her legs stretched out across Miles’ lap, and it looked like he was deliberately holding her in place when she blurted out, “For the hundredth time, that makes no goddamn sense!”
“We can still leave before anybody notices us,” I
whispered to my wife, who gave my arm a playful slap as we ventured deeper into the house. “She has a point.” Evan, of course, took his fiancée’s side. “This way, you could both get your moment on your dad’s arm.” My sister, Sienna, sat on the other end of the sofa he was perched on, and she shot me a pleading look when I caught her eye. It screamed a single word. Help.
“We’re already both getting a moment on our father’s arm,” Aria argued. She didn’t normally go out of her way to fight for what she wanted, which told me this meant something. “How stupid would it look for him to double back out of nowhere and, like, pick up the other one and walk her down the aisle? It’s absurd.”
“You are never going to agree on this.” Sienna got up and wrapped her arms around Valentina from behind. I wouldn’t normally have called my sister a peacemaker, but then it was different when she handled a situation that didn’t involve me. She had a surprisingly level head on her shoulders when she wasn’t acting like an annoying little sister. “And just think what an absolutely stunning impression you’re going to make. Two gorgeous brides, with their handsome dad between them, with the attention of half of East Hampton on them as they walk down this wide aisle covered in flower petals. I’m actually jealous of how exquisite it’s going to be.” Valentina wasn’t swayed.
“That sounds like a lot of your PR talk,” she scoffed, waving a hand. “This isn’t an event you’re trying to spin.” “I think you need to let this one go.” Evan took
Sienna’s place, laughing softly as he hugged his fiancée. “At the end of the day, it’s going to be a beautiful event, and people will be talking about it for
years. And Aria is right,” he added with a wink in her direction. “It will be dramatic and memorable, watching the two of you float down the aisle with Magnus between you.”
“I thought my ears were burning.” My uncle Magnus entered the room, smiling benevolently, finally noticing the presence of Rose and me. “There you are. Your mother will be glad,” he told me. When I raised an eyebrow, my sister explained, “You know Mom. She’s got this premonition that something’s going to go wrong.”
“Don’t even say that out loud,” Rose warned as we continued into the house. “We’re bringing nothing but good energy into this, everybody.”
“Where is Mom?” I asked. “Did Eloise run her ragged?”
“No, Zoe got here this afternoon to watch over the kids,” Valentina reminded me, referring to the nanny she and Evan used for their daughter, Isabel, who’d recently had her first birthday.
“They’re upstairs having their baths if you want to
pop in.”
“I need to kiss my baby,” Rose announced, already on her way to the stairs. I followed her, which meant the bonus of getting to stare at her ass. One thing I often heard from married men was the thrill always died in a relationship once wedding rings were brought into the mix, especially after the addition of kids. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth for us. I wanted her just as much this far into our relationship as I ever had, if not more. Now, I had the honor of watching her become a mother and witnessing how she nurtured our daughter. There was nothing as satisfying. It made me crave her like a drug.
All it took was hearing Eloise giggling and splashing in the bath to change my course of thought. We found her in the tub with Isabel, with the nanny kneeling on the floor and supervising their play.
“Hi, baby!” Right away, Rose slipped off the thin cardigan she wore over a sleeveless top and kicked off her heels, kneeling in front of the tub. “Zoe, take a breather,” she offered the nanny. “I can finish up here. Colton will help me.”
So much for getting a quickie before dinner, the way I had secretly hoped. I wasn’t upset, though, as I rolled up my shirt sleeves. I’d been in meetings half the day, trying to button up a few last-minute plans before taking the long weekend. “Are you having fun with your best friend?” I asked my baby girl while pulling towels from the linen closet.
“Daddy! Splash!” Rose and I had to duck and cover when water flew everywhere, but it was impossible not to laugh at the sound of Eloise’s sweet giggles, which got Isabel giggling with her until the sound filled the room.
“Good job, baby girl,” I told her. Green eyes, so like her mother’s, shone when she looked up at me, reducing me to a helpless puddle as always. Nobody ever told me it would be like this one day. If they had, I might not have been so resistant to the idea of settling down before Rose and I got together.
“It’s enough to make me wonder if we shouldn’t
start trying for a little brother or sister,” I mused,
watching Rose to gauge her reaction while washing
Eloise’s blonde curls. It gave me the pleasure of
seeing a slow smile spread across her face.
“Do you mean that?” she asked, her eyes shining
with hope when they met mine. “Because I’ve been
thinking about that for a while, myself.”
Watching the girls play, I said, “It looks like we’ve got this whole parenthood thing under control so far. There’s plenty of room for two. I think we should go for it.”
“I’m ready when you are,” Rose told me just as Isabel splashed her, leaving her sputtering and blinking water out of her eyes while I tried not to laugh.
“Maybe not this very minute, though.”