“Okay.”
“A six-tier wedding cake decorated with twenty four karat gold flakes?”
“Done.”
“Fireworks?”
“We’ll have to get a permit, but I know people at the county. I’ll handle it.”
Slade saying “I’ll handle it” is really sexy.
But I can’t keep a straight face anymore. I dissolve into giggles. My poor husband-to-be just looks confused.
“I’m teasing, Slade,” I assure him. “I don’t want any of that. Let’s keep it simple.”
“No budget,” he says firmly. “And for the date, how about October fifteenth?”
That’s a lot sooner than I might have picked. Fourteen days from now and I’ll be married.
To the hottest cowboy I’ve ever seen in my life.
This is all completely normal.
“Okay.” I take a breath. “Let’s call my family before I lose my nerve.”
He reaches over and takes my hand. Squeezes once.
“We’ve got this,” he says.
We.
As the ringer chimes, the faces start populating onscreen.
My mother and father are first. Charles Sherwood in his wood-paneled office, reading glasses on, face already set to the blank expression he deploys when he’s decided something is beneath his attention but feels obligated to show up anyway.
I’ve seen that look a lot in my life, directed at me. When I was cast as one of the leads in the school play. When I graduated from design school. Every time I did something I was proud of and made the mistake of wanting to share it.
Beside him, my mother Philippa is in one of her silk designer blouses, pearls gleaming at her neck, peering at me through narrowed eyes.
My brother Peter appears next, in his home library. His hairline has retreated further since I last saw him and there are bags under his eyes. Bad real estate deals are apparently not restful.
Then my older sister Celia last. The kitchen behind her is enormous and immaculate, all marble and shades of white. She’s holding a glass of white wine. It’s eleven in the morning there, so it might be her first or her third drink of the day. She once told me morning mimosas don’t count.
Then again, if I had to endure her marriage, I’d probably be three drinks deep before noon too. Celia confessed to me last Christmas the reason she wants a vacation home: because her husband spends his weekends with his mistress in their NYC pied-a-terre, so she’s going to spend hers in a home of her own, in blissful solitude with a view of the water.
I always thought there would be no money in the world that would make me endure a loveless marriage like hers.
The irony of entering into a completely fake one instead is not lost on me.
Finally George Aldrich, the family lawyer, appears gray and neutral in his dark office.
“Lila,” my father says. By way of greeting. Nothing else.
“Hi Dad.” I keep my voice steady. Slade’s shoulder is warm against mine. “Thanks for making time.”
“Your message said it was important.” He glances at his watch. Not subtly.
My mother leans slightly toward the camera. Her eyes move over me the way a jeweler examines a piece they already know is flawed. “Lila, darling, you look tired. And your hair. Still?”
