I want to throw my wine in his face. I want to stand up and walk out. But Asher is still holding my hand under the table, and I can feel how tense he is.
"Um, we looked at Chihuly Garden and Glass yesterday," I say, trying to steer the conversation somewhere less awful. "It's this beautiful venue in Seattle with?—"
"I know what it is." Dean doesn't look up from his menu. "How many guests can it accommodate?"
"I don't remember what they told us, but we'd like the wedding to be intimate anyway, so it works. The list we've come up with has just under forty people on it. Close friends and family."
Dean tosses his menu down onto the table. "I'm sorry. Did you just say forty people?"
It's obvious something is wrong. It’s like I stepped in shit somewhere and he just got a big whiff. "Um. Well. Yes. We want it to feel personal. Special."
"Forty people," Dean repeats. Now there's a sharp edge to his voice. "Asher, did you bother to explain to your fiancee who you are? Who we are?"
"Father we?—"
"No."
Asher's jaw tightens.
Dean turns to me. "Julie, I’m going to be blunt. Over my dead body will my son have a forty-person wedding in a glass garden like a bohemian art student."
My throat tightens. I press my nails into my palm under the table. "We thought?—"
"What you two thought is absolutely out of the question," he interrupts. His voice is calm, which somehow makes it worse. "Asher is my only child, and the heir of a multibillion-dollar company. An acceptable wedding guest list will include senators, CEOs, investors. People whose presencemeanssomething."
"Father," Asher says, and his voice is weak. Pleading. "Julie and I talked about it and decided on something small. Classy. You can sell that in a press release."
Sell it? The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Shit. This is so bad.
"No. Jesus Christ. Small." Dean laughs, but there's no humor in it. "If you want something small you can order lunch from the children's menu. Your wedding is abusiness event. It is a statement about our family, our company, our position in the world. Forty people in a garden is not a statement. It's an embarrassment. You may as well get married in a park near the community grills."
My face heats.
"My family is not common," he adds.
The implication is that I am. And I am dying inside right now. I think about how excited I was touring Chihuly. The calls I've made to florists. The list of forty names I was so happy about. All of it feels ridiculous now. "We really liked Chihuly," I murmur. "It was lovely."
"I’m sure it was." Dean gives me the kind of smile a person gives a child who has misunderstood basic math. "But that's not happening."
Asher straightens. "Father, I think?—"
"I already know whatyouthink." Dean turns to him. "That's why this has gone this far. You could have avoided all of this with a frank conversation.”
Asher sags and goes quiet again.
Dean returns his attention to me. "Obviously, I’ll pay for everything. That’s a given. And you don’t need to worry about anything. I’ll have Evangelina reach out. She plans weddings and events around the world for the elite. She'll know what to do."
"That isn't necessary," I assure him.
"Of course it is."
"Father, Julie and I can?—"
"Asher." Dean's voice drops. Not loud. Final. "This is no longer a discussion."
Asher looks down and I know he’s given up. And when he surrenders, I feel something slipping. Like there's a crack in the foundation of my future with him. It scares the hell out of me. Maybe I'm making a horrible mistake. Their wealth, the showing off, the need to dominate. It's not me. I don't know if I can do this.
"Now, Julie, don't panic. I understand this might feel overwhelming," Dean says, and now his voice has shifted into something that might pass for kindness if you didn't know better. "But trust me. When you see what Evangelina can do, you'll understand. Yours will be a wedding people talk about for years."
