AllFreeNovel
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I clear my throat. “Discuss logistics of what?”
She inches up her glasses. “Of the wedding. Which is what he sent me here to do.” I open my mouth to respond but she’s already opening the thick file and uncapping a pen that I hadn’t even seen her take out of her satchel. “Now, first things first: How’s April twentieth for you?”
“I’m sorry?”
She looks up for a second. “For the wedding date.” She goes back down to her file then. “That’s the earliest that I can do. And then the next date is,” she flips a few pages, “all the way into the summer. Which Mr. Vandekamp knows that you don’t like as much, since you always wanted a spring wedding.” Again she looks up. “So, shall I?”
It takes me a second to respond to her.
And even then all I can say is, “April twentieth?”
“Yes.” She nods. “Shall I put you down for that?”
“That’s,” I lick my lips and swallow, “only six weeks away.”
“Correct.”
“I’m…”
“If you’re worried about all the arrangements and things like that, please don’t give it another thought. I’m really good at my job. Once we nail down the date and a wedding venue you’d like, I will fix your meeting with a wedding planner and I’ll make sure that everything happens to your taste.”
It’s a good thing that my nausea passed last week or I’d be throwing up all over the table.
April twentieth.
My wedding day.
I will be twenty-one weeks then. My babies will be the size of a large banana, more or less; I’ve been Googling week by week baby development for the past few weeks. The only thing that seemed to give me joy when I felt sick twenty-four seven. That and orange peels and walks in woods.
But the latter is because I took those walks with him.
While holding his hand.
While feeling safe and warm by his side.
Which won’t be for much longer now, will it?
I’ve only got six weeks left.
And I want to blame Ezra for that. I want to be angry at him for springing this on me without any discussion or even deigning to come to see me. But I can’t. Because the arrangement that we have doesn’t require him to see me. In fact, even if we were going to have a real marriage, we wouldn’t have to see each other at all, not until our wedding day. And he was listening to me, the last time we’d met. When again, he didn’t have to; not in a fake or a real marriage.
Actually I think this whole thing, his assistant showing up with the specific instructions to take notes on what I want, is his way of being nice to me. To show me that he cares about me even though we’re not really going to be married.
So I should be ecstatic.
That despite my father choosing a man for me, I ended up with someone considerate.
Plus I brought it home and I didn’t even have to do anything.
I have a wedding date that my dad’s going to be very happy about.
But all I want to do is break down and sob. All I want to do is curl up in a ball on the floor and never ever get up. Never ever face reality. Because I don’t want to do this.
I don’t want to marry him.
I don’t.
I never did.
And now instead of something vague, a summer wedding, we have a wedding date. An actual fucking wedding date that’s only six weeks away and…
Just the idea of leaving that cabin, leaving him for the rest of my life is making me want to vomit and Ezra doesn’t even know about the pregnancy yet and I…
“Miss Jackson?”
Alice’s voice breaks into my thoughts and my reply comes bursting forth before I’ve had time to think about it all. “Yes, it works.”
“The date?”
“Yes.”
She smiles. “Perfect.”
While she makes a note of it in her file, I say, “And my mother will be happy to co-ordinate with you regarding any wedding plans.”
Her smile widens as she makes a note of that too.
“And, uh,” I try to take a deep breath but fail to, “please thank Ezra for me. For arranging all of this. And thank you for coming to meet with me and being so competent.”
“Of course. I’m just doing my job.”
“Right, okay.” I throw her a shaky smile. “I’m just going to… go.”
Her smile wavers slightly. “Okay. But are you all right? You don’t —”
“I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. I think I just need a little fresh air.”
With that, I stand up and walk out of there.
He’s beautiful.
The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
His crazy hair whipping in the wind. His bronzed skin flushed. His strong body hurtling across the field. His legs always keeping the ball in his possession, mostly through his dexterous leg work and other times with his sheer force of will. Whatever the case may be it’s hard to take the ball away from him once he’s got it in his possession.
