by Haley Cass
Sutton only rolled her eyes again before she allowed them to pull her out of the room. Her bridal party was made up of Regan, Emma, Alex, Alia,
with her sisters-in-law, Isla and Jane, to complete the ensemble.
Charlotte had chuckled teasingly at her when they’d worked out who would stand up with them. “Are you taking this time to show you have more friends than I do?”
Caleb and Dean were, of course, in her own bridal party. Along with her oldest brother William. And then Sutton’s three brothers to even everything out.
“If Alison or Amanda,” the top wedding planner in the city that Elizabeth and Alison had nabbed for them, “Catch us, Charlotte won’t have a bride tomorrow,” she whispered as they walked through the den, toward the east wing patio doors.
“They won’t, you chicken. Their rooms are on the other side of this place.” Regan shot back as Emma opened the back doors and ushered her out into the small rose garden.
And she came to a stumbling stop, breath leaving her in a gasp as surprise exploded inside of her.
The rose garden had been transformed since earlier this afternoon.
Fairy lights were strung, illuminating it with an ethereal glow, the flowers looking somehow full to bursting. Less than twenty of the chairs their guests were supposed to sit in tomorrow were lined up in two small, intimate rows.
And standing thirty feet in front of her, on the far side of the patio, was Charlotte.
Surrounded by the blossoming roses, her fiancée locked eyes with her, a slow, crooked smile sliding onto her face. She looked simultaneously proud and amazed and… and Sutton felt like the breath was stolen right from her lungs as she stared. God.
Or… goddess, actually.
Because that’s exactly what Charlotte looked like. Her dress with one strap over the shoulder, the material light and airy, revealing her collarbones and then delving between her breasts. It rained down her body in such a deceptively simple design, hugging slightly at her waist before flowing to the ground.
Sutton could literally feel her breath tremble out of her, barely able to take her eyes off of Charlotte to stare dumbly at Regan.
“I – what…” There were no words to express the racing thoughts in her mind. Was this happening? “What did you do?” She managed to get out.
Regan smoothed her hair over her shoulders as she shook her head.
“My job was to get you here without suspecting a thing. I did it flawlessly.
But your wife did the rest.” She leaned up on her tiptoes and her best friend’s soft lips brushed against her cheek. “Now go get married.”
That strong hug minutes ago – which now felt like hours ago – made so much more sense now.
She linked hands with Emma and stepped back and gestured to Sutton’s left, where she realized with a daze, her father was standing. With no idea where he came from or if he’d been there the entire time, she met his gentle smile with a teary one of her own.
Still reeling from the shock of it all, unable to wrap her mind around the fact that this was happening now, she took the arm he offered.
“This… is real.” She made eye contact with her siblings and her mother, who was wiping the tears from her eyes already, as they walked forward.
“It’s real,” he confirmed in a whisper as he reached his other hand up to rub over the back of hers. “You got yourself a good one.”
“The best one,” she corrected firmly, as firmly as one could while living in a dream, as her eyes fell on Charlotte again.
She seemed to glow, herself. Luminescent in the twilight, her smile brighter than the moon itself.
Her dad pressed a kiss to her forehead, whispering, “I love you, honey.”
It was all she could do to nod in response as Charlotte reached out for her, lacing their fingers together. She clung tightly, staring in wonder as she shook her head.
“I – but – why…” Any end to her sentence was overtaken by the sheer overwhelmed feeling inside.
Charlotte squeezed her hand, reassuring and stable as always. “I know my family threw a wrench into everything, but I want you to have what you want.” Sutton slowly turned her head to look back at Charlotte. She could feel the tears – overwhelmed, stunned, and in love, so in love – brimming in her eyes and trying to blink them away only made them fall.
“I want you. That’s all.” It was true. Their wedding, no matter the spectacle it turned into, only mattered because it was for them.
It was only as Charlotte squeezed her hands again that she realized belatedly, “Your hands are shaking.”
She looked down at them. Those perfect hands, the ones that knew her body like no one else, the ones Charlotte loved to gently trace over her jaw before going to work so they could hold the weight of the world.
“In excitement,” Charlotte murmured, her voice nothing but soothing.
“I want you, too, Sutton.”
Dean stepped up, squeezing her shoulder as he passed. “With the power vested in me by the states of both Virginia and New York, are you ladies ready to begin?”
She knew Dean was speaking. She knew everyone she cared about most in the world was watching. She knew all of these things, but all she was truly aware of was Charlotte.
The way Charlotte stared at her as if she was the only thing that mattered, the solid feeling of her warm fingers interlaced with her own, the way her golden brown eyes gleamed as they never moved from Sutton’s own for an instant.
She was getting married to Charlotte Thompson. In a moonlit garden, cocooned by the people who loved them the most, and this was it. This was all that mattered, really.
“Your vows, Sutton?” Was the only thing she truly registered from Dean, after… she didn’t even know how long it had been since they’d begun.
For a brief moment, she panicked that she didn’t have the vows she’d painstakingly worked on for weeks. But as she held Charlotte’s gaze with her own, her heart flip-flopped in her chest and she realized that she didn’t need them. Not really.
“I’ve dreamed about my wedding ever since I was a little girl. I know it’s not a secret,” she admitted, a bashful smile tugging at her lips as she looked down. She always thought she’d be more anxious than this, just by virtue of the occasion. But there was nothing inside of her except for a visceral rightness. “But I’ve dreamed of this moment a thousand times, at least.”
“I never knew who the person in those dreams would be. I never knew how old I would be or what my career would be. None of those variables were ever clear. Nothing was, except that I was always… happy.” She bit her lip, but even then it was unable to contain the smile that broke out on her face.
Her throat burned with the tears, the good ones that came from the neverending well of sheer happiness brimming inside of her, her voice raw with truth as she confessed. “I could have existed in those worlds, a different me with a different someone else in a different life. But I know without a doubt I could live in a thousand lifetimes and still never be as happy as this one with you.”
She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was when Regan appeared next to her with the ring. A ring that was full of promises, ones she intended to keep for the rest of her life, as she slid it onto Charlotte’s finger.
When she looked back at Charlotte, her eyes were brimming with tears. The most steadfast woman she’d ever known, with tears in her eyes as she took a deep breath and flexed her hands as she began speaking.
“I was never someone who dreamed about this.” Charlotte confessed in the least shocking revelation with a self-deprecating smile. That then morphed into a thoughtful frown. “I didn’t ever think I would find someone whose happiness would become more important than anything in the entire world.”
She shook her head slightly, her perfectly curled hair bouncing as she searched Sutton’s face, a smile taking hold. “But here you are and… you’ve changed me. Now, I am someone who dreams about getting married.”
Charlo
tte glanced down, her breath leaving her in a heavy tremble, honesty and sincerity written all over her features. “I want to marry you tonight, in front of our friends and family. And I want to marry you tomorrow in front of the entire world. I want this with you, Sutton, forever.”
The luckiest woman in the universe, she thought, as she watched Charlotte slide a perfectly sized ring on her finger. It was all she could think, as she stared back at her wife. “I’ll take forever and a day.”
***
CNN || Breaking News
03 Nov 2026
Charlotte Thompson wins New York Senate seat against incumbent democrat Sean O’Malley.
O'Malley was running for re-election after having served his first term from '20-present. Thompson, granddaughter of Elizabeth Thompson, has worked with Mayor Dean Walker and served two terms in the House of Representatives.
"O'Malley has done great work in the last few years, but it's time to push the boundaries even more," Thompson stated in her speech earlier this afternoon.
***
The New Yorker Recommends
December 28 2026
As an avid fan of Katherine Spencers' Honor Within series since the publication of Gates of Glass over a decade ago, I admit I was nervous about this installment being co-written with her daughter.
I was wrong. It might be Sutton Spencer's first major publication, but her writing was just as sharp, enthralling, and poignant as her mother's.
Hopefully there will be more from her in the future.
Part 5
The first time Sutton mentioned having children after they were married, it was six months after their wedding, and it hadn’t been very serious. Well, it hadn’t been not serious, either, but it hadn’t been a discussion.
They’d gone on a short trip to Boston and Sutton had cradled Oliver and Regan’s two-month-old son on her lap, making soft, gentle sounds at him. He’d blinked sleepily up at her with eyes so blue they nearly matched Sutton’s exactly, and in all honesty, it was entirely precious.
“It’s like you have a little baby mirror.” She’d commented, hesitantly stroking a finger over his barely there hair.
Sutton’s smile was bright and full as she’d looked at Charlotte. “I hope ours have your eyes,” she’d whispered as she continued bouncing him in her arms.
Charlotte had rolled her eyes in response even as a pleased flare set off in her chest, as it always did when Sutton looked at her with that adoration.
“Please, darling, it’s practically a requirement for every baby to have these blue eyes.”
The subject hadn’t been brought up again until a year after their wedding. Charlotte had just become senator and they were putting some serious thought into upsizing from her condo to a house.
House hunting, despite starting a new avenue in her career and the fact that it was difficult to find a home they both liked, that fit their specifications, and was within reasonable distance to everywhere they frequently needed to go, in Manhattan wasn’t the easiest task. But she’d found, despite the at times stressful aspects of it, that she rather enjoyed it.
Even if she was still pushing to hold out for another year or so; her grandmother’s plan to retire from the office was looming and Charlotte happened to know that when her grandmother retired, she also planned to move to a smaller, more manageable home, rather than the sprawling penthouse she’d resided in for as long as Charlotte could remember.
And Charlotte wanted to make that their home.
Her hand was tangled with Sutton’s as they trailed through the fourth house they’d toured and she could feel her wife’s energy buzzing between
them. Despite the fact that Charlotte was critical, she felt herself smiling at Sutton’s ramble, as she tried to convince her they should buy this house.
“I know you want to buy your grandmother’s place, and, I mean, it’s a beautiful home; you know I wouldn’t mind living there. But that’s years away, babe, and that’s only if she decides to move right after her retirement.
Have you met your grandmother? She’s not the most prone to change.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes even as she chuckled and squeezed her wife’s hand in an amused reproach. “I’ve met her once or twice,” she drawled. “But I happen to know she plans on moving fairly quickly.
Besides, darling, two years isn’t very long. Do you have such a big need to get out of our current home by then?”
It was clear in the way Sutton had slowed down, head turned to peer into a bathroom, that she was distracted even before she answered, “It’s not like I want to leave.” She brought up the hand that wasn’t holding Charlotte’s to stroke over the paint on the doorway, “I mean, it’s our home,”
she added absently, but even so, with an affection in her voice that made Charlotte smile. “But there’s only one guest room and it’s hardly big enough.”
Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “Big enough?” She wracked her mind for what in the world Sutton could mean by that. “Are we hosting any long-term guests I’ve forgotten about?”
The only person who even semi-regularly stayed in that room was Regan, and she hadn’t had any complaints in the past few years on the odd nights she spent there.
If Sutton’s attention hadn’t been clearly captured elsewhere, Charlotte knew her exasperation would have been far more intense than it was as she said, “Big enough for the kids.”
She said it so nonchalantly that if Charlotte didn’t know any better, she would have thought Sutton was already pregnant. The words brought Charlotte to a quick stop, though, and her stomach clenched uncomfortably as her heart leapt, because the kids – stopped her in her tracks.
And even after their house hunt was resolved – they did purchase that brownstone on the Upper West Side – the topic continued to get brought up more and more often over the following few months.
Whenever they saw their various nieces and nephews, even when they saw advertisements for baby items. And every time, Charlotte felt an
uncontrollable shot of nerves through her entire body, and she thanked God that she was so practiced at evading and changing topics.
Though perhaps she wasn’t as skilled as she thought she was, she thought ruefully, as she sighed and stared at the dark bedroom ceiling, her lips pursing together, as she tried to ignore this dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Because changing the subject was what had led her to this: laying in her and Sutton’s bed… without Sutton in it.
She could count the amount of times that they hadn’t slept together ever since having moved in together. When she was on trips to D.C. or other states, sometimes around the world, but Sutton was busy and couldn’t attend with her. When Sutton took short visits back to see her family or sometimes long weekend trips with Regan.
Those were all markedly longer spans in time that she went without Sutton next to her when she fell asleep, considering that this was one night.
This was one night and despite the fact that she was bone tired, she couldn’t rest.
Because all she could think about was the fact that Sutton was choosing to sleep in the guest room. Away from me, she self-corrected, biting hard into her bottom lip and closing her eyes as the backs of them burned.
No matter whenever they’d had little disagreements in the past years, it had never been bad enough to drive Sutton actually away from her. Not once had they chosen to sleep apart.
Not until this evening, that is.
Charlotte had only just walked through the door and poured herself a drink, only to undignifiedly choke on it and very nearly spit it back up. But she couldn’t help it, with the sheer alarm that seemed to permeate through her.
Because the first thing Sutton said to her was. “I found some good places we could use to look for donors.”
“Donors? That’s –” she’d had to pause to cough, her heart beating wildly in her chest, “– a bit fast.”
“I knew that would at least get
a response,” Sutton’s voice had come low and triumphant but heated. Heated, like a simmer waiting to become a full-on boil. “I haven’t looked yet, I obviously wouldn’t do that without you.” Sutton had bit her lip, eyes carefully watching Charlotte and she
knew her wife could see right through anything she could try to project in that moment. “But I needed something to get your attention before you could change the subject.”
She wanted to smile – almost – at the fact that of course Sutton would know, no matter how artful she was. Sutton knew her better than that. Every single day when she went to work there was always a polish she had to wear that she’d perfected years ago. It was a necessity, to make people only see what she needed them to see.
She knew now how incredible it was to be able to come home and not have any of that mask, any polished exterior, because she had someone to come home to who could see all of her.
But she couldn’t smile, because god… having a baby, felt so daunting.
In a hard to take a deep breath, stomach is filled with nerves kind of way that she was so unfamiliar with. After not only fantasizing about but planning on ruling one of the most powerful countries in the world one day, feeling daunted was not something she often felt.
She’d froze in place, entirely unsure of what to say and not wanting to look up from her drink to see her sweet Sutton’s face as she’d swallowed hard, her voice measured, “I’m not sure it’s the right time, for this conversation.”
But of course, she hadn’t been able to help looking up, just in time to see Sutton’s face scrunch up in confusion. “Okay, but when is it going to be the right time? Because I’ve been wanting to talk about it for…” She’d played with the ends of her hair, before shrugging, “A while.”
“I know,” she’d answered, unable to pretend she hadn’t heard the many conversation starters in the last couple of months. Her shoulders tensed, with this feeling brewing in her stomach that was heavy and made her almost feel sick. Of course she’d known; she knew Sutton almost better than she knew herself.
