The Proposal

by Kitty Thomas

  The Proposal

  Kitty Thomas

  Burlesque Press

  Contents

  Publisher’s Note:

  1. Livia

  The Proposal

  2. Livia

  The Real Proposal

  3. Livia

  When it rains it pours

  4. Livia

  Persuasion

  5. Soren

  The No Girlfriend Speech

  6. Livia

  Reboot

  7. Dayne

  The Mark

  8. Livia

  Mr. Black Card

  9. Griffin

  I Met This Great Girl

  10. Livia

  The Announcement

  11. Soren

  The Video Proposal

  12. Soren

  New Year's Eve

  13. Livia

  The First Day of the Year I’m Getting Married

  14. Livia

  The Rehearsal Dinner

  15. Griffin

  The Rehearsal Dinner

  16. Livia

  Wedding Plans

  17. Livia

  The Pre-nup

  18. Livia

  Wedding preparations

  19. Griffin

  The Phone Call

  20. Livia

  The Wedding Night

  21. Livia

  Afterglow

  22. Griffin

  After hours swim

  23. Soren

  The Mile-high Club

  24. Dayne

  The Honeymoon

  25. Livia

  The Honeymoon

  26. Livia

  The Honeymoon

  27. Soren

  The Punishment

  28. Livia

  The Deflowering

  29. Livia

  The Honeymoon's Over

  30. Soren

  Heirs

  31. Livia

  The First Dance

  32. Epilogue

  Soren: The Wedding Day

  Untitled

  Acknowledgments

  The Proposal

  Digital Edition

  Copyright 2020 © Kitty Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  Digital Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or shared. If you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Respecting the hard work of this author makes new books possible.

  Publisher’s Note:

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Neither the publisher nor the author endorses any behavior carried out by any character in this work of fiction or any other.

  V.2

  Livia

  The Proposal

  I stand at the back of the enormous church. The stained glass windows mute the over bright sun outside on this unassuming summer Saturday at half past four. The string quartet begins to play Pachelbel's Canon in D. Two hundred and fifty guests stand. I take a deep breath and walk down the aisle clutching the bouquet of pale pink roses which hide my shaking hands. I'm wearing a stunning white Valentino gown which I'm convinced has seven thousand buttons down the back. It's a true white, but it's a soft, elegant white.

  You don't realize the variety of white until you shop for your wedding gown. The color palette of white goes all the way from the harsh tacky bright white of office supply copy paper to off-white, into beige and blush barely-there pinks and lavender. Occasionally there is the most subtle mint green which you are sure must be a trick of the light.

  And even though they aren't all really the same color, lined up on the racks they seem like they all belong together. Like family. I'd considered going a little less traditional with a pale lavender or pink gown, or even that daring pale fairy green, but in the end I went with tradition—anything else feels like half measures with a man who doesn't know the meaning of that word.

  I chose to walk down the aisle by myself. I've never liked the idea of giving the bride away or what it represents. Besides, I don't want to bring my father into this; it feels wrong. He's here, on my side with the rest of my family and friends who admittedly take up a much smaller portion of the guest count than the groom's side and business associates. His business associates are seated on my side, so everything looks more even and normal for the pictures.

  I am twenty-nine, and to everyone here my story is the story of Disney Princesses—the story every seven-year-old girl fantasizes about until she's long grown out of such fantasies. But I'm not walking down this aisle to my prince. I'm walking down this aisle to the most ruthless man I know.

  I feel as though I'm being kidnapped in the middle of a crowded room, but I can't scream. It's like a dream where everyone acts as though everything is fine even though an evil killer clown is sawing my hand off. But still, everyone smiles politely and makes small talk—or in this case, everyone stands and murmurs complimentary things they don't think I can hear as I drift down the aisle like a fairy tale princess.

  They think this is the part of the story where the princess gets the prince, where they get married and live happily ever after. But this is the part where she gets locked in the tower.

  When I reach the altar, he takes my hand in his, helping me up the two small steps to stand in front of him. The collective sitting of two hundred and fifty people is the last thing I consciously hear as his intense, searing gaze holds mine hostage. His thumb strokes over the back of my hand, and I don't even know anymore if the gesture is meant to comfort or control me.

  We stand there, staring at each other. Words fall over me like gentle rain. Vows are spoken. Rings are exchanged. The announcement that we are now husband and wife moves through the air like a cool breeze.

  His hand snakes behind my neck pulling me possessively toward him as he claims my mouth as his property. Later he will claim everything else.

  I've never had sex with this man. I'm not an innocent. I'm not a virgin, but right now I feel like one—off balance and unsure of what's in store for me behind the closed doors of our suite in only a few short hours. I want to run as far and as fast as I can, but I know he would catch me. Right now the reception is the only thing that buffers me from his dark intentions.

  We take what feels like a thousand wedding photos, each one more intimate and romantic than the last. His hands and mouth suddenly feel foreign on me as though he's a stranger and not a man I've been seeing for the past year. The reception is being held at the swank nearby 5-star hotel called The Fremont, where we'll spend the night before taking his jet to our honeymoon in Costa Rica. Our jet. Is it our jet now? Or am I merely an indefinite extra on his stage? I'm not really sure anymore.

  We don't speak during the limo ride to the reception. I don't know what to say to him. Suddenly, for the first time ever, I have no words. All I can think about is what will happen later when there are no longer hordes of unassuming guests to protect me from his attentions. I feel more and more uncertain about this devil's bargain I've made—like I ever had a choice.

  He would have destroyed me. At least this way there's a veneer of love and respectability. At least this way it looks like he is giving me the world instead of taking it all away.

  I glance up to find his triumphant gaze locked on mine. It scares me as much as it thrills me, and then his thumb is stroking the back of my hand again. I find the courage to speak, but the words fly out of my mind as soon as they appear as the limo comes to a stop in front of the hotel.

  The door is opened for us and my husband guides me out, helping
me so that my dress doesn't get dirty. Husband. That word feels so strange to me. So wrong and somehow scandalous. This can't be real.

  His grip on my hand tightens as he leads me up the stairs and through the hotel lobby back to where our reception is starting. The guests are already seated and being served their dinner. We're led to our own private table at the front of everything. Some people come by and talk to him. He's so polite to everyone, so normal, so different from the man I've come to know.

  As we eat, silverware clinks against glasses, and each time we kiss as expected. Before the first dance, he rises from his chair, takes the microphone that is handed to him, and addresses our crowd of guests. And he is so charming. So smooth. The perfect beautiful lie.

  “Livia and I would like to thank you all so much for coming to share this special day with us and supporting us as we start our life together. Don't get too creeped out, but I filmed the proposal. If she'd said no, I would have burned the evidence.”

  Obligatory laughter. He continues.

  “But it occurred to me that probably many women wish they had a video of the proposal. And so now she does. With Livia's permission I'd like to share that video with you now.”

  Our guests are very excited about this prospect. No one knew they'd be seeing this. A large projector is rolled out along with a screen and a few minutes later a video begins to play.

  He and I are on his boat in the middle of the ocean. I'm lying in the sun in a red bikini and oversized dark sunglasses. He approaches with a wrapped gift. It's large—about the size of a Labrador puppy.

  “Livia, I have something for you.”

  My eyes light up on the screen. “A present? Is it a pony?”

  He chuckles. “Not a pony.”

  “A Ferrari?”

  “Nope.”

  Our guests laugh at my antics, their anticipation growing, knowing somehow inside that giant box is a ring.

  “Open it,” he says.

  I dutifully open it, only to find another gift wrapped box, then another, then another as I go through about five boxes, each time, the gift getting smaller and smaller.

  “Is it an empty box?”

  He chuckles again. “No. There's something in there.”

  I open the final box to find a blue box. Yes, that blue box. A box from Tiffany in just the right size.

  The me on the video screen looks up at him and says playfully, “Is it a clown pin?”

  He laughs again. “No.”

  I open it and start to cry when I see the ring.

  He gets down on one knee and says, “Livia Fairchild, will you be my person?”

  I'm blubbering and crying and say, “Yes, I will be your person.” We kiss. He puts the ring on me. It's all so perfect.

  Our guests say a collective, “Awwww” as the screen goes black. Then they're back to clinking their silverware against their glasses, and he leans over and kisses me again.

  Before he pulls away, his mouth brushes my ear. “Time's up. You're mine tonight.” His words are a growl so different from the version of himself that everyone else in this ballroom sees. It's jarring the way he can go from this charming facade to something so dark and menacing in an eye blink—the way he can transform only feet from our guests. Yet only I can see the monster. Everyone else sees the man.

  I swallow hard at this proclamation and twist the wedding band on my finger. There are three words engraved on the inside of the band. Those three words seal my fate.

  The rest of the reception goes by in a blur. The first dance. The dances with the parents. The cake. The bouquet. The garter. All the well wishes that come from guests as they each take turns wishing us a long and happy marriage. We go through a tunnel of sparklers created by our guests, riding off in the limo with the just married sign on the back and the cans dragging along the road behind us, only to circle back into the parking garage so we can go up to our suite for the night.

  My hand is trembling as he takes it in his, leading me back inside the hotel and up the elevator to our room. He carries me over the threshold. Inside are candles and champagne and fancy chocolate and rose petals everywhere.

  Two men in tuxedos step out of the shadows, looking me up and down with an appreciative once-over.

  “It's about time,” one of them says.

  My husband guides me over to the other two men, and then all three of them are touching me.

  The words inscribed on the inside of my wedding band are their names:

  Griffin. Dayne. Soren.

  Livia

  The Real Proposal

  Six and a half months ago. Early December.

  I walk into Capri Bella fifteen minutes late, my heart thundering in my chest. I have a dinner date but because of my schedule and his, we had to meet tonight instead of him picking me up. He did send his driver to collect me, though. I try to seem cool and collected about that but a driver collecting me is still a relatively new thing in my world.

  I take a slow measured breath as I take in my surroundings. It's not that Griffin doesn't take me to nice restaurants. He does. But this isn't just a nice restaurant. It's a nice romantic restaurant with marriage proposal stats. And he said he had something very important to talk to me about. So what else could it be?

  A part of me feels like I've won, but another part of me wonders, is this the man I want? Can I give up all others for him? Can I really do lifelong monogamy now that it may be upon me?

  I smooth down the siren red dress. It's sexy but not slutty, reaching a few inches below my knees, showing just enough leg to get the sexy-in-heels benefit. I approach the reservation desk.

  A refined older gentleman looks up at me over glasses which could probably more accurately be called spectacles. “Can I help you, Miss?”

  I give him my date's name and say I'm meeting him here.

  “Oh yes, Ms. Fairchild, your party is already seated. Let me show you to the table.”

  I expect to be led to a small out of the way intimate table set for two, candlelight, maybe a nice view of the city, or maybe a table out on the private balcony. Instead, I'm taken to a larger round table with three men seated at it, and one seat left vacant for me.

  The three men are Griffin, Dayne, and Soren. I've been dating all three of them. I never made it a secret that I wasn't exclusive with anyone, but I was discreet and didn't expect them to ever meet each other.

  All three men stand.

  The man who brought me to my table has disappeared, and I'm left alone to face them. But I don't fall apart. I haven't done anything wrong. They knew we weren't exclusive. And I never acted like a jealous girlfriend. I never told them they couldn't see other women or fuck other women. I don't care. It's not my business. We aren't exclusive. If the price of my freedom from dead-end relationships is the men I see being allowed to fuck who they want, as long as it's not me they're fucking over, fine.

  They all knew my terms. They all agreed to my terms. No one at this table has any right to be upset. If they wanted me, they should have locked me down with a ring and something real.

  I meet each of their gazes in turn, a challenge in mine, daring them to speak first.

  “Which one of you is getting my chair?” I say when it's clear we might all stand here in a death stare forever.

  If they think after months of them opening doors and pulling out chairs that it's ending now, they are sadly mistaken.

  Dayne stands closest to me on my right; he comes around and pulls out my chair.

  “Thank you.”

  I sit, and they sit. The staring contest commences again. I take a sip of my water and look down at the menu, unwilling to be the first person to speak or act as though I've done anything wrong when they knew my terms from the beginning. They don't get to turn this around on me now. How on earth do they know each other? I try to imagine how the subject even came up, and I find I'm not that imaginative.

  This is one of those restaurants where only the man's menu has prices. About a year ago, there was a
giant freak-out and pressure about the misogyny of the menus with hysterical demands that they put prices on all of them, presumably because empowered women want to split the bill. Empowered women are ruining life for the rest of us.

  The restaurant, being very upscale and determined to preserve a certain elegant atmosphere and old traditions, held firm and waited for the shitstorm to blow over. Their popularity more than doubled after that, and it's been next to impossible to get a reservation ever since. But Griffin got one.

  I wonder which of the three men sitting at the table with me has the menu with the prices, or if they all do. I wonder what the man at the reservations desk thought about a dinner in a romantic restaurant that obviously isn't a business dinner but has one woman and three men claiming a single table.

  “So,” Griffin says.

  But he's interrupted by a waiter who takes first my order, then theirs. I order the Penne Bolognese and Merlot. I don't notice what they order because I swear I'm about to hyperventilate. I'm left hanging onto a thin thread of hope that they won't make a scene. Surely if they planned to say or do anything dramatic they would have met me some place else.

  The waiter takes their menus then has to pry mine from my unconsciously tight-fisted grip. Then he departs.

  “So,” Griffin begins again. “I've had some interesting conversations recently.”