by Lia Lee
"Marnie …"
"It's the truth. I've always thought that a mother's job was to do what was best for her child. I see what that is, right now, and it's you. Not me, in this little apartment on my own, but you. You can make her into a … a princess, and …"
"I could make her a princess just as easily by making you my queen," he said softly.
Marnie was quiet. "I don't understand," she said at last.
"I'm through playing," he said, his voice growing in firmness and strength with every moment that passed. "That's what I was doing before. I did all the fun parts of being a parent, and I thought that that was all I was capable of. When you called me, Christ above. I felt as if I was being stabbed through the heart with a steel spike. I had never been that afraid before. And … I was fine. I thought clearly. I wanted the best for her and for you, and I was planning to take care of it. I think I am finally worthy to be her father … and perhaps that means that I am finally worthy to be your husband."
She sat in bed to look at him. Her eyes were red, her hair was a rat's nest, and she looked as if she could be toppled with a feather. Philip thought that she had never looked more lovely.
"Philip?"
"Marry me," he said. "I don't care what my father or mother say. I don't care what's right or proper. Eventually, they'll get over it, and we'll go be a family in Navarra. Maybe we need to spend some time in New York getting our feet underneath us, and I can get a job, or maybe we'll do something entirely different.
"The important thing to me, Marnie, right now, is that we are a family. A real one. I want to be Victoria's father. I want to be your husband. And … Marnie, I love you. I've always loved you, and when I think of the years without you … I never stopped loving you. Will you marry me?"
For a moment she was as still as a statue, her eyes wide and as bright as stars. Then to his shock, she hid her face in her hands, and the only sound he could hear was a sob.
Philip felt a moment of sheer panic. He had spoken from the heart, but what if it wasn't good enough? What if she thought that he couldn't change? Did she not want him? Had he hurt her with somehow careless words?
"Marnie …"
With a strength and speed that surprised him, she reached for him, pulling him close. Surprised, he wrapped his arms around her as she shook. He realized that she was saying something, saying it over and over again, and he bent his head to hear.
"I love you," she said. "I love you, I love you, I love you …"
Philip let go of a breath that he hadn't even been aware that he was holding, holding her even tighter and kissing her on the crown of her dark head.
"So you will?"
She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "I do," she said, her voice as soft as velvet. "I love you, and I want to be with you forever. You and I and Victoria will always be a family, and it will be perfect."
"We can tell her when we take her home tomorrow," Philip promised. "Do you think she'll like the idea of being a flower girl at our wedding?"
Marnie laughed. "If you leaving put her in the hospital, telling her that she gets to keep you and that you are her father will send her to the moon!"
***
Four Months Later
"There," said Doreen, touching the glittering diamond blossoms in Marnie's hair. "Perfect."
"I don't feel perfect," Marnie admitted to her soon-to-be mother-in-law. "I feel like I'm going to topple over and drown under fifty pounds of silk and beading …"
The last four months hadn't been easy, but to Marnie's surprise, Doreen had been her staunch advocate the entire way. The uproar when Philip came home with a novelist wife and a five-year-old daughter had been immense, but Doreen had taken one look at a jet-lagged, grumpy Victoria and decided that she would move heaven and earth for her grandchild. Doreen had been the one to smooth the way for Philip and Marnie, softening Alexander's heart before they saw them. Soon enough, the wedding was planned, and now Marnie stood in the bridal chamber of St. Ignacnio, the ancestral church where all the Demariers had been wed for two hundred years.
"You are beautiful, and you will be fine," Doreen said firmly. "Now, I need to get to my own place. Do you need anything else?"
To have eloped four months ago? But she certainly couldn't say that.
Instead, Marnie waited for her musical cue, her trembling hands hidden by her bouquet. She knew that Doreen would make sure that Victoria knew where to go. She knew who would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle.
The orchestra—there was an orchestra at her wedding!—had been playing the wedding party down the aisle, and after a brief pause, they struck up her bridal march.
She might have been worried about the ceremony, but about the man at the end of the aisle—never. She walked out of the bridal chamber towards the aisle, and when she looked ahead to the altar, she couldn't stop an enormous smile from crossing her face.
At the end of the aisle was her daughter and the man she knew that she would love until the day she died. At the end of the aisle was her future.
When she finally took her place at the altar, Victoria, nervous over all the eyes on her, took her hand tightly, making Marnie smile. She turned to face Philip holding her daughter's hand, and when she saw his black eyes lit up with love for the both of them, she knew that she had found a love story far better than any she could ever write.
THE END
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Chapter One
Briony looked in despair at the velvet green gown on her bed, and then she looked at her sister. “Seanan, please, can't I just stay here tonight? I really don't need to go to the party, do I?”
Seanan lanced her with that look, and Briony knew it was useless to argue. She had been on the receiving end of that look far too often to think there would be any sort of give to it at all.
“Oh come on, it'll be fun!” Seanan said. “There are going to be all kinds of exciting people there, so many people to meet and network with. You never know, little sister, this might make your career.”
Briony scowled, but Seanan took no notice. She never had. It would be utterly infuriating if Seanan didn't clearly have Briony's best interests at heart.
“I work in the admissions department of a not-so-great university,” Briony pointed out. “What good is Italian networking going to do for me?”
Seanan tossed a careless wink over her shoulder. “Stop being so doubtful! You just never know.”
It was in moments like this that the differences between the two sisters became obvious, Briony thought with bemusement. They were both of medium height with chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, and they both had low-pitched voices that were pleasant when speaking and slightly hopeless when singing. However, where Seanan's practiced smiles and warm air made people around her feel automatically comfortable, Briony always felt as stiff as a stick and twice as boring. Everyone who saw Seanan thought of her as a bombshell, and that combined with her acting talent had made her one of the breakout Hollywood stars of the last five years.
Of course, Briony knew better than most that “breakout star” meant weeks and months and years of auditions and tiny parts and networking and contacts, and she had sat up with her sister more than once over that lost job or that failed callback.
It warmed Briony like the sun to
see her sister excel, and when Seanan tugged her over to the dreaded velvet dress, Briony went with only a little resistance.
“Is it so very awful being here?” Seanan asked, her voice sincere, and Briony had to sigh.
“You know it's not,” she said with a shrug. “Florence is beautiful, and we've both always wanted to go to Italy. I'm still so glad and so thankful you invited me.”
“Can it,” Seanan said briskly. “There was no one else I would have rather had with me. But see, it hasn't been so awful, has it? The party tonight, it'll be fun, just like the museum was fun, like the orchestra was fun...”
Briony sighed, and Seanan could read her acceptance in the sigh because her face lit up with that thousand-watt smile.
“Perfect. Now let's get you dressed. I need to take care of my own kit, and I won't have all that much time.”
Briony almost sent Seanan away to take care of her own dress, but she was soon relieved that she hadn't. She could already tell the dress was heavy and lovely, more a tailor's item than anything you could buy off of a costume rack, and as Seanan lifted it over her head and tugged it down over her shoulders, Briony started to feel just a little nervous.
"Seanan, is it supposed to be this low cut?"
Her sister's laugh was oddly sly, making Briony even more nervous.
"Seanan, what's going on? Why are you laughing at me like that?"
"Oh shush, sweetie, you are far too nervous about everything. Here, bend forward so your boobs swing down, and I'll get you tightened right up."
"Wait, why do I have to do that...?"
Briony yelped a little as Seanan pushed her to bend over at the waist. Under Seanan's directions, she scooped her breasts forward as Seanan tightened the laces at the back of the dress. When she stood up, Briony had a shocked moment to think about how very much cleavage she was revealing, and then she gasped as Seanan tugged the dress even tighter.
"Oh my god, is there steel in this dress?" Briony asked in shock. It felt as if she was being bound up, cloth and metal wrapped around her torso.
"There is," Seanan said cheerfully. "Don't worry, you get used to it. I had to wear corsets for four months straight, sometimes in the pouring rain for this shoot."
Seanan was the second female lead in An Ancient Beauty, the movie the party was celebrating. It was set in Renaissance Italy, and judging by the first screening that had taken place just a few days ago, it was going to be a hit. Of course, Briony was happy for her sister, but that didn't mean she was happy to be laced down into some kind of strange Renaissance torture device.
"All right," Seanan said, stepping back with a smile. "Walk around, get used to it."
It was on the tip of Briony's tongue to say that was impossible, but as she did as Seanan said, she realized there was more give to the corset than she had thought. She could walk and bend, sit, albeit stiffly, and she looked at her sister dubiously.
"I'm going to topple into the punch bowl," Briony said. "I'm going to trip, fall, be unable to right myself, and tumble right in..."
"No, you're not," Seanan said firmly, and then to Briony's surprise, Seanan reached out to cup her cheek.
"Seanan?"
"You're going to do just fine, I promise," she said. "And if you hate it, you can come right up here and go back to reading your books, okay? It's just..."
"Just what?"
"It's just that I've finally achieved my dream. I know there's still a long way to go, and that what I've won myself is more work and harder work, but this is amazing. This is what I was meant to do. I just thought that maybe if you got out of your shell a little bit, you would find out what you're meant to do as well."
There was genuine worry in Seanan's eyes, and Briony relented.
"I'm doing just fine. And maybe my dreams are different from yours, Seanan. I hate the thought of being in the spotlight, even if I know it makes you so happy. I'm not going to find my happiness out there tonight." At Seanan's look of consternation, Briony sighed. "But I'll try. How's that?"
"That's all I ever wanted," Seanan assured her, and with a little kiss on her forehead, she headed out the door. "Oh, don't forget your mask!"
There was a domino mask hanging over the clothing hook on the wall, but Briony ignored it, looking instead at her reflection in the mirror. The dress pinched her in at the waist and pushed her round, full breasts up until they were almost directly under her chin. Below her waist, her hips billowed out.
Seanan, what the hell have you done to me, she thought haplessly, and then with a wry chuckle, she realized the answer. She made me beautiful by making sure I don’t look like myself at all.
It wasn't just the pinched waist. The steel in the corset made Briony stand up as straight as a yardstick, and the posture made her look proud, perhaps even haughty. Where Briony spent most of her time hunched over with her nose buried in a book, this stranger in the mirror looked like she could challenge a king or a prince and win.
Well, she said if I didn't like it, I could come back here, Briony thought, but bubbling underneath was a new feeling of daring and freedom, one she was not sure she had ever felt before. She simply looked so different.
Experimentally, she pulled the mask from its hook. It was a simple rectangle with an elastic band that was meant to hold it to her head, but it was heavy in her hands. It was made of a light leather rather than paper mache or plastic, and for a moment, Briony simply caressed it with her fingers. When she finally tugged it over her face, letting it settle over her eyes and most of her nose, it felt right somehow.
She turned again to the mirror and gasped. With her face covered up and her body bound by the green velvet dress, she looked like someone entirely new. Briony thrust her chin up as she had seen Seanan do in her movie, imagining a half-dozen cringing noblemen come to kiss her hand.
"No, I won't have you. I fancy something far finer," she said, imitating Seanan's line as best she could. She had done it before, of course, in the past and with different films, but this was the first time she had ever thought that she sounded convincing. In the mirror, she might have been another Florentine courtesan, commanding love like an army.
Maybe tonight wouldn't be so bad after all.
Chapter Two
Marco Bianchi arrived late to the party, but frankly, they were lucky to get him at all. Indeed, he might have stayed at the fundraiser he had left for the entire night if his friend Cosimo had not texted him.
You need to get out here, my friend. This is shaping up to be the event of the season. Would hate to see the prince of Florence get locked out of that.
He had snorted at Cosimo's joke, but he’d made his goodbyes to the fundraiser’s host and headed for the party in his savagely quick Ferrari. The party was on his schedule, of course, celebrating some popular film or other about Florence. It had sounded like a piece of nonsense to him, but the reviews were good, and he was always inclined to look kindly on people who loved his city.
The party was being held on the outskirts of Florence at the small mansion of one of the producers. It was an elegant place that Marco thought must have been hosting star-studded events like this one since the 1800s, and as he left his car with the valet and made his way to the rear garden where the festivities were being held, he smiled a little.
At the end of the day, we might not be as flash as the Venetians, but we know how to enjoy ourselves.
Before he could join the crush, a waiter blocked his path.
"Mr. Baldassare's rules," the waiter said apologetically. "This is a masquerade ball, after all, sir."
Marco looked at the masked waiter long enough to make the skinnier man squirm, but with a shrug, he finally took the mask that was offered to him. It was a simple domino, and when he put it on, he found that it was fairly comfortable, at least.
While most of the women were done up in Renaissance dresses and elaborate masks, most of the men had defaulted to masks and tuxedos. It took Marco some doing to find Cosimo and his wife Valentine, and when he
did, they greeted him with cheerful grins.
"You two have already been enjoying yourselves, I see," he said as Cosimo clasped his arm and Valentine gave him the traditional French kisses, one on each cheek.
"No harm to it, my friend," Cosimo said with a grin. "Baldassare was kind enough to loan us a room, and now we can simply do as we please until we crawl upstairs to bed. Here, let me get you something..."
"That sounds nice, but I'm driving home. I should be on better behavior than that..."
He paused as a stunning woman in green waltzed past him, her dress fanning out as her partner spun her around the floor. He had a brief impression of long chestnut hair and a lovely, husky laugh. For some reason, that combination made his heart beat faster, and he had to shake his head to pull himself out of his daze.
"Though perhaps I might not want to be on my best behavior with all things... Who the hell was that?"
"Oh, it seems as if the prince of Florence has a crush," Valentine teased. "Is it Renaissance dress and some anonymity that draws your eye?"
Most of the time, Marco would have been pleased to flirt and tease with Valentine, but right now, he barely realized she was standing next to him. Instead, his eyes were searching the crowd, looking for that flash of chestnut hair and green velvet again.
"There's not much use to the mask if you are just going to announce my identity to the room," Marco remarked, still scanning the crowd.
"What a good idea," Valentine cooed. "Go, go walk incognito among your people and learn the identity of your lady in green."
"Lady in green? Was that a part in the movie we are celebrating, perhaps?"
It was Cosimo who answered with a shrug. "No one really knows. She arrived fashionably late, and ever since then, well, you see. She's had no end of people interested in who she is or where she comes from, but so far, no one's had any luck figuring it out. The best guess is that she's one of the actresses."
"I see," Marco said thoughtfully, and then he glanced with slight guilt at his friends. "I really did come to see you at least for a little while..."
