by DC Renee
“Sorry, Anna,” Stephanie told me the next day when I called her as I was approaching the house. She wouldn’t be home for another few hours, and I wasn’t sure if I’d still be home as I was meeting Nolan later. We’d texted throughout the day, but neither of us had time to have a real conversation until then. “I really thought it was going to happen last night.”
“I didn’t.” I did. “It’ll happen when it happens,” I said as I stopped short before our door and was struck dumb at the sight before me. “Uh … Steph, Nolan’s here, and he looks so good I could lick him,” I said. “I gotta go,” I said and then hung up without waiting for a goodbye from her.
“So good you could lick me, huh?” he asked with a teasing smile.
“Uh-huh,” I said as I took him in, not even a little bit ashamed. He was wearing a black suit, cut and tailored to fit his body perfectly, the matching black shirt underneath sculpted for him. He could have stepped out of the pages of a magazine, and I wouldn’t have been shocked in the least. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I tried to lift my tongue off the floor. I thought he was working late, and we weren’t supposed to meet for a few hours.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said as he held out a box for me.
“What’s this?”
“We’re going out,” he announced.
“I … what?” I asked, completely dumbfounded.
He smiled. “You’re cute when you’re confused. Okay, Lise, let’s try this again. I’m surprising you with a night out, but first, you need to take this box, open it, and put it on. If you need to get ready, I can wait, but honestly, you’re beautiful just the way you are.” Nolan was seriously the best.
I launched myself into his arms and kissed him until we couldn’t breathe. Then I opened the door for us, and we walked inside. When I opened the box, I saw a stunning red thin strapped gown with intricate black beading throughout that I knew would be skintight until just below my hips where it gradually flared out.
“It’s gorgeous,” I whispered before giving Nolan another kiss. “Give me thirty minutes or so,” I said as I bounced away and into my room to get ready. It took forty minutes, but I was impressed with how quickly I showered, did my hair and my makeup, and still managed to look pretty good.
“Wow,” Nolan said as I emerged from my room. “Just … wow,” he repeated as I did a little turn for him straight out of a movie scene.
“You like?” I asked.
“I love,” he answered and then came at me, pulling me in and kissing me hard. “Let’s go before I rip this dress off, and we’re late.”
“Where are we going?” I asked as he dragged me away.
“It’s a surprise,” he told me.
We drove for half an hour, and I kept pestering him to give me a hint. He kept smiling and telling me I’d find out soon enough.
Finally, we arrived at the harbor.
“A boat?” I asked.
“A sunset cruise,” he responded.
I smiled in response. I’d never been on a sunset cruise, and I thought it was romantic.
When we stepped onto the boat, I realized we were the only ones on it.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
“I got us a private tour.”
He led me to a spot on the deck where a table was set up under a ton of twinkling lights strung up around the boat.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him.
He nodded as he looked me over. “Let’s eat before sunset,” he told me. We ate, finishing right as the sun began its descent over the horizon. He stood, and I followed suit. We stood by our table, but I was leaning against the railing, and he had his arms wrapped around me. We watched as the sun went down slowly, turning the sky into a watercolor painting of blues and pinks and oranges.
I felt Nolan’s arms leave me, and I turned at the loss of his warmth only to feel a new rush of warmth spread throughout my body.
“I told you when I first asked you out that you were the kind of girl you got engaged to on a boat at sunset,” he said as he looked up at me, down on one knee. “And you are, Lise,” he told me. “You’re the kind of girl who makes this very sunset envious of your beauty, and not just on the outside. You’re everything … inside and out. I wasn’t looking for love, you know that, but the minute I met you, it didn’t matter. Loving you was inevitable. Wanting you was inevitable. Wanting to be with you was inevitable. I want to be with you every second of every day. I want to fall asleep next to you and wake up next to you. Those moments we’re apart are torture. I want you to be mine completely. And I want to shout it to the world. Please, Lise, tell me I don’t have to spend another minute without you belonging to me, and me belonging to you. Please, Lise, tell me you’ll marry me.”
“Oh God, yes,” I cried out. “Yes,” I repeated as I wiped tears from my eyes. “Yes,” I said again.
“Thank God,” Nolan said as he slipped the ring on my finger before standing up. We were like two magnets pulled together as we immediately wrapped our arms around each other. Our lips fused as the salt from my happy tears mingled with our kisses.
“Now you have to move in with me,” Nolan said with a light chuckle against my lips.
“Two for one, huh?” I asked teasingly.
“Absolutely,” he said with a smirk.
“I love you,” I told him.
“I love you too.”
And that … that was the perfect proposal.
THERE WAS A reason the name bridezilla was coined, and I can tell you it wasn’t because the bride-to-be was a controlling, raging bitch. It was because wedding planning was extremely stressful. I’d like to think I wasn’t a bridezilla, but I could one hundred percent understand why some women were.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t stressed because let me tell you, I was.
My mom was a big help, Stephanie was an even bigger help, but Nolan … not so much.
“I’m just happy that you’re dumb enough to marry me,” he joked. “The rest, I don’t care about. You could come in jeans and a T-shirt for all I care, as long as you’re there saying, ‘I do.’”
It was sweet in a way, but his opinion would have been nice too.
According to him, “Guys don’t picture the perfect wedding like girls do. We just care about the marriage part. So, whatever you like for the wedding is perfect for me, Lise.”
The venue? My choice. The minister? My choice. The flowers? My choice. The color scheme? My choice. Everything else? Still my choice.
The only thing Nolan was truly in charge of was the honeymoon.
In a way, it was nice that I got everything I wanted for my wedding, and Nolan had told me there was no budget, which made it that much better. And as I said, my mom and Stephanie stepped in and helped me out quite a bit. My wedding planner did make things much smoother as well.
But still, I felt like the entire wedding was on my shoulders. If it was a catastrophe, it would be because of my decisions.
“What if people don’t like the food or they talk shit about the flowers?” I asked Nolan during one of my freak-out moments.
“Fuck them,” he said. “This isn’t their wedding. It’s ours.”
“It’s really mine,” I grumbled.
“Lise, you are mine. So whatever you do, whatever you decide, it’s mine too. Whatever happens, the most important part is that at the end of the night, you’ll be my wife, and I’ll be your husband.”
When he said things like that, I couldn’t help but leave the stress behind.
But that wasn’t all the time.
And when I was stressed, things got to me. Things that I didn’t even seem to notice before.
Take Nolan’s work, for example. I knew he worked odd hours sometimes. I’d even witnessed him having to take a call during dinner or right before bed. I was sure he got calls in the middle of the night too, but either I slept through those or he didn’t pick up. Maybe it was because of the stress, but I wasn’t sleeping as soundly, and I’d hear him
pick up calls at all hours of the night.
It was work, so I had no right to be upset, but I was. It wasn’t so much the phone calls that got to me. It was the fact that he’d take a call at say two a.m. I’d hear him, but I’d go back to sleep because that was what normal people did at two a.m. But then I’d feel him get back into bed, and when I’d check the clock, it would be hours later, like six a.m.
I knew I was unreasonably mad, but I couldn’t help it. There were several times I knew he’d taken the call and then rushed off, presumably to the office so he could figure out whatever dilemma he was trying to solve.
I’d asked him about it after the first few times I noticed this.
“Emergencies happen,” he responded with a shrug.
“What kind of emergency happens with shipping items back and forth?” I asked.
“Production delays, shipping delays, customs issues. If we don’t deliver what we say we’re going to deliver, that affects our reputation. And that’s really important in our family.”
It was logical, and I understood. And it was thanks to this family business that I got to have the wedding with no budget, and the life I was already living, and the one I was about to live.
As I said, I knew I was wrong to be mad, but I couldn’t help my emotions. I was smart enough not to voice my concerns, though, because then I’d just look crazy.
But the thing that almost made me lose my shit was after one of these late nights. I woke up the next day for work, and I turned to Nolan to give him a quick kiss before getting out of bed, something I did every morning. I gasped before my lips even reached his cheek.
He had a visible black eye blooming.
“What the hell happened?” I asked, effectively waking Nolan up.
“What?” he asked, starting to panic as he sat up straight.
“This,” I said as I pointed at his eye.
“Oh,” he said with a relieved sigh. “I thought something serious had happened.”
“This is something serious,” I retorted.
“It’s nothing, just an accident at work.”
“What the hell kind of accident could give you a black eye at work? Did a cabinet fall on your face?” I asked sarcastically.
“Really, Lise, it’s no big deal. I’ll put some gel on it, and it’ll go away in a few days. Plenty of time to spare before the wedding.”
“You think that’s all I care about? That you look good when we get married?” That’s what caused me to raise my voice, to get pissed beyond reason, and rightfully so. “I fucking care about the fact that the man I love has a mysterious black eye. Whether he’s all right. If everything is okay, you asshole,” I spat out at him as I launched out of bed and stormed into the bathroom.
“Lise,” he said softly as he opened the bathroom door. “I’m sorry, I am an asshole. I didn’t mean to worry you or upset you. It’s just …” he trailed off as if he were looking for the right words. “Working late at night with a work crisis hanging over your head makes people a bit nuts sometimes. Me and one of my cousins had a small disagreement on what route to take to fix something. He was letting out some frustration.”
“On your face?” I asked, cutting in.
“No, I just got in the way. It’s honestly not as bad as it looks,” he said, trying to placate me. “Things just happen.”
“In any other company, this wouldn’t fly,” I told him.
“You’re right, but you know this is a family business. We don’t hold this stuff against each other. It happened, he feels bad, I’ll look a bit rough around the edges for a few days, and then life will be back to normal. I’m sorry,” he told me as he stepped toward me, and I let him. “I love you,” he said as he pulled me to him. “I know you’ve been stressed lately, and I know it’s because you’re nervous about our wedding. I haven’t been much help, which I’m sure is adding to your stress, but honestly, I don’t want to get in the way of your dream day. It’s only my dream day because I get to make you my wife. The rest of it is noise. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll start being more active.”
“No, I get it,” I told him, instantly melting. “Just bear with me until this wedding is over, and I’ll be the bright, sunny girl you fell in love with.”
“You were bright and sunny?” he asked with mock shock. “Where the hell was I when you were bright and sunny?”
“Probably getting punched,” I tossed back, only half-joking.
He moved one of his hands away from my waist and onto his chest over his heart, mock hurt registering on his face. “That hurt,” he said with a teasing smile.
“Just love me, Nolan, and everything will work,” I told him. “And no more black eyes,” I tossed in.
“I’ll always love you, Lise. Forever. That’s why I’m marrying you.”
“I love you too.”
With that, at least for the time being, my shitty mood was suddenly gone.
THERE HADN’T BEEN an official move-in date. It just kind of gradually happened. Every time I’d bring some clothes or makeup over to Nolan’s place, it stayed. Eventually, most of my things were there. I still technically shared an apartment with Stephanie until a few months before the wedding, but I was there less and less. Even when I hung out with Stephanie, she tended to come over to Nolan’s home, which was soon to be my home as well.
We’d even double-dated together several times, me, Nolan, Stephanie, and Tony, the guy she was dating. He and Nolan got along well, which made things so much better.
Stephanie found a one-bedroom apartment that was actually closer to Nolan’s home. However, I didn’t think I was the reason for that move. Ironic as it might be, Tony only lived a few blocks away from my new home.
The day she moved out was my official move date too. But at that point, I barely had anything to take. Stephanie donated any furniture she didn’t need at her new place. We still all worked hard that day, even with a moving company doing most of the work. Tony and Nolan were in charge of making sure the big stuff was moved properly while Stephanie and I unpacked everything in her new place.
Honestly, though, I had a feeling she wasn’t going to stay in that apartment for very long if Tony had anything to say about it.
And now it was my last night of being single. I hadn’t been single since the moment Nolan asked me out. We’d each had our bachelor and bachelorette parties the weekend before. I had a simple, relaxing spa getaway while Nolan got to watch his favorite DJ perform at a nightclub with his friends.
But now it was the Friday before the wedding. I was going to sleep at Stephanie’s place since my parents’ home was just too far away. Nolan offered to let them stay at our home, but they declined. I think they secretly thought it might be awkward to be there when I wasn’t even there, so they got a hotel room instead.
We’d already done the practice run for the wedding, and now we were at the rehearsal with our family and friends.
My parents, Nolan’s dad, and even Lily had already met. My parents came to visit us shortly after the engagement, although apparently, they knew about it already. Nolan told me he had skipped out on work one day and met with them, asking for their permission for my hand in marriage. My parents were shocked. In this day and age, they didn’t expect him to ask them, so they were pleasantly surprised and gave him their blessing right away.
It was during this visit that Neal invited them, and us, over for dinner. Things went very smoothly. It was like they had been best buds forever. That made both Nolan and I extremely happy.
And the few times they’d come after that, they met up with Neal as well. Best buds, I tell you.
Neal and Lily had seemed over the moon about our engagement and upcoming wedding. Lily had offered her help in any way she could. I didn’t want to burden her, but at the same time, I didn’t want to offend her. I ended up including her in a few decisions, and I could tell she appreciated it. And Nolan even voiced his appreciation too although his was definitely a lot more physical … and pleasurable.<
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Our rehearsal dinner was winding down, and for the first time in a long time, I felt truly calm, and happy, and excited. By this time the next day, I would be Mrs. Nolan Corrington, and he was right, nothing else mattered. All the planning was nice and all, but the only thing that truly meant something was that we were going to bind our love together in front of our family and friends.
“I always wanted a daughter,” Neal said to me after managing to pull me aside from the rest of the rehearsal dinner. “Well, maybe not always,” he added with a smirk. “When Nolan entered into his teen years and became a huge handful, that’s when I wished I’d had a girl instead.” He chuckled, and I followed suit.
“He’s not so bad now,” I responded with a wink.
“Not so bad at all,” he said teasingly, but he glanced at his son, and the look of pride and love that shone so visibly warmed my heart. “Ready for the big circus tomorrow?” he asked, and I might have been offended if it weren’t for his giant grin telling me he was teasing.
“Not sure about the big circus part. Maybe we should have given a small wedding a lot more thought. But absolutely ready to marry your son. I love him with all my heart,” I assured him, having a feeling I knew why he’d found me.
“I know,” he said with a nod. “It’s as plain as day. And he loves you just as much. But loving someone and committing your entire life to them are different. So I just want you to be sure before tomorrow because once you’re in this family, you’re in. We don’t believe in divorce. We don’t believe in leaving. You’re part of this family for life. The only way out is death.”
I understood what he was saying, sort of. But I also hadn’t realized he was so “old school.” The reality was that no one got married with the intention of getting a divorce. I wasn’t planning on it, and I sure as hell hoped it would never come to that. But realistically, if shit hit the fan, I didn’t care about Neal’s traditionalist views.
I didn’t say that, but he must have read it on my face. “I’m serious, Annalise. If you marry Nolan, you marry into his family too. You marry into his views, his traditions, everything. You become family. There’s no getting out.” His words held an ominous tone, but I had a feeling he was remembering how his own marriage was cut short.
