Jaden didn’t reply and Kaz didn’t expect one. He just wanted to have fun for the rest of the night and the following day, he would marry the woman he loved with all of his heart.
He was through with acting as the moral compass for his brother and he was done with being his keeper.
He had his own life to live now and he planned to live it to the fullest.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Nice Day To Marry A Rock Star
TALIA WAS AN angel and a saint.
If she hadn’t been there the day I decided to marry Kaz, I would have been a complete and absolute wreck.
My grandfather and mother had flown in for the occasion and to my surprise, my mother had a man on her arm, a good looking Norwegian she’d met on her most recent visit to the country. She also looked slightly bloated but I didn’t want to say anything to her in case I offended her.
She broke the news to me while Talia helped me with my makeup. My hair had already been twisted into a lovely French Twist with pearls woven throughout by my hairdresser.
“Edmund and I are having a baby. I’m four months pregnant and it’s a boy.”
My heart felt like it almost stopped before I turned toward my mother. “Excuse me? Pregnant? At your age?”
“Oh for God’s sake, Syd, I’m younger than Halle Berry! I am only forty-five for Christ’s sake—”
“—yes, but you’ll be forty-six by the time the child is born next year. I thought you had a tubal-ligation after my birth?”
“I did but it was reversible and…Edmund is the first man I truly do love and care about after…what your father did to me at such a young age. I thought you would be happy for me. We’re getting married and I will finally be settled. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
I felt so foolish at that moment. Of course it’s what I wanted for my mother. I’d be lying to say I didn’t. She’d done the right thing and never brought a man around while I was growing up because she knew none of them were permanent and she didn’t want me to call any man she dated my “uncle”. She was a great single mother and my grandfather had been the perfect surrogate father. I couldn’t have asked for a better childhood.
Now that my real father and I spoke on occasion, my life had finally come full circle. I was slowly getting to know my half-brothers and their wives, and life was good. Why in the world wouldn’t I want my mother to be happy too? It was absolute madness for me to be acting this way.
I stood and walked over to my mother before I embraced her. “I’m overwhelmed with joy for you, Mom. If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you.”
“And you deserve happiness too! Jeg elsker deg, min lille engel,” she whispered before she embraced me again.
I love you, my little angel.
That is what she used to say all the time when I was growing up, even after I wasn’t so little and I don’t think I’d ever been an angel.
“Takk, Mamma…Jeg elsker deg også.”
A lone tear dropped down her face as she smiled and I handed her a tissue so she could wipe it away. “I know you do, sweetie. This is your day and I promised not to spoil it. I hope my news doesn’t take anything away from today belonging to you.”
“Are you serious?” We separated and I shook my head at her. “I can’t believe Baby Kaz is going to have an uncle younger than he is and a playmate too.”
My mother rolled her eyes. “That was supposed to be a surprise but your grandfather can’t hold water. Edmund and I met because he is going to oversee the building of the Landvik Hotel, Spa and Casino on the Strip. Papa purchased the land where the Sahara Hotel and Casino used to be and he plans to build a new hotel. He believes with the right people, he can do in Vegas what he has done to the tourist industry with luxurious cruises. He is offering cruises to Los Angeles and then the guests will take a private jet here to Vegas where they will stay at his hotel. He thinks it’s brilliant and well, you know how Papa is…”
I smiled. “Well, that is the best news I have heard all day. It means I will actually have more family here in Vegas.”
“It’s his legacy…to you. He was going to surprise you and Kaz with it because when the hotel is completed, you’ll inherit the hotel once…he’s gone.”
I noticed the look in my mother’s cerulean blue eyes and my smile faltered. “Mom, what’s going on? Is grandpa sick?”
“Prostate cancer. His doctors are the finest in the world and he is being watched very closely but his doctors have had him tested thoroughly and he doesn’t have a radical or progressive form of the disease. His specialists also don’t believe he needs to undergo a radical prostatectomy so in the meantime, we have to wait. He is elderly and the disease in men over seventy isn’t the same as the disease if a man in his thirties were to develop prostate cancer.”
My mom paused and sipped from a glass filled with San Pellegrino water. “We didn’t tell you because honestly, Papa isn’t all that concerned and he has several physicians who accompany him everywhere we travel. He has lived a good life, Syd. He doesn’t want this disease to interfere with that and he wants to go the moment his quality of life isn’t as stellar as it is now. We can’t argue with that and to be honest, we really shouldn’t have a say. It’s his life, not ours.”
She walked out of the suite, leaving Talia and I to stare at one another. “Well, she provided you with something new—your very own hotel and casino. What about something old and something blue?”
“Shit, I didn’t think about that.” I studied my short but carefully manicured fingernails.
“Well, I did.” Talia approached me before she opened her hand. “I know you were raised Lutheran but I was raised Catholic—as if that is a surprise with my mother being Creole and my father’s family originating from Milan—but it’s a St. Christopher Medal pendant in white and blue agate on a solid platinum chain. My step-father had to outdo my real father by buying it for me as a birthday present…my thirteenth, I think but I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m twenty-five now so I consider it to be something old…or older anyway. Plus, it takes care of the last two superstitions to provide you and Kaz with a jinx-free wedding, and a lasting marriage.”
“Thank you, it’s beautiful” I embraced her and we had a shared moment of silence before we parted and she cleared her throat. “Here, let me put it on for you and then you can take a good look at it in the mirror.”
She fastened it around my neck and it hung high, at least an inch from where my breasts dipped.
I had decided not to go with the conventional, frou-frou wedding dress with meringue overload. Instead, I picked out a gorgeous, floor-length silk gown by Lela Rose. It had a gorgeous black lace appliqué delicately stitched over an ivory strapless gown with a boned bodice, which provided extra support for my oversized breasts and the lace provided lovely, short-capped sleeves. The dress dipped in the back though not low enough to show off my tattoo. The only tattoo that would be visible would be the one on my right arm but I was happy to show it off since it was feminine and the heart combined with a music note was a perfect dedication to the day.
Talia, my maid of honor, was wearing a gorgeous one shoulder, black lace gown by Emilio Pucci, which ironically, cost more than my wedding dress. In my former life, this would have irritated me to no end but now, I frankly couldn’t be bothered to give a damn. We both chose the dresses we liked and that’s the way it should have always been.
The bridesmaids: Laurel, Sasha and Jerrica, were all wearing floor-length, black lace, cap-sleeved downs with silk boned bodices to cover their goods in the front while the lace swept all the way to their panty lines in the back and smooth silk took over.
I admit it seemed a bit gothic for my bridesmaids to be dressed in black but Talia wanted them all to match me somehow and no one liked the idea of an ivory dress so black became the color they all agreed upon.
To be honest, when we finally all met up with one another, away from the men since Kaz couldn’t see me until the wedding, we didn’t look g
othic at all. We actually looked like were about to attend the Academy Awards or the Grammys to be honest. All of our dresses were expensive, tailored and fit us perfectly.
All four opted for fancy chignons and when I looked at them carefully, they all wore the same St. Christopher Medal pendants I had on except theirs was white and black agate on platinum chains. I had fresh tears in my eyes I tried to hold back but they tumbled down my cheeks anyway and Talia strolled over in a flash to wipe them with Kleenex before she repaired my makeup.
“Put your big girl panties on and I don’t want to see any crying, you got that?” She glared at me with pale green eyes. “This is a happy occasion and there is no reason for any tears. Not when Kaz puts the ring on your finger, not when you have your wedding dance and certainly not when you cut the cake. Look at me, I’m serious, Syd.”
I nodded my head compliantly and breathed deeply. “Fine. No more tears. I promise.”
“Why couldn’t I ever make you do that?” Laurel dead-panned. “It’s so unfair because you never listened to me and I’m your best friend too and have been since we were both in diapers!”
Everyone, including me, stared at my other best friend before we all broke into laughter. She seemed offended for a moment before she rolled her hazel-green eyes and laughed along with the rest of us.
Today was going to be a great day.
THE WEDDING CEREMONY itself didn’t take very long.
Kaz and I both agreed to get married at Vogue Hotel and Casino because it was free and great publicity for the hotel. Plus all our guests stayed for free too since the band had an exclusive contract with the hotel.
Of course the day brought out both Winter’s Regret and Scarlet Fever fans so the hotel was swarmed and the area we were using to get married had to be blocked off and guarded by security. Every wedding guest had to wear a special silver chain on their wrist and they were uniquely designed by Tiffany & Co. for us so security would know guests from paparazzi or journalists trying to sneak past.
Damira had been hired by Entertainment Now, a popular entertainment show on the Celeb INK cable channel, shortly after her successful documentary on the band’s tour had premiered and we allowed the show and Society Magazine to be our only press coverage as far as media attention went.
As I stood at the altar with Kaz and we said words promising forever to one another, I honestly meant them and I knew he did too. This would not be an easy marriage by any stretch of the imagination just like it hadn’t been an easy relationship. We were likely to endure the same knock-down, drag-out fights as we’d had when we were merely boyfriend and girlfriend. However, we were two strong and passionate personalities that clashed because we knew we had to risk everything otherwise, we risked nothing at all.
I would never not love this man and even when I hated him and didn’t want to see his face, I still loved him to the core of my very being. I loved him so much it made my heart hurt to think about all the extreme emotions that could pass between us. I loved him with every fiber of my being and I knew why.
Kaz had his demons. We both did but his were much darker than mine and I knew it had nothing to do with him trusting me why he hadn’t told me about them yet. He was scared I would put all the weight of my family name behind him to protect him from his demons and I would. I would risk everything except our family to protect him from his. Dizzy, the Lucifer’s Saints MC club and the rest could go to hell as far as I was concerned. They would never own him or ever have a piece of him again because he was mine and I would dredge through the gates of Hell to keep it that way. No price was too high and there was nothing I was not willing to pay to keep my family intact.
I was a dangerous bitch and the sad part about the situation was none of them would ever see me coming.
They saw my blonde hair, blue eyes, and angelic features and assumed I was easy to manipulate, pliable, and stupid. At one time I was that young girl, obsessed with shopping and designer labels with an empty head and a killer bod but no more.
Like my body had changed with pregnancy, my mind had matured over the length of the tour and that stupid girl was no longer in the building. A stronger, more powerful woman had emerged and anyone who dared to fuck with my son or my husband would have me to contend with me first, and the end wouldn’t be pretty.
I could play dirty with the best of them and it was best if Kaz didn’t know any of this because it would be too much of a shock.
It was as simple as that.
The same way it was a good idea for me to be shocked by his past when he finally told me even though I knew it all. My grandfather was crafty and my mother was just as intelligent. There was no way they would allow me to marry a man I didn’t know anything about and they’d laid everything out on the table before me.
There were six binders of information, more than ten thousand pages worth of evidence including his sealed birth certificate, photographs documenting his time in the club, what he’d done, what crimes he’d committed and how much money he’d sent to Dizzy Cox over the years. I knew about the year in high school he spent in Birch Tree and all the time he was part of the MC.
Desmond “Dizzy” Cox had sold out his own son to my grandfather for a mere five million dollars, pocket change to a man who was worth well into the double-digit billions but he wanted me to have all the information on the man I was about to marry.
I still remembered our conversation.
“You know why there is a reason the upper class don’t mix with the lower class, sweetheart. We are so much alike, sometimes, it becomes too much to bear. Perhaps this man, despite being the father of your child and worth almost half a billion dollars himself, is not the person for you. He is still a product of his childhood and he’s torn because he doesn’t fit in either social circle. He’s not white trash yet he’s not part of the elite either and he knows it. He’s never found his place in life and someone who doesn’t know where they came from can’t have any idea where they are going. Do you understand what I am trying to say?”
I’d faced my grandfather and smiled, almost coyly. “Yes, I understand you, Grandpapa…but I am in love with this man and I think I can ground him. He will find his place and I will make sure he is settled and comfortable. He will eventually adapt. He has to because…he can’t go back to the MC again. As much as that lifestyle should be part of who he is, he wasn’t built for it and he’d either end up dead or in prison. Give me some time with him…you’ll see.”
My grandfather smiled but unlike mine, his never reached his icy blue eyes. “I will give you five years. Until then, there will be an iron-clad prenuptial agreement placed on your assets. When your mother and I are gone, you will become a billionaire and I can’t allow that kind of fortune getting into the wrong hands…especially the criminal element from whence your future-husband comes from on his father’s side. I will pay off the debt to free him of this…motorcycle club. I can’t have any nefarious activities attached to my future son-in-law. If you have not secured his place and taken the restlessness out of him then I will require you two to divorce…and it will not be negotiable.”
My grandfather never minced words, especially when he spoke to me in Norwegian. I had no choice but to comply and since then, I’d read about what Kaz had done and understood why he thought it would scare me. He’d grown up in a world filled with violence, mayhem and complete anarchy while on idyllic summer vacations at Dizzy’s compound. Soon, the violence became too much and it began to seep into him.
He’d lied…his half-brother had raped him once, not multiple times and Kaz had beaten Randall so badly, he ended up in the hospital. His step-father had covered up the incident up but the damage had been done. Randall and Kaz no longer communicated with one another at all and after the incident, he’d been sent to live with his real father in Northern Nevada permanently.
I knew why Kaz had lied but I planned to rectify the situation shortly after we were married because I would not have the foundation of our life, our relatio
nship or our marriage based upon omissions and half-truths. He would soon see the girl he’d met ceased to exist and in her place, a powerful woman intent on becoming a carbon copy of her grandfather, her mother…and her real father. A person of importance who would contribute good to the world if only to try to eradicate so much of the hate that festered in our society and in our hearts.
Charity started first in the home and that is where I intended to begin my ambitious journey.
Kaz and I looked at each other with an extreme intensity that no one could change. It was as if we were the only two people left in the world when the minister finally said, “I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride, sir.”
When he placed his arms around me and dipped me low, everyone shouted and clapped but it wasn’t until his mouth touched mine that the fireworks went off in my head. The world, a stark yet dreary black and white turned into Technicolor and everything became so clear. It was like I was a person suffering from horrible vision before and now, I could see 20/20.
Rock My Heart Page 18