by Claire Adams
My eyes were probably swollen to twice their size by now, as I felt my whole face get drenched in my own tears, while an insufferably painful grin was plastered to my face that I couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard I tried. Zayden had said all those wonderful things about me. In my college. In front of my whole class. And my professor. The most sought-after man was down on his knee, telling me - little, useless Aria Roberts with a little apartment and a little life – that I made him the luckiest man in the whole world.
While everyone was watching.
When he pulled the ring out of his pocket, I gasped loud enough for the whole school to hear when I realized that it was, in fact an enormous piece of diamond on a ring. I felt heavy just from imagining the weight of it around my finger. All the time. For the rest of my life. Another gasp. Too much was happening too fast and it was crazier than my wildest fantasies. None of my daydreams where Zayden proposed to me came close to living up to this very moment where the man I loved was about to ask me to be his forever.
But before I said anything…before this got real and we were together forever and I would be his and he would be mine, legally, emotionally physically…I had to make sure.
With all the might I could muster, I forced myself to produce a sound at last, “Zayden, but the divor—”
He cut me off with a kiss squarely across my lips, to a spontaneous applause from the whole room. Through the corner of my eyes I could even see a confused Dr. Weber joining his hands together in continuous motions.
“Aria,” Zayden said, breaking off in almost a whisper. “It’s taken care of. The papers arrived. Just answer me now and stop torturing me. Aria Roberts, will you please marry me?”
I took the deepest breath of my entire life and said the most wonderful single word to have come out of my mouth: “Yes.”
Chapter 4
Zayden
I went into the bank feeling good. The curious gazes of all my employees upon my arrival did not bother me at all; rather it gave me a sense of pride: they were looking at me because they knew. They knew that I had managed to get the most amazing woman in the world to agree to marry me. Whether they were jealous or judgmental or just plain curious, none of their whispers and gasps bothered me in the slightest. In fact, it was probably their lucky day because I was suddenly in the mood to issue an office wide bonus. Grinning wildly, I approached Aria’s desk.
“Hi,” she said, beaming.
Instead of responding to her greeting, I leaned in and kissed her in front of the whole office. Aria broke off first, perhaps feeling uncomfortable by my show of affection in the workplace. But the smile on her face continued to be radiant.
“My office, fifteen minutes,” I said. Then I added loudly, “I love you.”
Aria’s face went completely red as she mumbled something that sounded like, “I love you too.”
Exactly fifteen minutes later, my fiancée was sitting across from me in my office, her huge ring flashing the bond that now tied us together.
“I don’t want to wait, Aria,” I said simply.
“What do you mean?” She looked confused. “I already said yes, I don’t know if you remember. I mean, maybe I remember it incorrectly too. It was all happening so fast it’s hard to hold on to the memory exactly as it transpired. That doesn’t of course, explain the ring,” she added cheerfully, surveying her hand. “This is too big, Zayden. I hope you didn’t pay a fortune it’s not worth it.”
“Don’t you dare ever tell me you’re not worth something again. You deserve the very best of everything in the world and I’ll make sure you have all of it. But I can’t wait, Aria, to get married to you. To make you mine irreversibly forever.”
She grinned. She was obviously in a playful mood. “I’m not too sure about the irreversible part. People get divorced all the time—”
“Don’t ever say that again, either,” I snapped.
“I was,” Aria said, screwing up her mouth. “You know I was joking.”
“Me too. Just wanted to make sure you knew it was permanent.”
“Permanent isn’t a long enough time to be with you,” she said and winked.
I needed to get to the point.
“Three weeks. I want to get married in three weeks. Does that sound okay?” I asked gently. I didn’t want to make her feel inundated in case she needed more time. At the same time, I also couldn’t bear to think of not being married to her any longer.
She opened her mouth wide in shock. “Three weeks? But…planning…and invites…I don’t even have an idea of what to do about my wedding dress.”
I reached over and covered her hands with my own, flashing a reassuring smile. “Aria,” I said lovingly. “It’ll all be taken care of. I already booked Fiona Davis to be your wedding planner and she will be contacting you shortly about all your needs. Fiona usually has a waiting list of about two years. She is the most sought-after wedding planner in the country.”
She gasped. “Stacey knows all about her. She will kill me.”
“We will book Fiona for your friends’ wedding too then, but since they don’t plan to have the ceremony for another year, we can surely worry about that later.”
“Wait,” she said suspiciously. “How do you know when they plan to get married?”
“Your friend Stacey may or may not have gone with me to purchase your ring.”
She gasped loudly, looking amused. “You aren’t telling me she approved of this magnificent gazillion dollar ring are you?”
“Yes, but it’s no big deal.”
“Whatever you say,” she said, grinning.
“Fiona will be in touch with you shortly. She has already booked the Plaza for three weeks from tomorrow. They are usually pre-booked years in advance but between my influence and Fiona’s, getting that date was a piece of cake.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Aria said holding up her hand and looking utterly confused. “The Plaza. That’s where all the celebrities get married. It is also in New York. Did you actually think this through?”
“Oh, right,” I said with a content smirk. “I forgot to mention, we are getting married in New York.”
The effect of those words on Aria was exactly what I had hoped. She gasped so loudly a few people came and poked their head in to see if everything was okay. Her eyes started drowning in tears of happiness once we were alone again.
“You said you had never been to New York.” I shrugged. “Obviously we had to change that. And what better opportunity to do so than during the most special day of both of our lives?”
“But Zayden,” she spoke in stutters. “All my family and friends and everyone I know are here and they can’t exactly afford to take a trip to—”
“I will take care of everything. You have to learn to stop worrying about money. I want you to have the wedding of your dreams. Pick out the best wedding gown, the best décor; pick out an invitation embellished in gold and platinum if you wish. I will pay for absolutely everything. We will put all your friends and family up in five star hotels. Everything you need will be taken care of. Don’t worry about how or when; just decide what you want and it’s yours. You might as well start getting used to it because this is not just about the wedding either. That’s basically how things will go from now on for the rest of your life.”
She was crying into her hands now, unable to process all of this. It made me feel a little weary because I did not like seeing her in tears, not even those of joy. Her tears were more precious to me than anything money could ever buy and they were not worth wasting.
I stood up from my chair and went over to take Aria into my arms. She was so small and fit so perfectly against my chest.
“Aria, I love you so much. More than you will ever realize. More than the world will ever have accurate measures to quantify. When I decided I wanted to marry you, I also decided that from that moment on, nothing in the world mattered as much as your happiness. If you really think about it, I’m being selfish by giving you the wedding of your
dreams. I can only be happy when you are happy. So in the end, I am doing this for me. Okay?”
I hugged her tighter, intending to never let me go.
“I love you so much too, Zay,” she mumbled into my chest. “I can’t wait to be your wife…”
We sat like that in each other’s embrace for the longest time, with the whole office watching through my office windows. When we finally broke apart, I remembered the other thing I had to discuss with her.
“One more thing,” I said, wiping the last of her tears from her face. “There is absolutely no reason for you and me to be apart for another second from now on. I hired some movers. They will be at your apartment tomorrow to get all your things. You don’t worry about a single thing. They will pack all your things and carry everything to my place. Is that okay?”
I felt like it was important to phrase everything as a question. Aria would not be okay with being told what to do, which was one of the many reasons I loved her so much.
“Of course,” she said to my utter relief. “I can’t wait to move in with you either. The thought of being apart from you is tormenting sometimes. I’ll miss my roommates of course, but I’ll have one last night with them tonight.”
“They will be happy for you,” I said, stroking her hair.
“I’m sure you have a good command on exactly how they will feel, given that they have been sneakily planning things with you behind my back,” she said with a smirk.
“It’s because they love you. How can they not? How can anyone not?” I leaned over to plant a kiss on her lips. “You are so damn loveable.”
“So are you,” she said, kissing me back. “Thanks so much for arranging everything with the move. And for Fiona, the Plaza and everything else. I can’t believe I get to marry you in three weeks.”
“You can have the rest of the day off,” I said, looking at the time. “I have some business to tend to and you have to go talk to your roommates and plan for your move. You can come in to work whenever you feel like it for the next three weeks or not at all if you don’t want to. You won’t be stationed at the teller’s booth—”
“No!” she gasped again. “No, Zayden. I haven’t earned a promotion. You know how I feel about making my own way to the top.”
“Well, that complicates matters. Considering you will soon be part owner of the company. I mean if you prefer to run half of this office while sitting where the tellers do, that’s up to you, but I would suggest that it’s not the best business move.”
“I didn’t earn this,” she whispered again.
“Yes you did. I have seen your mind, Aria, and fallen in love with it. Remember when I asked you if you would work for me long before I even realized I was in love with you? Even when I had no plans but to seduce you, I was already blown away by your brilliance and your ideas. My company needs young ambitious assets just like you and this would be the fact of the matter regardless of whether or not we were getting married in three weeks.”
“But that’s not how everyone else will see it,” she protested. “They will all just think it’s some kind of nepotism or something.”
“Well, give me a list of everyone who thinks that way and I will fire every last one of them.”
She sighed. “That won’t be necessary. Fine, no more teller duties. Where do I sit then?”
“I am having them build you a new office right across from mine. So let me know what you want in that space. Meanwhile, you can just take that desk over there. I don’t think – well I hope – that you won’t be engaging in much other work than planning your dream wedding for the next three weeks so that shouldn’t be a problem. By the time we are married your office should also be ready and you will have your own space to come up with brilliant ideas that I don’t doubt will bring my company heaps of money.”
“You give me too much credit, Zayden.”
It was my turn to sigh. “The fact that you think that is also one of your greatest qualities. God, if you could only see yourself the way I see you. We will talk again after you have assumed your new role in the company for a few months. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
She shrugged. “If you say so. I’m going to head out now. I have a wedding to plan,” she said joyfully and almost hopped out of my office, leaving me grinning with admiration.
Chapter 5
Aria
By the time I got home, I still couldn’t process everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, starting all the way from when Zayden proposed to me in class. A wedding in three weeks! As much as that thought freaked me out, it also excited me. Three weeks from tomorrow, I was going to become Mrs. Sinclair after our wedding in the city of my dreams. It was as though someone had taken a chapter from one of my favorite romance novels and sprinkled it all over my life. Giddy from the marvel of it all, I headed straight to Nick and Stacey’s room. I leaned over to their closed door to make sure that I wasn’t interrupting an intimate moment, but when I heard them argue about video games, I knocked excitedly.
“Come on in, Aria. We already know you’re engaged. In case that’s what the excitement with your loud knocks indicated,” Nick said.
“I’m getting married,” I said, turning the doorknob.
“Didn’t I just say we know that?” Nick looked confusedly at Stacey. “Am I inaudible Stace? Did I lose my power of speech?”
“In three weeks,” I added hastily. “I’m getting married in three weeks. In New York City. Code red.”
After a couple of gasps and hanging mouths, Stacey quickly assumed the role of my best friend. “I’ll get started on the cookies. You guys set shop in the living room. Yes, this is code red.”
---
An hour later the three of us were spiraled across the living room, stuffing our faces with Stacey’s amazing chocolate chip cookies.
“But, Fiona Davis!” Stacey exclaimed for the fifteenth time. “How did he? How is that even possible? I know he is some hotshot billionaire but even then. Fiona is booked for years. Years! Not months, years. And from my understanding she doesn’t even adjust her schedule for A list celebrities. I can’t believe Zayden pulled that off!”
“Well, I am not sure if I am supposed to tell you guys yet,” I said, beaming. “But he also booked her for your wedding next year.”
Stacey gasped the loudest I had ever heard her, as her eyes started to tear up. “What? How? Fiona Davis, for Nick and my wedding? That’s not…this is not real life. I’m going to go back to bed and be disappointed when I wake up to realize this was one awesome dream.”
“I’m serious, Stace,” I said, hugging her tight. “Fiona Davis will be planning your wedding.”
“No she will not.” Stacey broke our hug and frowned. “It’s not just about her schedule you know. I can’t exactly afford her. Neither can Nick,” she added when he cleared his throat.
“It’s already paid for,” I announced. “Zayden said he is grateful for you for helping with our relationship – first with convincing me it was a good idea to go out with him, then with helping with the ring – that it’s the least he could do. And for loving me or something.”
“Yeah, cause that last part is real hard to do,” Stacey quipped and rolled her eyes. “So we definitely need to be rewarded for it.”
“Shut up, Stace.” I giggled. “But seriously, Zayden is happy to do this so please just accept it, okay? This way we both get to have our dream weddings.”
After another few protests, Stacy finally came around. “Okay,” she said. “Fine. We will accept, but what can we do for him in return, though? I don’t have anything!”
“Cookies,” I said brightly. “I bet you a million dollars – shit I shouldn’t use such exaggerations anymore, should I? – okay, okay, I just bet you some love that Zayden has never had chocolate chip cookies that are perfect as yours. Make him an enormous batch as a thank you and I will take it with me when I move there tomorrow—”
“When you what?” Nick chimed in, looking rather dis
appointed. “Tomorrow?”
Shit. That was not how I was planning to break the news about my sudden departure at all. They were supposed to have been a few beers in, first of all.
“Okay guys, I know I talked about moving out soon but even I had no idea it would be this soon. But given that I am getting married in three weeks, it only makes sense that I live with him for a little bit before becoming his wife, you know?” I couldn’t hide the annoying grin from my face as I said this.
“Aria.” Stacey shook her head. “We love you and you know that. We would keep you with us forever if we could. You don’t have to pretend that this is something you’re doing out of necessity. You can’t wait to start living with Zayden, it’s all over your face. And the important part is I am fucking ecstatic for you…”
I mock frowned. “So you’re not going to miss me? Why aren’t you more upset by this?”
“You’re an idiot.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course I am heartbroken. We are,” she added, as Nick sat in the corner. “This is bittersweet. I couldn’t be happier for you Aria. You have met the man of your dreams who makes you ridiculously happy and would literally do anything in the world for you. Heck, he is going out of his way for your friends he barely knows, even! And you’re so in love it’s hilarious and adorable. So what I am getting at, I guess, is when should we start helping you pack?”