by Cassie Rocca
“Will he like it?” she murmured, feeling a lump of emotion in her throat.
Liberty nodded. “He won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”
“Ok, now I just have to relax and not think about what might go wrong… It’s not raining, is it?”
“No, the sky is clear and the air is at a pleasant temperature thanks to the heating and all the torches that have been lit.”
“And there isn’t too much noise drifting up from the concert?”
“It’s all part of the festive atmosphere you wanted. Hey, you decided to get married on a terrace overlooking the square the same day as the Christmas tree lights come on!” joked Liberty. “You can’t really expect silence! In any case, the minister has promised that his voice will be loud enough so that even the waiters in the hall can hear it!”
“Okay, so it’s all settled… There’s nothing that I need to worry about?”
“Well, Cade hasn’t arrived yet, but apart from that…”
“What?!” Clover blanched, but Liberty laughed, making it clear that it was a joke.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist it… Zack has a really bad influence on me.”
Clover nodded and looked around. The make up artist was sitting in a corner watching TV, ready to intervene in case a sudden hysterical attack of tears undid all her hard work, and the hairdresser was reading a magazine on one of the four sofas arranged in a circle in the large room. She was ready, the guests were all there, the dress was beautiful and the evening promised to be pleasant and extremely romantic. The kiss at the end of the ceremony would coincide with the moment when the lights of the Christmas tree came on, as they had agreed – a choice that they hoped would bring them good luck and would forever enshrine the moment in which the love story between her and Cade had begun.
“It’s a fairy tale that’s coming true,” she thought, feeling her eyes moisten. “The perfect happy ending.” She started fanning her face with her hands again.
“I’m really, really happy,” she whispered, looking up at the ceiling, while the door was opened for a second time.
“So am I!” exulted Zoe, bursting into the room with a bottle of champagne in her hand. “I’m pregnant! And I’m getting married on Valentine’s Day!”
“What?!” exclaimed Liberty, her green eyes widening.
Clover did the same. “You’ve ruined Eric’s surprise! Again!”
Zoe laughed heartily. “Oh, who cares! The most beautiful things always come out of plans that have gone wrong!” She threw out her arms and hugged both her friends. “I love you two!”
“Don’t make me cry, damn it!” Clover protested.
They sat down on one of the sofas, sipping champagne, while, laughing and crying at the same time, Zoe told them about the impromptu wedding proposal she had just received.
Shortly thereafter, it was Liberty’s turn. She looked at them with affection. “Well, while we’re on the subject of good news, I’ve got some too: a well known publishing house has agreed to publish one of my novels.”
The announcement was followed by more happy shouts and hugs, and Liberty explained that she had finally managed to finish the story that she had long dreamed of completing.
“It’s about all of us. Our happiness deserves to be immortalized forever in the pages of a book, I’ve been doing it for complete strangers for years, and now I’ve finally managed to do it for myself.”
“I’m so happy!” cried Zoe.
“And I’m trembling all over,” said Clover, throwing back the contents of her glass in one gulp. Then she got up and went back to pacing. “Too much good news all at the same time, too much good luck, too many people out there waiting for me…” Her eyes opened wide and she stopped short and turned to look at her friends. “Something is going to go wrong, I can feel it!”
Liberty sighed, trying to calm her down. “No, honey, nothing is going to go wrong. For years you’ve been telling Zoe and me to be optimistic, that beautiful things happen, that you just have to believe it to make your wishes come true… And now that you’ve finally proven your own theory, you’re going to turn into a pessimist?”
Clover nodded. “You’re right, I’ve got absolutely no reason to be…Where’s Cade?”
“Eric went to find him a while ago,” smiled Zoe. “He’s ready and impatient, like any self-respecting bridegroom.”
“And he’s on TV too,” said the make up artist from her corner, pointing. Clover went over her, her eyes fixed on the screen. They were talking about the stars of the new James Cameron film, describing their acting careers… and their love lives. As she watched, clips of all the women Cade had appeared with during his acting career, the love scenes from the films he had been in and the paparazzi shots that had appeared in the gossip mags showing him with this or that celebrity appeared.
And then she saw her: Melanie Gordon, the beautiful ebony haired actress who would be playing Cade’s wife in the next film and who in a recent interview had said she was, “excited and looking forward to working alongside the sexiest man in America.”
Her stomach clenched painfully. She had seen Melanie Gordon flirting openly with Cade during the official press conference where the cast had been presented, and it seemed impossible and utterly pointless to even try and compete with a woman like that. Wherever Melanie Gordon went, the ground was covered with the men who fell at her feet. She had already caused havoc with a rather well known couple of married TV presenters, and the media had decided that her next victim would be Cade. Conjectures and bets about it had been circulating for about three months.
“She’ll steal him away from me,” she murmured in a quiet voice. “How could he resist her? If she decided that she wanted him… I mean, come on, nobody can keep their cool in front of someone that beautiful. Hell, I’m almost attracted to her!”
Zoe appeared at her side. “She’s no different from a lot of other actresses. She might show it off more, but you’re just as beautiful as she is.”
“He asked me to marry him as soon as the first rumours about this began to circulate.” Clover felt panic beginning to overwhelm her as the realisation dawned. Her voice started to get more shrill. “He was trying to find a way to stay out of her clutches! Perhaps he feels safer as a married man!” She put a hand to her throat, feeling her breath failing. Then she stared at her friends. “I can’t do it… I can’t marry him… I’m not good enough for him, he’ll realise and he’ll regret it! His career’s peaking right now, he’ll have to travel, work hard, meet interesting people, beautiful women… And he’ll resent not being able to take advantage of the fact. And I’ll be here alone, waiting for him, and maybe I’ll end up getting pregnant in the worst possible moment and he’ll have to choose whether to give up some important role to stay beside me or miss the most beautiful moments of his child’s life. He’ll think that he was stupid, that he should have waited before he tied himself down, and I’ll realise that he’s distant and I’ll start to complain, and we’ll argue… He’ll blame me for what he had to give up to be with me and he’ll end up hating me…”
“Go and get Cade,” Liberty murmured to Zoe. When her friend had gone, she sent out the hairdresser and the make up artist too and sat Clover down.
“Now calm down and look at me,” said Liberty firmly. “Do you remember the day of my wedding? I was scared to death! I started going on about it being too soon, that Zack and I didn’t know each other at all, that we’d been misled by the attraction we felt for each other, that I would be a bad mother and a bad example for his daughter, that I would end up hating him because he had made me want to eat again and I would get fat… Well, none of that happened… I’m still married, we’re more in love than ever, and all those worries were just classic pre-wedding panic. Every bride goes through it, and you’re no exception.”
Without even the strength to cry, Clover hid her face in her hands. In her heart of hearts, she knew she was just stressed and that she had no reason to be worrying about those thi
ngs, but she was so scared that she couldn’t think straight. Over the last week, Cade had been busy arranging everything with his work so that they could leave for their honeymoon without there being anything they needed to worry about. Shooting would begin at the end of January, and at that point, Clover would barely see him for the following four months. They had never spent so long apart before. In the last three years, Cade had always worked on much less demanding projects in cities that were relatively nearby, while for the new film he would be spending his time between California, Russia and Australia.
Would being so far away from her make him more vulnerable to the risks of success… and to other women?
Would their partially public marriage end up in an equally public divorce in a matter of months?
A discreet tap at the door made her look up, but the sound of Cade’s voice brought her to her feet.
“Clover?”
Panicking, she peered desperately about her for a hiding place. “No, you can’t come in!” she shouted. “It’s bad luck to see the dress before the wedding!”
“I’m not coming in, I just want to talk to you… We can do it through the door.”
Liberty smiled at her. “I’ll leave you two alone. Don’t do anything dumb, ok?”
Hiding behind the door, Clover watched her friend leave the room. In the silence that followed, broken only by her laboured breathing, she closed her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she asked softly.
On the other side of the door, Cade hesitated a moment before speaking. “I wanted to hear your voice before going down.”
“Why?”
“To calm me down a bit.” She heard him lean against the white wooden panels of the door, and she suddenly felt closer to him. “We haven’t seen each other over the last few days, and I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions. I often do, when you’re not around.”
“What kind of questions?” she asked, her heart in her mouth.
“Will she really marry me? Is she really ready to put up with the media circus that comes with my job, all those stupid rumours, the snooping of the newspapers? Will she wait for me while I’m away on my travels? And what if she meets someone more interesting, someone who could give her a less stressful life? Will she believe me when I tell her that I haven’t looked at another woman since I met her, despite the gossip of the paparazzi who try and make me look like a two-timer every time I give a colleague or a fan a friendly smile?”
Clover smiled bitterly. “I know they brought you up here because I was having a panic attack, you don’t need to pretend to be frightened too.”
“You don’t believe that I am?” asked Cade quietly, his voice full of emotion. “I really do ask myself those questions. Not all the time, I admit, but not because I’m so cocksure of myself… because I’m sure of you.” A warm, strong hand came around the door in search of hers, and Clover squeezed it, feeling some of her tension vanish as the familiar warmth of those fingers drove the cold from her heart. “I know that all brides-to-be have a moment of panic before they get married, and I hope that’s all it is, but if there’s anything you want to ask me, any worry that’s tormenting you at the moment… talk to me about it.”
Clover hesitated.
Cade’s marriage proposal had come a few weeks after the announcement of his being cast in James Cameron’s next film, and it had surprised and moved her. Cade had taken her to have a picnic on a boat in Central Park, and when he had pulled the famous little blue box with the ring in it out of his pocket, Clover had almost fainted with joy. In a flash, she had remembered a conversation from three years before about how romantic a possible marriage proposal on that same lake would have been, and her emotion at the idea that he had kept that thought in his heart touched her so deeply she could barely speak.
He’d been giving himself to her and making all her dreams come true, and all she had been able to do was cry like a fountain while she hugged him. He had laughed softly, telling her that he would take that as a yes…
She had only noticed a few brief minutes before when she had been watching that report on the TV that his proposal had come just as the gossip about the hypothetical flirt between him and Melanie Gordon had started to get annoying.
She didn’t believe it, of course, but…
“Did you ask me to marry you to try and shut down the gossip about you?” she asked in a quiet voice.
Cade’s hand tightened on hers. “I’d been wanting to do it almost every day for two years. But it was right that we took our time, got to know each other. In my job, there are plenty of people who get married on a wave of excitement after only knowing each other for a few days, and then get divorced a week later. I’m not like that, I want a marriage like my parents’ marriage: one that’ll last forever… If I hadn’t been sure I wanted it, I’d never have asked you, Clover.”
“But…”
Cade finished her question for her. “You want to know if the gossip influenced the choice of the moment? In part, yes, it did. But not for the reason that you think. First of all, I wanted to show them that while the world gets stupid ideas about another beautiful girl I find in my orbit, I couldn’t think about anything except being with you.”
Clover tried to hold back her tears, but one managed to escape her tightly closed lashes and slid down her cheek.
“Would you feel better if I told you that I seriously thought about not accepting that part in the film?” he murmured.
“What?! No, you have to do it! You must never give up your projects just because I’m a paranoid idiot who gets herself into a total state of panic over nothing.”
Cade laughed. “I wouldn’t have done it for that – it’s the idea of leaving you for so many weeks that drives me crazy.”
Clover put one hand on the door, the other still in Cade’s. “Everything will be fine – you’ll have days off when you can come back to me.”
“And you can come and see me on the set, though… I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Are you worried that I might create problems?”
“No, it’s just that Melanie…” Clover released his hand angrily but Cade chuckled and groped to take it back. “She’s really hoping, you know?”
“Hoping what?” Clover hissed.
“That you’ll come to the set a lot.”
“Why, does she take sadistic pleasure in showing off her powers of seduction in front of her victims?”
“She likes you.”
Clover frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s just say that if she had to choose which of us two to spend a romantic evening with… well, it wouldn’t be me.”
A stunned Clover flung the door wide open. “Are you making fun of me?!”
On the other side, Cade hid his face in his hands. “Hey, what about your superstition?! Aren’t you afraid of me seeing the dress anymore?”
“You keep your eyes closed!” she snorted, turning her back to him for safety’s sake. “If you’re trying to make me feel more comfortable by trying to make me think that Melanie Gordon is into women, you’re kidding yourself!”
“Do you want to try asking her that yourself? I don’t trust her entirely, but I very much doubt she’ll be trying to put any moves on me…” he said, a smile in his voice. “And you can bet that I want to be there when you ask her.”
A stunned Clover relaxed her shoulders. “Well, that I didn’t expect… She works pretty hard not to let it show!”
“She just doesn’t feel ready to come out yet – and it’s not easy, given the field we work in. I only realised because… well, because the comments she made about you were pretty intense!”
“Oh God…” murmured Clover in embarrassment.
“What is going on in here?!” shrieked Nadia O’Brian who appeared in the corridor at that moment. “Damn it, Clover! The bride and groom aren’t supposed to see each other before the wedding!”
Cade lifted his head but didn’t take his hands fro
m his eyes. “I didn’t see anything, I swear!”
“Relax, Mom, I only saw his back.” Clover was hurriedly pushed back into the room, but a moment before the door closed, Cade managed to put a hand around it, which she immediately grabbed.
“See you soon…?” she heard him ask in a hesitant voice.
Clover smiled sweetly and kissed his knuckles. “You can bet on it, movie star.”
*
When the bride appeared in the doorway, the terrace of the Loft & Garden shone with colored lights and torches. On both sides of the aisle, the guests stood with bated breath while a little girl dressed in red sprinkled the floor with rose petals.
A radiant Clover walked down the aisle behind the bridesmaids, her gaze never leaving the groom who stood waiting for her, his eyes burning with love and desire. Every last trace of anxiety vanished as soon as she managed to see that beloved face, and the notes of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, sung by Michael Bublé on the stage down in the square below, brought a happy smile to her face while a rush of emotion filled her heart.
It really was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. And that year couldn’t have started off better.
The ceremony was brief but moving, and they recited their vows in excited voices. The guests of the romantic event laughed, furtively wiped tears of emotion from their eyes and hugged one another.
When the music in the background ended and the noise from below made it evident that the countdown was about to begin, the minister moved on to the final part of the ceremony, as they had agreed.
Ten, nine, eight…
“By the power conferred upon me by the state of New York…”
Seven, six, five…
“… I now declare you husband and wife.”
Clover couldn’t wait any longer. As the audience counted down the final seconds, she stepped forward and took Cade’s face in her hands, kissing him passionately.
Three…
Two…
One….
The crowd below gave a roar and the air was filled with music that drowned out even the applause of the happy wedding guests.