The Suspicious Proposal

by Kay, Cherry

  "Well?" he asked her with a smile, and she looked back up into his clear blue eyes.

  "Will you be my wife?" he asked her, moving near to her and placing his finger just below her chin, lifting her mouth to meet his in a soft kiss. His lips touched hers gently and then he looked at her again, speaking with a smile. "Marry me..." he told her in a whisper.

  "Yes..." She smiled back at him and spoke softly. "I will marry you."

  She felt as if her heart had somehow sprouted wings and was going to take off right out of her body.

  He grinned at her and seemed to breathe much easier as if it had been heavy on his heart to ask her and her answer had been an enormous relief to him. He reached for her, holding her close and kissing her softly before he let her go and smiled at her.

  "I am so surprised!" she gushed, laughing lightly. “I can't believe this... I just... I never saw this coming!" Brittany said, staring at the ring and trying to make herself believe it.

  He shook his head and laughed a little as well. "Neither did I, but you are like an answer to my prayers. I just had to ask."

  She marveled at it and then looked up at him and kissed him once more.

  "I don't even know how to begin planning for something like this... where would we even have it?" she asked curiously.

  "Oh, I was thinking at that little hotel right on the beach, you know, they have a beautiful garden and the ocean is right there. We can use the garden for the wedding and reception. Guests will have a place to stay, and it's an excellent location."

  She looked at him in surprise. "I'm amazed! You seem to have already given this a good deal of thought!"

  He nodded. "You have no idea."

  "Well, you have the location picked out, is there a date you have in mind?" she asked, looking at him in wonder.

  He reached for her hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing her fingers slowly and sensually, making her draw in her breath sharply and look around them in a sudden worry that someone might see the effect he had on her.

  "I want you to be my wife as soon as possible. I don't want to wait for you... I have waited long enough; through years of dating other women, through the time that we have spent together, and I don't want to wait any longer. I want you to be my wife as soon as we are able to.

  “I think six weeks, maybe eight at the very most, would be more than enough time to plan an event like our wedding. Don't you think?" he smiled at her and rubbed his thumb over her hand.

  She stared at him and her heart began to pound so hard that she could hear it in her ears. "Six to eight weeks? Why, that's no time at all!" she said in a gasp. "Why would we rush into it?"

  He shook his head and reached for her cheek, touching it gently. "I have waited all of my life for this, and I don't want to wait any longer. There's no one like you. Why would we wait to share something as precious and wonderful as our lives together?" He smiled at her and kissed her softly.

  "It's just so soon!" she sighed with a smile back for him.

  He raised one eyebrow. "It's twice as long as we've been dating... if that's any consolation to you." He grinned and gave her a wink.

  She looked at him in wonder and realized that he had a point. She had agreed to spend the rest of her life with a man that she had only been dating for a month; having the wedding in eight weeks was twice as long as they were dating, and it was also a valid point that if they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, why would they wait? She kissed him.

  "Eight weeks it is, then. Thank you, Logan, I'm so honored, and I love you so much," she told him as happiness washed all through her.

  "Me too,” he said with a smile as he toasted her with champagne again.

  The following morning, when he had left her house, she called Lena, ecstatic with joy.

  "You are not going to believe what just happened!" she squealed with excitement as she held the phone tightly to one ear and stared at her hand again for the thousandth time.

  "What? What just happened?" Lena said, trying to wake up fully and catch up with the excitement that Brittany was emitting.

  "I went out to dinner with Logan last night and he asked me to marry him!" she exclaimed blissfully.

  Lena was silent one moment and then Brittany knew that she was fully awake. "What? What happened?" she asked again. "I know I didn't hear you right. Say that to me one more time."

  "I said that Logan asked me to marry him last night!" Brittany smiled happily.

  Lena gasped loudly into the phone. "Oh my Lord in heaven. What did you say to him?"

  "Well, I said yes, of course!" She laughed as if it was the most absurd thing she had ever heard.

  Lena groaned. "Girl, I tried to tell you, this is too fast. He's moving way too fast. This just doesn't sound good to me! I know you have your heart and your head in the clouds, but baby, you just can't do that! You need way more time to get to know him. You can't be with someone for a month and then decide you're going to marry them and spend the rest of your life with them! What are you thinking?

  “You aren't thinking. That's the problem here. Your heart is cutting off all of the circulation to your head, and you are making life-altering decisions without really giving any thought to what you are doing and what the consequences of your decisions are going to be! You can't go rushing in like that! You just can't!" She sounded like she meant every word of it, and she was not about to hold anything back from her friend.

  Brittany sighed deeply. "I know you mean well, but you just can't see how much he loves me! It's real, Lena, he loves me, and I love him, and we want to spend our lives together. I know it's happening fast, but I have never been this happy and this much in love in my life! Seriously. Think about this. You've known me for more than ten years! Have you ever seen me like this? Even when I was with Darren?" she asked, thinking for a moment back on the boyfriend she had broken up with just a few months before.

  Lena jumped on the subject immediately. "You thought you were in love with him too until you caught him chasing after that little Miss Whatshername. Then you got your heart broken. You dated him for a year and you thought that you and he were going to get married and have babies and raise up a family, but he went and showed you that you don't know a person, not even after a whole year! You've only been with Logan for a month and you're ready to commit your life to him!"

  Brittany frowned. "You're not even looking at the whole picture! I was never this happy with Darren. I don't think he was happy either, and that's why he went after Amy; maybe he thought that she could make him happy because he wasn't finding his happiness with me.

  “It's lucky he did go after her, or I probably would have wound up marrying him and then I would never have known what true happiness and true love is! I know now, and what I had with Darren isn't even a shadow of what I have with Logan. It's nothing at all like it. I just don't think you can see it, that's all. We love each other, we trust each other, we are each other’s number one priority."

  Lena grew annoyed. "How can you trust each other? You've only known each other a month!"

  Brittany shrugged. "I don't know, we just do. That's just how love works, and it's beautiful."

  Lena sighed in resignation. "Well, it sounds like you aren't about to listen to anything I have to say, so congratulations, and I wish you the best of luck."

  Brittany smiled a little. "You realize I'm going to want you to be my maid of honor, right?"

  Lena sighed loudly. "You would ask me to do that."

  Brittany laughed at her.

  "Oh alright, I will do it, but don't you dare put me in some throwback to the eighties prom dress and make me look like a fool, do you hear me?" she insisted.

  "I hear you loud and clear, sister!" Brittany laughed again and began to relax, knowing that her best friend would see the light when she saw them together and realized just how much they were in love.

  "We'll go dress shopping together and you can pick out the style of the dress as long as it's in my wedding colors, okay?"
Brittany offered as a peace treaty between them.

  "Okay. I'm going to hold you to that. I love you, Britt." Lena told her with a sigh.

  "I love you, too." Brittany replied, glad to have such a good and caring friend looking out for her.

  Three days later, she went to Logan's house. They were planning to go shopping that afternoon for wedding cakes and flowers, and he had asked her to come by his home. She had only been there a few times on nights when they wanted to do more than just frolic in the back of his limousine. His place was closer than hers was, making it logistically convenient.

  The first time she had seen it, the home had stunned her with its sheer size and the vastness of the property around it. It was three stories tall and was a massive structure, seeming to grow out at every angle and never end.

  She marveled at the Roman columns out in front and the marble floors and stairs inside. She was awestruck at the elegance of the glass and gold and bronze everywhere, and the fine wood that graced much of it. She had never even seen a hotel as finely designed or appointed as his home was.

  And now, as she went to it, for the first time since he had asked her to marry him, she realized with incredulity that she was going to be living in it and it would be hers also. The thought was nearly incomprehensible to her.

  Brittany rang the bell and a man in a dark suit and a white shirt and black tie answered the door.

  "Good day, Madam, please come in." He smiled at her, bowing a little as she walked in.

  "It's Richard, isn't it?" she asked him with a smile. He nodded and she shook his hand. "I'm looking forward to living here and seeing you more often!" she told him, unsure what to say to him.

  He looked at her with silent eyes and nodded. He led her into the library where Logan was sitting behind a desk, his mind intent on the thick stack of papers before him.

  "Sir," Richard spoke up as they entered the room, "Miss Taylor is here to see you."

  Brittany's smile faltered slightly. Richard was so formal. She wondered if it was in his job description to treat everyone like that and if she would be able to be on a first name basis with him when she moved in.

  "Thank you," Logan said and then looked up at her happily.

  "Thanks, Richard." She gave the butler a friendly smile. He nodded at her and left the room.

  Logan stood up behind his desk and she was struck by how much more powerful he looked there, and what a surprise it was to her. She had seen him in so many ways and in several different situations, but seeing him in a place as austere and formal looking as his library, gave him an air of dignity and power that she hadn't yet experienced with him.

  "Hi, baby,” she said.

  He walked around the desk and wrapped her in his arms, kissing her cheek and then kissing her mouth softly. He let her go and looked down at her, giving her a strange smile.

  "How's my girl doing?" he asked lightly.

  She kissed him once more. "I'm good. I'm excited to become your wife, I have a maid of honor, and my fiancé is taking me out to help me choose cakes and flowers today. Life couldn't be much sweeter, could it?"

  Logan shook his head and smiled at her. "Not really, no." He led her to the sofa in the library and sat her down on it.

  "Brittany, I want to talk with you about something. My attorney gave me a little form today that he wants you to sign. It'll only take a moment, and then we can go out and shop." He stood up and walked over to his desk. "Let me just get it for you."

  He picked up the thick stack of documents that he had been poring over when she walked in the room and he brought them to her and laid them on the table before her.

  "There are just a few pages to sign." He indicated several tags that were attached to the sides of pages, showing her where her signature was requested.

  She frowned and looked down at the very legal looking document. "What is this?" she asked in confusion as she looked up at him.

  He shrugged and shook his head. "It's just a little agreement before we get married. I have to have it for the lawyers."

  Brittany tilted her head a little. "What kind of agreement?"

  He looked at her and smiled a little. "It's a prenuptial agreement; just some official paperwork, really."

  Her eyes widened in shock. "You want me to sign a prenuptial agreement?"

  "Well, the attorney does."

  She lowered her brow at him. "You mean your attorney does... the one that you hire to take care of all of your things; the one that you instruct about how you want things done?"

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. "It's actually a little more complicated than that." he told her, looking at her with a gentle smile.

  Brittany felt ire growing in her, rising up slowly and spreading. "Why on earth would you want me to sign a prenuptial agreement? What do you think I'm going to do, divorce you and try and take you for every penny you have? Why would I do that? I love you! I'm the one who has agreed to promise my life to you.

  “You asked me to marry you, not the other way around, so why would you do this? Why would you go to the trouble of asking me to marry you at all, if you didn't trust me and you thought I might try to use you?"

  He raised his hands in defense and shook his head. "It's really a lot more complicated than that. You're looking at the bigger picture, that's all. I do trust you; I trust you implicitly; it's just important to the business I run, to the other people who are affected by my business decisions, and for other legal situations that are directly affected by this agreement. It's just a technicality. I wouldn't ask you if it weren't necessary." He was still smiling at her but she was getting to be quite upset with him.

  "How can you ask this of me?" she demanded, beginning to feel an imbalance of fear and anger in her.

  He sighed. "Brittany, it's really not like that."

  She could not hide her emotions or her frustration that he was putting her in the position that he was. She felt like he was betraying the core fundamentals of their love.

  "What is it like? Is it trust? Is it faith that our future together is one of solidarity that won't end in a divorce and me trying to use you and take your money and possessions from you? I didn't ask you to marry me. I haven't asked you for anything but your love, and now you come to me with this materialistic garbage and insult the trust and faith that I have in you, in my love for you, and in our future together? How can you do that?" she demanded of him.

  Logan reached over and took hold of both of her hands. "Brittany, my dear, this is nothing more than just a document for the lawyers. I know we are always going to be together, and I know that you are not going to divorce me or take half of my worth from me. That is one of the reasons I asked you to marry me, because I know that you love me. But this is just something that has to be done for business reasons more than any other reason, and we can't get married if it isn't signed."

  He looked at her imploringly. "Brittany, I want to marry you, more than anything else in the world, but it can't happen without this." He leaned over and kissed her cheek softly, and then he kissed her lips as his hands gently touched her thighs and one slid carefully beneath the hem of her dress and up her inner thigh.

  "You are the answer to everything for me." He kissed her mouth again and then trailed his lips close to her ear as his fingers reached her panties and slipped beneath them, rubbing her gently.

  "You are all that I want and everything I need. I want you to be my wife. I want you to spend the rest of your life with me, this is only for business, really, please baby," he whispered, sucking gently on her neck and slipping his fingers inside of her as he began to lay her back on the sofa, massaging her more firmly and making her moan and sigh softly, "Please baby, just sign them for me.

  I'll be such a good husband to you, and you won't ever want for anything. It's just business... you understand that, don't you?" he asked, moving his fingers more swiftly in her and making her close her eyes and moan as her arms moved around his broad shoulders and his kissing and sucking became more
urgent.

  "But it means you don't..." she gasped in pleasure as his fingers moved faster in her, "...you don't trust me."

  "I do trust you, or I wouldn't want to marry you, baby. Come on... say you will sign it. I want you more than anything, say yes... come on... say yes..." he whispered against her skin as he manipulated her body and made her arch her back in pleasure as she moaned softly, clinging to him.

  "Logan..." she whispered, "It goes against the very nature of love!" She spoke breathlessly as she looked at him through heavily lidded eyes.

  He grinned at her and took his hand from her, peeling her clothes off swiftly, his mouth moving from her lips to her neck, and from there to her breasts where he canvassed her nipples with his tongue and tugged hard at them with his teeth. He pulled her dress off and pushed her panties down, laying her back fully on the sofa and spreading her legs.