Brave Enough(46)

If we weren’t getting married, I would probably worry more about falling in love with him. I would be afraid of giving my heart away to someone who might break it. But now, I don’t think much about it. I just feel. I just go with it. And it feels wonderful!

At first, I was content to just be able to spend my life with someone to whom I was so desperately attracted. But now, more and more with every passing day, I feel as though I’ll be spending it with my soul mate, with someone I’ll love for the rest of my days. Because I do love him. I think I have for a while now. I only hope he will one day love me in return.

I do think about that sometimes—what if I fall in love with Tag, but he never learns to love me the same way? But I try not to let those thoughts take root in my mind. Right now, it feels like we’re both falling. And there’s hope in that.

We were going to elope because my father is so against this union  , but my mother had a cow and convinced him that we should at least have a small ceremony so that he can walk me down the aisle and she can see her only child get married. He grudgingly agreed to that. I think for a while he kept thinking it would all fall apart and he wouldn’t have to worry about it, but it hasn’t. We haven’t. Tag and I have spent every day together, every night together, too, and we are even happier as the days go by.

Dad and Michael left Chiara two days after Tag gave me the ring. I don’t know what Dad has cooked up to replace the way he expected my marriage to Michael to affect the company, but I feel sure he’s got something up his sleeve. As long as it doesn’t involve me, though, I don’t really care what it is.

Mom came to visit after that, ostensibly to talk me out of the “ludicrous notion” of marrying beneath me. It only took her three days to see that she wasn’t going to make a bit of headway. That’s when she went home and talked to Dad about a real wedding. Since my charity received the anonymous donation and I no longer have to rely on my father’s money to keep it afloat, they have no leverage to force me into or out of a marriage. As I’d always dreamed, I got to pick who I want to spend the rest of my life with.

And now, here we are. My wedding day. I went from the prospect of marrying Michael, a man I had zero feelings for (unless vague disdain counts) to marrying a man I can’t wait to wake up to every morning, all in the span of a month. It’s surreal, but in the best fairy-tale kind of way. Even my friends are envious, especially when they met Tag. I think then they understood how things could’ve happened so quickly and how I could be so happy.

I haven’t seen Tag since last night. He left my room two minutes before midnight so that he wouldn’t risk seeing me on our wedding day. We decided to have the ceremony here at Chiara. It seemed fitting somehow. He could’ve spent the night anywhere, but I’d be willing to bet he’s at our cabin. It gives me chills just to think about it.

My closest friends and family are all waiting for me downstairs, as is Tag. Mom hired a decorator from Atlanta to come and make the grounds and the main house wedding-beautiful, and it is. I peeked over the upstairs railing this morning and it nearly stole my breath. This small, intimate wedding is more perfect and more fitting than the grandest of events could be. For me, anyway. And for Tag.

A soft knock at the door has my stomach clenching into a nervous knot. One of my best and oldest friends, Shannon, my maid of honor, pokes her expertly coifed head in. “It’s time.” Her smile is bright and beautiful, if a little envious. She has no qualms about marrying for money and very much looks forward to her impending nuptials to Avery, the son of one of her father’s associates. Shannon is attracted to Avery, though, so her situation isn’t as . . . distasteful as mine was.

She leaves the door ajar and walks away, probably to get in line at the top of the stairs. Seconds later, I hear the harpist begin her first song, the one that the wedding party will enter to. The one that comes right before mine. My stomach flutters and I get up to walk to the heavy, floor-length mirror that leans up against the wall in the corner.

I see Weatherly O’Neal. She looks the same as she’s looked every time I’ve seen her for the last month, only today there’s a shine in her purple-blue eyes and a slight flush to her cheeks. Her black hair is drawn into loose curls artfully arranged on top of her head. The few tendrils left dangling frame her small smile, a smile that doesn’t betray the way her heart soars. She was bred to remain calm and collected during stressful times. Times like these. But I can see it, though. I can see the change—the happiness, the hopefulness. I can see that she fell in love with the most unlikely of men in the most unlikely of ways. And I can see that, despite the convenience of the arrangement and its questionable origin, she is thrilled to be walking down the stairs, down the aisle toward Tag Barton.