Protect & Serve(52)

I couldn’t let them bring my moment down. Nathan and I had decided back in that shitty Peachtree Overlook apartment that there was no use in hanging on to ancient history. We couldn’t change what had happened back then to either of us, but we could certainly change our futures.

That was what I was moving toward now, I realized: my future. My heart swelled as I began to step toward him in time with the music, tears brimming in my eyes as I let go of my guilt. I walked away from the ghosts of my mother and Jenny, and I reached out for Nathaniel Hale.

With every step, the one that followed seem to come even easier. I walked past the rich and the famous and the row of cameras capturing the event for the evening news. A real Cinderella tale, they’d say: a pretty detective from the Bronx finding her billionaire prince. They’d talk about how lucky I was.

And they’d be wrong.

Nathan Hale was the lucky one. He’d found the woman who could love him for all of his strengths and all of his flaws—of which there were many, I reminded myself with a grin. He’d found someone who could satisfy his most secret desires and make his dreams come true.

That was why I was marrying him. I was doing this because every single day, he made me feel like I was worth all of this. Every challenge we faced, big or small, every danger we’d overcome and every dollar spent—I was worth it.

And I couldn’t have loved him more.

His eyes sparkled with the same tears I was holding back as I stepped up onto the platform. The priest said the words that would bind us for all eternity, but I wasn’t paying attention. My whole world consisted only of the one man who had become a bigger part of it than I had ever anticipated. When Nathan whispered his “I do,” it barely even registered. My reply was just as simple, the two words slipping out breathlessly and effortlessly from my lips.

The priest closed his book. I could hear the smile in his words as he said, “You may now kiss the bride.”

We collided, the world melting away in that moment as our lips made their first contact as husband and wife. Everything around us was simply a farce. The fairy tale wedding, the dress and the church and the pretty faces—none of it mattered. The only real thing was this, our love and passion. Nathaniel Hale belonged to me, and I to him, and as our kiss stretched on and on, I was in no hurry to return to reality.

Everything else could have gone to shit. The church could have burned down around us, for all I cared. This was perfection, and nothing could ever compare.

“I love you, Sandra,” Nathan said, his lips finally parting from mine.

“I love you too,” I whispered in reply, smiling as I stared into his glittering eyes. “Now, can we get out of here before these cameras see things unfit for broadcast?”

“What about everybody else?” Nathan said, glancing past me at the crowd as if he hadn’t noticed them before.

“We’re in Paris,” I replied, laughing. “Let them eat wedding cake.”

Everyone in the room erupted into cheers as Nathan lifted me from the floor, my billowing white dress pouring over his strong arms as he carried me to the doors at the side of the cathedral.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Nathan shouted over the noise. “Grab some champagne and enjoy the party!”

The room cheered again as we burst through the doors and into a short hallway leading to a sunlit path. Cold wind bit into me again, now infiltrating from beneath my dress as Nathan carried me outside the church. I shivered in his arms, but quickly found myself thrust into the backseat of a long, black limousine that was waiting for us. The heated seats immediately brought relief to the chills sweeping through me.

Nathan just stood there at the door, letting the cold in as he stared at me, my legs awkwardly kicked up over the seat. I leaned forward, grabbing at his tie and pulling him in through the door, laughing as the chauffeur closed it behind us. Nathan tried valiantly to get the blacked-out divider up as the amused driver looked on. The window was closing too slowly as I ripped at Nathan’s belt, straddling him in my dress and lowering myself around his raging erection.

“Slow down,” he chuckled. “We have all night and if you’re not careful, we’ll have a baby with French citizenship...” He gripped me and moaned, shuddering as our bodies once again came together, though this time felt like it meant so much more than the last.

“You didn’t marry a slow girl,” I playfully replied, rocking my hips and driving him deep within my yearning body. He grunted softly, his hands gliding up my back to pull at the laces holding my bodice in place. “Besides, a marriage isn’t official until you consummate it.”