A Merry Vested Wedding - Melanie Moreland Page 0,6
He winked. “We’ll save that for another day.” He squeezed hard in warning. “I’ll be watching.”
I sat back, relieved. Addi watched her father with amused adoration. He shook his finger at her. “You behave. You’re too much like your mother.”
She laughed. “Everyone says I’m like you.”
“Then you’d be hitting the books, not mooning over Brayden.”
She smirked and grinned. “I’m a woman. We can multitask.”
He groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
I smiled at the memories. The years that followed. School, work, growing, and learning. Together. We were always together, and neither of us wanted it any other way. Ours wasn’t a typical relationship. It never had been. Growing up together. Falling in love so young. We’d never been in a hurry to get married, because we knew how solid we were. We went to school, although Addi followed in Bentley’s footsteps and left before she got her degree, with the same bug he possessed in that she was bored and was eager to enter the business world. I pushed and worked hard, and at twenty-five, I held my CPA degree. Addi was a young president at the age of twenty-six, but she had earned the title. Bentley was too smart a businessman to entrust the role to anyone who wasn’t qualified—daughter or not.
And today was the day I’d been waiting for since I first kissed her. Our lives had settled enough that we could move on to the next step in our journey—husband and wife. We were ready.
Here in this place I loved. We had all our firsts here. First kiss. First declaration of our feelings. The first time we made love. The day I asked her to marry me. Our entire world was linked to this spot.
And it would continue. Our parents had gifted us a house here. BAM had slowly bought up every piece of land around the area. There was a bustling resort a couple of miles down the road run by a new division in the company. A successful winery run by another department—and where I would marry Addi today. The rest of the land was personal holdings of the company and its directors.
Our house was set away, still overlooking the water, close enough to the main area we were still part of the group, but with a little more privacy. A bluff was a natural wall with an easy access path toward the other grouping of houses. There was room by our place for three other houses—and more space behind us if needed. For some members of BAM, this was a fun place to escape, a weekend getaway, or a place to vacation. For others, it was our home.
I had lived here for a few months, while Addi divided her time between her parents’ place in Toronto and here. Addi amused me with her objections to our living together before we got married, even when I reminded her both her parents and mine had done so.
“We’re not them, Brayden,” she replied, lifting her eyebrows.
“So old-fashioned, Addi,” I teased back. “Let me get this straight. You’ll stay with me in a house our parents gave us on weekends, but you won’t live here until we’re married.”
She had tossed her hair. “The occasional weeknight as well.”
I laughed. “Right. You realize that makes no sense, right?”
“It does to me.”
I leaned close and kissed her. “Whatever makes you happy.”
She cupped my cheek. “You do.”
When she looked at me like that, and kissed me the way she did, I’d give her anything.
I always would.
Chapter 2
Addison
I woke up, throwing back the blankets and getting out of bed, regardless of the fact that the sun wasn’t up yet. I threw on my favorite robe, added a wrap to my shoulders and stuffed my feet into a pair of warm socks. I always felt the cold—not the way my mom did, but more than most people. Layers were my friend. And strangely enough, my favorite season was winter. I had learned to dress properly and not let it stop me.
I headed downstairs, not bothering with lights. My feet knew the way, the incline of the stairs, the layout of the rooms I walked through. I pushed open the kitchen door, not at all surprised to find my dad sitting at the table, a pot of coffee at his elbow. His ever-present laptop was open, but he wasn’t busy typing or reading emails. Instead, he sat at the table, staring out the window. The overhead light glinted on his dark hair, highlighting the shots of gray that