Every little girl grew up dreaming about her wedding day. We dressed up in poofy white dresses, strung decorations over everything, and said our “I dos” to our teddy bears, Barbies, or the poor neighbor kid who had gotten stuck playing with us that day.
Or at least, I’d heard that was what little girls were supposed to do. Several movies had sequences about it in them and countless books I’d read described exactly that.
Maybe I’d skipped that phase of my development because I’d never done any of that as a child. I’d spent my days pretending to be a big-shot executive. I dressed up in some of my grandmother’s finest suit jackets and shoes and used my grandfather’s post-it pad as a checkbook.
Our neighbors’ kids didn’t get stuck marrying me. They simply had to work for me.
My christening gown had been the last poofy white dress I’d owned before this one. Frankly, I’d rather have been christened in a well-fitted corporate outfit rather than the frilly monstrosity my mother picked out for me.
“Fifteen minutes, everyone!” The wedding coordinator clapped her hands from the doorway of the bridal suite. “Only fifteen more minutes to go.”
Ember, my best friend, maid of honor, and walking beacon of skepticism about any man I’d ever dated, downed the last of her champagne. “Are you sure you’re ready to become Lindsay Cummings?”
She snorted when she said Will’s last name—again—and applied a layer of gloss to her lips. Her burgundy gown had so many layers of tulle that it covered her all the way up to her chest when she sat with her knees crossed like she was doing then.
I cast a critical eye at my own appearance in the mirror, trying to come to terms with the fact that I looked like a fairy-tale princess gone horribly, horribly wrong. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”
“As many times as it takes to make sure you really want to do this.” Her hazel eyes found mine, and in the reflection of the full-length mirror, I could see the worry darkening them. “We’re wearing the equivalent of an explosion in a princess-dress factory in some third-world country. Was that really what you wanted to wear on your wedding day?”
“I wouldn’t know. I never thought about it.” The dress was a disaster though. There was no way around it. “You know how much it means to Will that we’re wearing his mother’s designs.”
She snorted and reached for another glass of champagne from the tray sitting on the coffee table in front of her. “I love you, but these aren’t designs. They’re her hobby and she’s not very good at it.”
The mis-stitched lace on my bodice agreed with her. As did the uneven hem and the fact that I had a ribbon tying the back of the dress together instead of the buttons we’d planned.
I hadn’t even picked up any weight to have caused the change of plans. In fact, I’d lost a ton in the run up to this day. My fiancé’s mom and wedding-dress maker had simply realized she didn’t know how to neatly sew buttons onto a dress if they weren’t the ordinary type of button.
I sighed, turned away from the mirror, and snagged a glass of champagne for myself.
“It was important to him. Despite what you might think about him, Will is a really nice guy. He deserves to have whatever he wants on his wedding day.”
“And you don’t?” She rolled her eyes at me. “All I’m asking is if you’re sure this is really what you want. Will can be as nice a guy as he wants to be. It still doesn’t mean you have to marry him.”
“We’ve been together for a year. We’re both thirty-one. It’s time to get married.” I took a swig of the sickly sweet sparkling wine masquerading as champagne in the glass. “I’ve spent my life getting to where I wanted to be in my career. Will was the right guy at the right time and you know it.”
So what if I didn’t feel butterflies when I looked into his pale green eyes? Butterflies weren’t real anyway. No one really felt them. They were the figments of the imaginations of people who took creative license for a job. Period.
Ember shook her head. “He was a guy at a time. I don’t know anything about the right part of either of those two statements.”
I sank into the plush armchair opposite hers. At least the hotel we’d chosen for