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“Very human?”
“He’s a beast in war and business. Today I finally saw him as a real person. The person marrying my daughter.” He wraps his arm around me. “Do brides eat? I hear there is starvation before weddings or that is what Stella told me.”
“Salads and water and is Stella here?”
“She is, but she thought we needed some private time.”
And so we do. We share lunch and talk for two solid hours about his new life and mine. For the first time in longer than I’d realized, I feel connected to my father. In my heart, I want this for Reid with his father, but I know that’s not possible.
“Reid’s father is horrible. He knows it. It hurts him and his siblings. Don’t make them him. They aren’t. You attacked their livelihood and you went at Reid personally. He’s a survivor and why would you want me with anyone who isn’t?”
“Message received. He’ll be my son even if he hates me like he does his own father, but I’ll make him like it.”
I laugh and he walks me home, leaving me for the rest of my wedding eve.
I walk into the door and Reid is there with Gabe by his side. “I’m getting him out of here,” he says. “We’ll wrestle him out if we have to.”
Reid grabs his overnight bag. “I’m going. I don’t like it, but I’m going.”
He walks to me, drops his bag, and tangles his fingers in my hair, kissing me, a long, deep, passionate kiss. “We’ll have phone sex tonight. Technically that won’t break your rule.”
I laugh and Gabe says, “Hey, hey, hey. My ears. And if you do, shut the damn bedroom door.”
“We aren’t doing that,” I say. “No sex at all until tomorrow night.”
Reid presses his cheek to mine. “We’ll see about that, wife.”
My stomach flutters and he pulls back to look at me. “Just testing how that feels on my tongue. And I like it.” He winks and heads for the door.
A few beats later, I’m alone for my wedding eve, but only for the night. After tomorrow I will never be alone again. I’ll be that man’s wife. And he will be my husband.
Chapter one hundred seventeen
Carrie
Once Reid has left the apartment, Cat and Mia show up and bring gifts, dinner, and support. We chat for two hours, and then I’m alone. When I finish my pre-wedding mask and a hot bath, I snuggle into the empty bed that is only empty until Kesha and Nikki join me. My cellphone rings, and with a glance at the caller ID, I see it’s Reid calling, so I pick-up.
“Who wrote these traditions?” he demands. “Because the groom being miserable in a bed that isn’t his own sucks.”
I laugh. “Like you haven’t stayed in a million hotels over your career.”
“And wished for my own bed every time and that was before you were in it.”
“This is good luck. Play the game.”
“There are plenty of games we can play that don’t involve us in different beds.”
I laugh. “And we have the rest of our lives to play them. Go to bed, Reid. You need your beauty sleep.”
“What are you saying? I look like shit or something?”
“Stop,” I laugh again. “Go to bed, my future husband. I need my beauty sleep.”
“You’re beautiful already, baby,” he says. “Let me come home.”
“No. I love you. Goodnight. I’m hanging up.” And I do. I hang up.
My phone buzzes with a text: I love you, too, and I cannot wait to call you my wife.
