Page 111 of Darling
After Parsons, he’d gone to work at Maje; now he worked a fourteen-hour, six-day week for one of the busiest fashion houses in France and had somehow still found the time to make this for me.
“Tourne-toi.” I turn, and he stands, pin between his lips as he draws a very keen eye over every inch of me. One nod and he flicks his hand toward the mirror. Sucking in a breath, I go towards the full-length in the corner of the suite. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“How have you done this?” I gape. “Aksel, this is insane.”
“I will fix the hem tonight,” he says in French. “But it looks how you wanted, yes?”
“Better. It looks way better.” Am is right, Christian mightactually have a heart attack when he sees me in this. It’s a two-piece suit rendered in pure white lace, bold but elegant, bridal as fuck, but make it gay. The blazer is a touch oversized, which I wanted, but with a silk lapel and deep-V neckline—I plan to wear nothing underneath. Do I give a shit that we are having an outdoor wedding in Scotland? No, I do not. The Solstiss lace has a delicate floral pattern and a subtle transparency on the sleeves that shows the skin. The matching pants are not transparent, but slim-fitting and tailored, and flow seamlessly from the jacket. I plan to wear a long, thin necklace bearing the letter ‘C’, which will drape low in the V.
“I fucking love it. My god, thank you so much.” I realise I’m fucking crying when Amata thrusts a tissue at me.
“It was my pleasure.” Aksel smiles, coming to rest a hand on my shoulder. “You look beautiful, friend. He is a lucky man.”
“Damn right,” Amata concurs. “He better worship the ground you walk on for the rest of his damn life, baby. Actually, he already does… never mind, stand down, team.” She gives me a loving smile, tears shining in her eyes.
Careful not to disturb Aksel’s pins, I remove the jacket and slip out of the pants, handing them to him to scurry off and sew the thing by hand, it looks like. Amata and I, and Aksel, are staying in a hotel tonight while Christian and his parents, Gael, Felix, and Nico, finish setting up the house. There isn’t much to do—it’s an extremely small wedding—and I’d made a lot of the bits and pieces myself already, like the bouquet for myself and Am, Christian, Felix, and Leo’s buttonholes. Though Leo hadn’t arrived last night when he was due to, and it looked unlikely he was going to show after all. Christian is devastated, but trying not to show it. His parents had turned up and been as lovely as he promised me they’d be; his mom had hugged me tightly and called me extremely pretty and told me she’d always wanted a second son and that I should call her Mum. I’d burst into tears,and she’d had to hug me again. I would die for her, truly. His dad was a little more reserved but had kind eyes and a soft manner that reminded me a lot of Christian.
I don’t know what to do with all of the happiness bursting through my skin. I’m not sure I deserve this amount of unconditional love, but I’ll sure as shit take it.
The following morning, we get up early and have a soak in the hotel hot tub and spa before heading back to the suite to dry off. “You nervous?” Amata asks as she refills our champagne glasses. We’d already had a mimosa with breakfast, and I’m wondering if I should get married every damn day.
“Not at all. Is that weird?”
“I don’t think so. When you know, you know, right? He makes you happy, treats you like a princess, and in approximately”—she looks at her watch—“three hours, you’ll be his in holy matrimony until death do you part. All your dreams are coming true, baby, and you deserve it.”
I lean in to snuggle against her. “I don’t know if I deserve it, Am, but yeah, they are.”
“Hey.” She glares. “I don’t know a single person who deserves it more, so you say that again and you will catch these hands.”
“Okay,” I concede. “I really wish Theo had been able to make it.”
“Yeah, same.” He’d called us last night from Hawaii, drunk on the beach with a bunch of friends. He’d gone out to work there with his brother in a scuba diving school, and since it was high season for tourists, he couldn’t get away to come. “But we’ll send him lots of pics, and I said I’d call him during the vows.”
“Ha ha, you did? God, the vows. Should I read over them again?”
“No, because they’re perfect.”
“Okay. They’re perfect.”
We lapse into comfortable, dreamy silence for a few moments on the huge bed. “Am?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you’re here. That you’ll be walking with me down the aisle, I hope you know how much I love you. You’re like family to me, and I don’t have a lot of that left.”
“I do know, sweetie, and I love you, too. And I feel the same, which is why I hope you’ll walk me down the aisle when I do this.”
I don’t get it right away, but then I sense something in the air, and I spring up, eyes wide. “He asked you?!”
She nods, biting back an enormous smile. “Yeah.”
“Oh my god, I’m so fucking happy for you. Oh my god.” I throw my arms all the way around her, champagne sloshing everywhere. “When? When did he ask?”
“Um, the night before we left, we were at dinner, and he just… did it.”
“Why didn’t you call me?!”
“Because I wanted to tell you in person, and then on the flight over, I wondered if I even should. I worried that it might be like stealing your thunder, but I didn’t wanna keep it in anymore.” She looks so fucking happy, so beautiful, and so happy, and it only makes me even happier.