Page 26 of Knot Your Bridezilla (High Fructose Corn Syrup Verse #2)

AVRIL

I felt like my heart was going to burst into a million pieces. It was like a pressure was sitting on my chest, and the weight of what I had to do was going to crush me.

I couldn’t do this. I had to do this.

The words of my bitchy sister echoed through my mind on repeat, if you want to get married, and this guy doesn’t want to marry you… then the two of you aren’t compatible. You just want different things.

I was rapidly falling in love with David—it wasn’t even because he had a beautiful face and I enjoyed looking at him—David was respectful and sweet to me.

I’d never laughed so much in my entire life as I had with him.

The way he was so possessive over me… the way that he touched me…

David had carved himself bit by bit into my heart.

I don’t think that I’d ever wanted anyone more than I wanted him. I wanted David more than I’d wanted my ex… more than any celebrity crush, even on one of those movie star alphas, or the rockstar alpha packs and everything.

But my dream was to get married, and the fact remained that David was an alpha. I wasn’t an omega. I would never be an omega. I was never going to have the properly designated vagina that stretched magically to accommodate a knot.

I wanted David so much—that even if I had to… cancel the wedding—I would do it. To be with him, I would wait for him.

But what if he never wanted to marry me?

What if I was good enough to fuck right now, but only until some sweet little omega came along with her perfect floral scent?

What if I threw away the wedding of my dreams… just to be thrown away in turn?

My heart would never recover.

“David… we need to talk.”

Okay, so I might have picked the most awkward time in the history of ever to have this conversation.

The two of us had just had some amazing sex, and we were laying under the covers of his very comfortable bed.

Maybe I should have waited to at least get a shirt on or something…

but it didn’t matter. This couldn’t wait.

The smile faded from his handsome face as David locked all of his attention on me.

I wanted to take the words back as soon as I’d said them. I wished that I’d never have to say what I had to say, that things didn’t have to be this way.

This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair!

Everything with David was so perfect, so why did it have to be wrong?

“Yeah, being with you… this has honestly been the best few weeks I’ve had in my life.

” It was. I’d never had a more attentive partner.

He was more than perfect. Everything from the dates to the sex—nothing had ever been better.

I had never come so hard in my life. Ever.

Not solo with the highest setting on my silicone toy. Certainly not with any other man.

“But I can’t keep seeing you.” I felt like my heart was breaking in my chest as I spoke the words. Hot tears prickled the corners of my eyes, threatening to flow. It was so hard for me to even get the words out, I was practically whispering. “I’ve got to find someone to marry.”

David ran his hands through his hair, swallowing nervously… when had he ever seemed nervous before? “What if I marry you?”

I shook my head. If only… If it were possible to actually marry him… it would be better than my wildest dreams. “But I’m a beta.”

David shrugged as if the biological facts of life didn’t mean anything. “Yeah… and you’re also literally the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”

I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes shut as he told me the sweetest lies.

That we could be together… when he was an alpha, and I was not an omega.

Our designations were as compatible as tomato sauce and gravy.

We fit together like legos and bare feet in the middle of the night.

It was a really simple truth—as much as we were attracted to each other, we weren’t meant to be together.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m gorgeous. How could the two of us work? We’re not biologically made to be together. I’m not going to go into heat for you. I’m never going to be your scent match. My vagina isn’t designed to take a knot.”

Every word I’d been silently whispering to myself the whole time… on all our dates. There. Now I had gone and dragged them all out into the open. All of my insecurities were laid bare at his feet; I was handing David all the ammunition to shoot our relationship dead before it even had a chance.

“If you think that I’m going to change my mind about how I feel about you because of knots… because maybe my fucking penis can’t swell up inside you,” David shook his head slowly. “That’s fucking crazy.”

“It’s not crazy. Being a beta? It’s who I am, and it’s just the way it is.”

“No, you don’t understand. I knew I wanted you from the very first moment I saw you… all those dates that you went on? In my bar? It was killing me every single time that I saw my girl with another guy. It was one of the best days of my life when I finally got to smack some sense into one of them.”

I swallowed down the lump that was steadily building in my throat. Why was David making this hard? When this was already so hard…

“It’s not that simple. You can’t just say that you don’t care about your scent match.”

“Look at me.” David waited until my gaze met his…

as I stared into his kind and beautiful blue eyes.

“I don’t care about scent matches. If you think that I’m going to throw away my shot at love with the woman my heart beats for…

because some other girl might smell really good…

well, you would be dead wrong. I’m not picking someone because of how they smell. I want you. I choose you. ”

My jaw dropped.

What was he saying?

David held my face in his hands, gently caressing my cheeks. He held me as if I were made of glass—like I was precious to him.

“ You are my person. You’re the one for me. If biology says differently, then fuck biology. Fuck what everyone says I should want. I know what I want, and that’s you. You, Avril. In my arms and in my bed every night and at my side every day for the rest of my life.”

“But,” I whispered. This sounded like it was too good to be true. How could I trust it? “When I mentioned how I wasn’t cancelling my wedding… you didn’t sound like you wanted to get married.”

“Yes, I’m not going to lie. It sounds crazy to get married after dating someone for less than a month. It’s stupid and borderline dangerous to marry someone you barely know…” David was shaking his head.

Okay, wow.

I was already torn up with the thought of breaking up with David. This was fine, just eviscerate me a little bit more. Why not?

“But you know what would be really crazy? Paying all those thousands of dollars and planning something you’ve been dreaming about your whole life—then letting it all go without a fight.”

My eyes snapped up to meet his. Was he… did he mean what I thought that he meant?

“You know what? It’s not stupid if it’s what you really want.

This wedding—that’s your truth, even if no one understands it.

There’s nothing stupid about living your truth.

This wedding is everything that you are.

It’s everything that’s important to you.

If this is what makes you feel happy, then I want that for you. I would do anything for you.”

I gasped.

David must have seen that I was still kinda staring at him like he had two heads.

“Wait, stop trying to break up with me for one second—I need to grab something. I’ll be right back.”

Without even stopping to put on some pants, David leaped up, rushing to his desk and rummaging around inside the drawers.

He went as far as tossing some bits of paper aside to the floor in his haste—which totally wasn’t like him.

David was pretty much the polar opposite of hand-towel-horror guy; he was actually fairly clean and well organized.

David grabbed something and then rushed back into the bed, pulling back the covers and reclaiming the spot he’d just left at my side.

“I got this for you.”

But he had a little velvet box in his hands…

“I have never had anything in my life feel more right than I have felt in these past few weeks with you. I’ve felt it in my soul, with every ounce of me, that you, Avril Stryker, you are the one for me.”

He opened the box.

Inside of it was an exquisite marquise diamond ring, with round diamond accents surrounding the center stone… It was breathtaking and sparkling and looked like it was designed for a fairy princess.

“Avril Stryker. Will you marry me?”

He was starting to look a little blurry. Probably because my eyes were filling with tears. “But you said that getting married so soon was dangerous.”

At this point, I needed to shut up. Clearly, the man wanted me, and I wanted him. I was about to take it back and jam the ring onto my finger when David answered me.

“You’re absolutely right. There’s no guarantee that the two of us would work out. There never is with marriages. But if the two of us don’t work out, we have options.”

“Like what?”

“We’ll just get divorced. You can even take half my stuff.”

That startled a laugh out of me.

“It’s not a joke, I mean every word.” David was staring into my eyes like I was his everything. “I love you… say yes.”