Lana (15 page)

 
I shifted, trying to work him inside of me, but he pulled back.
 

 
“I want you in bed,” he told me, rising.
 

 
We dried off, and he tugged me to the bed, pushing me onto my back, and moving over me.
 
He brought our faces close together.

 
He watched me, his expression almost wary.
 
We stared at each other for a long time before he cupped my face in his big hands.
 

 
“Don’t leave us again, Lana,” he whispered roughly.
 
“Don’t leave
me
.
 
Stay.
 
Please.”
 

 
I shook my head, not understanding, not even letting myself hope that he meant what I longed for him to.
 
“Why, Akira?”

 
“Because I was wrong.
 
I thought I was doing the right thing when I told you to leave the first time, but I was
so wrong
.
 
I thought you’d see the world and that your infatuation with me would evaporate.
 
I thought you were too young and inexperienced to see that.
 
But you were right.
 
I was the one that was blind.
 
I loved you then.
 
I adored the ground you walked on, and nothing has changed.
 
I knew I wouldn’t stop loving you, but I was wrong to doubt you, wrong to think that your feelings would change.
 
I’ve been consoling myself for so long with the idea that even if I was miserable without you, at least you were happy out there somewhere.
 
And now that I know that’s not the case, I can’t bear the thought of you leaving me again.”

 
My heart twisted painfully in my chest.
 
It was hard to imagine that something I had wanted for so long would just suddenly appear before me.
 
It felt surreal, and I just stared at him dumbly for a few long moments.
 

 
“What about the things you said to Milena back then?
 
About me being a family friend with an inconvenient infatuation?
 
Why would you say that if it wasn’t true?”

 
“It’s the only way I could think of to manage her.
 
We were broken up, and she was threatening to hurt you.
 
I knew her threats weren’t idle.
 
I’ve seen her do some pretty awful things, and I couldn’t think of another way to stop her from hurting you.”

 
“I thought you’d forgotten me,” he continued, “until some of your friends stopped by to see me.
 
James and Bianca painted a different picture for me, and when I realized that you hadn’t forgotten about me, I contacted your father.
 
He didn’t know that I intended to get you to stay when I talked him into getting you to come to Maui.
 
In fact, I feel like a bastard for manipulating him, knowing that he probably won’t be pleased to know that you and I are…”

 
I shook my head.
 
Akira had never understood how highly my father regarded him.
 
He was like another son to my father, but Akira had always been too blind to see it.
 

 
“I love you, Lana, and I want you to stay.
 
You said you could never say no to me, and I intend to hold you to that.
 
Marry me
.”
 

 
He hadn’t made it a question, as though he just couldn’t quite do it, and that made me smile even through my tears.
 

 
He wiped the tears away as I nodded tremulously.
 
“Yes,” I said, my heart filling with joy.
 
I hadn’t been lying.
 
I was literally incapable of telling him no.
 

 
He smiled, moving against me, and the relief in his face let me know just how much he’d feared my refusal.
 

 
“I love you,” I said breathlessly, as he pushed himself inside of me.
 

 
“Good,” he murmured roughly, “because I’m keeping you forever.”

 
“I’m planning our wedding, not Tutu and Mari,” I told him some time later.
 

 
He was folded against my back, his hand stroking my hip idly, while we caught up.

 
He kissed the side of my head.
 
“It’s cute that you think that.
 
Let me know how it works out for you.”
 

 
I laughed.
 
“You don’t think I can go toe to toe with your mother and win?”
 

 
“I don’t think anyone can.”

 
“We’ll just see about that.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In the end, it was a compromise.
 
Tutu wanted to plan the wedding in two weeks.
 
I wanted two months.
 
We settled on one.
 
I wanted a smaller ceremony, with family and our closest friends.
 
Tutu thought it was completely rude not to invite the entire island.
 
She was closer to winning that one than I was, though I insisted on a ceremony on the beach at my family’s villa, and I got my way there.
 

 
I made my dear friend Bianca fly in a week before the wedding.
 
Since she’d retired from being a flight attendant to be a painter full-time, we’d taken to calling each other nearly every day.
 
I’d been helping her plan her own wedding, and I thought that it was only fair that she become equally involved in my own special day.
 

 
James, her ridiculously possessive
fiancé
, couldn’t join her for several days, and I picked her up myself from the airport for some one-on-one girl time.
 
Well, as one-on-one as we could get, since she had a full-time bodyguard that tried to follow her everywhere.
 
Considering that she’d been shot just a few months ago, I couldn’t completely blame her crazy future husband for going to such lengths.
 
Two men had died in the attack, and she, her bestie, and her bodyguard had all been shot.
 
I had heard about the whole thing after the fact, when she was in the hospital.
 
I thought of how worried I’d been when I heard about the tragic incident.
 
They’d known she would live by the time I learned of the attack, but I’d rushed to her side, completely distraught.
 
I couldn’t even imagine how James must have felt.
 

 
We hugged.
 
She tried to pull away first, but I held on tight.
 
“Thank you so much for coming,” I said into her good ear.
 
“I know it must have been a fight.
 
Is James still having a hard time letting you out of his sight?”

 
She laughed, and I pulled back to look at her.
 
Her hair nearly covered the quarter-sized, pink scar back near her jaw.
 
It still made me want to cry every time I saw it.
 
Not because it looked that bad, but because I’d heard the story of how it had happened, and the thought that we had come so close to losing her was still a tender wound for me.
     

 
The scar got to me, but Bianca seemed completely over it.
 
She didn’t try to hide it, or show it off.
 
It was as though she’d already forgotten about it.
 
Even the hearing aid that she’d had to adopt didn’t seem to affect her, and I’d only heard her complain one time about the fact that she hadn’t been able to eat solid food for over a month after the attack.
 

 
I’d made a comment once about the fact that a traumatizing incident that would have defeated most people seemed to have barely affected her.
 

 
“We were so lucky that it’s hard to sweat the small stuff anymore,” she’d responded with her little shrug.
 
She was just like that, weathering storms in that quiet way of hers.
 
She fascinated and impressed me in so many ways, because she was both one of the most soft-spoken, and one of the strongest women that I’d ever met.
 

 
“Jackie tried to come with me,” she told me, as we walked to my car.
 
“I had to put my foot down.
 
I wanted some time with just the two of us, but I guarantee she’ll be here within two days.”

 
I smiled.
 
I could tell by her tone that Jackie was growing on her.
 
“And how many days do you think James and Stephan will stay away?”

 
She pursed her lips, taking the question more seriously than I’d intended.
 
“I predict they’ll come together, and if they don’t show up by tomorrow, I’ll be surprised.
 
I actually think that Stephan will be the one to egg James on, because James is afraid he’s been too smothering since the attack, and Stephan would never think of it that way.
 
The only girls’ time we’re guaranteed is today, most likely, so what should we do before my boys crash the party?”
 

 
I laughed at her matter-of-fact tone.
 
She didn’t sound a bit put-out about it, either, which was good, because I couldn’t imagine James becoming less possessive of her time in the near or distant future.
 

 
“Well, we need to stop by for a last dress fitting.
 
It shouldn’t take too long, so how about an afternoon at the spa?”

 
“Sounds like a plan,” she said easily.
 

 
We met Mari at the bridal shop.
 
She was my maid-of-honor, and Bianca was a bridesmaid, but it was the first time the two of them had met.
 
I was relieved but unsurprised when they got along right off the bat.
 
Neither were the type to cause drama.
 

 
I tried on my short silk wedding dress, pleased with the fit.
 
It was a simple design, and perfect for the beach.
 
I couldn’t have been happier with how it had turned out.
 
It hugged my curves in a flattering way, showing my legs off to advantage.

 
Mari and Bianca tried on their light blue silk dresses.
 
They were designed very similarly to my wedding dress, and both of the stunning women were suited to the look, if in very different ways.
 

 
“Have the other bridesmaids pay me a visit as soon as they get into town,” the dressmaker told me as we left.
 
The fitting hadn’t taken more than a half an hour.
 
“The sooner the better.”
   

 
I nodded that I would.
 
Sophia and Jackie weren’t due in town for three more days, but I would pass the message along.

 
We spent a long, lazy afternoon at the spa, Mari joining us as we caught up on every little thing.
 
Tutu showed up within an hour of our arrival, and Bianca and I good-naturedly gave up on a day of one-on-one time.
 
There was plenty of time for that later, when we weren’t in the midst of wedding madness.

 
I could tell right away that Tutu liked Bianca, but that she liked messing with her, too.
 

 
“You aren’t another tall blonde woman that’s here to steal our local men, are you?”
 
Tutu asked Bianca with a glare, as we had our toes done.
 
“Around here, we smack the nerve right out of white girls for doing that.”

 
Bianca wasn’t intimidated, as Tutu had been expecting.
 
Instead, she threw her head back and laughed.
 
She pointed at Tutu, still smiling.
 
“I’ve heard all about you, Tutu.
 
Lana warned me that you might call me a haole and give me a hard time.
 
I’m ready for you.
 
But you don’t have to worry about me stealing any men.
 
I’m engaged, and he’s not a local, though when you get a look at him, you’ll still probably want to smack me.”

 
Tutu grinned back at her.
 
“You’re another sassy blonde girl.
 
I like that.”

 
I was relieved.
 
When Tutu decided to dislike somebody, things got a little too interesting.
 
I could only hope that she wouldn’t take exception to any of my other bridesmaids.

 
Bianca was staying with me at my family estate, since it was the location of the wedding, and there was plenty of room for all of the mainland bridesmaids and groomsmen.
 
Akira and I hadn’t even considered the idea of sleeping separately until the wedding, so he was staying there with me, as well.
 

 
He met us the second we all came, laughing, through the front door of the villa.
 
He was smiling.
 
I quickly saw why as two men appeared behind him.

 
Stephan didn’t hesitate, striding forward with a smile to embrace a startled Bianca, and then me.
 
He politely introduced himself to Mari and Tutu while I glanced at James, who was still hanging back, studying Bianca with a wary look.
 
I glanced at her.