Sweet Surrender (28 page)

“There is one more big box out in the car. While I go get it, you pick out your penalty toy, something that intrigues you. Place it in a separate bag on the counter. Everything else I’ll put away for use at my discretion. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“That’s my girl.”

That eased the tension. She trusted Marc to be gentle and make it good. She could tell from his smile that none of this would be a hardship on him in the least.

He kissed her gently, his lips warm as they moved softly. Too soon, he lifted his head. “I’ll be right back with that box.” Easing her off his lap, he stood. “I can’t imagine what kind of sex toy comes in such a big box.” She was about to explain when he stopped at the door and smiled at her. “Some of those toys may need accessories.”

“Accessories?”

“Read the label of whatever you pick out,
cara
. Batteries may not be included. But don’t let that impact your decision, I’ve got a box of double and triple As in the garage.” His wolfish grin was replaced by the closed door.

As soon as he was gone, she grabbed her one non-battery-operated item and put it in a separate bag. Boldly and with cheeks ablaze, she put the massage oil and glass toy in the same bag. She then gathered the rest of the loot and put it in the large cardboard box she’d been saving for recycling. When everything was out of sight except the one silvery gift bag on the counter, she went to refill her coffee.

Cold air rushed in again as he reentered. “I love the name of this dress shop.”

She looked at the elegant box he carried labeled ‘Bella’s Bridal Gallery’ and smiled. Only Marc would call the exclusive bridal salon that specialized in made to order, one-of-a-kind designer wedding gowns, a dress shop.

“Stacy thought it was fate and said I couldn’t get my dress anywhere else.”

“You didn’t tell me you got your dress. I thought you were still searching for the perfect one.”

“My search ended last night. The girls went in together and got that for me as a gift.”

“Really?” His brows arched in surprise. “Isn’t that a strange shower gift? The toys and lingerie I understand, but a wedding gown is an extravagant gift.” He set the box on the now empty dining room table and began to lift the lid.

“No.” Both hands came down on top of the white embossed cardboard. “What are you doing? You can’t see it. It’s bad luck.”

“Baby…” The single word said clearly what he thought of the superstition. “Do you seriously believe that?”

“Well, no, but it will spoil the big reveal. I want to take your breath away when you see it for the first time on our wedding day.”

“You take my breath away every day,
bella mia
.”

She melted a little and moved into his arms, sighing.

“So tell me about this wedding dress. There’s more here than you’re letting on, isn’t there?”

Stiffening, she pulled away. With coffee cup in hand, she went to the kitchen. “The caffeine and aspirin must be working. I’m starting to get hungry, have you had breakfast?”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

As if he hadn’t spoken, she opened the refrigerator and bent low to peer at the contents, her head practically inside. An obvious evasive tactic, but after a night of champagne and tequila she was off her game.

Firm hands on her hips pulled her back enough for the door to swing shut when she was clear. The next thing she knew he sat her on the island in the middle of the room. He leaned in until their eyes were parallel, his hands flat on the counter, flanking her hips, keeping her where he wanted her.

“Jessie, do we need to have another heart-to-heart about trust?”

“No, your heart-to-hearts are more like hand to behind, my behind naturally.”

“If you don’t want my hand laying into your behind, you’d better start talking. What is the story on this dress?”

She sighed. “Stacy went with me to that particular shop. She knew I fell in love with that gown so she and the girls chipped in and got it for me.”

A long silence followed.

“Tell me the rest, Jessie.”

“What rest? I loved it. They got it for me. End of story. Let’s eat now, I’m hungry.”

He crowded her, his hands curling around her bottom and sliding her to the very edge of the counter. She had to spread her legs to accommodate his hips as he leaned in close, his body brushing against hers, their noses almost touching.

“You told me a beginning and an end. Give me the middle,
cara
. If you loved the dress, why didn’t you buy it yourself?”

He’d missed his calling. He should have been an interrogator.

“Why, Jess?”

“It was too expensive.”

His hands flexed around her soft flesh. “How much?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you are not destitute; we can afford a wedding dress.”

“The groom doesn’t buy the bride’s gown.”

“Who says?”

“Tradition says.”

He stared at her intently; a muscle jumping in his clenched jaw caught her eye. Exerting the utmost control over his temper, obviously. She imagined he was processing all of the facts before proceeding; an excellent surgeon, this is what he did with his patients, gathering all the necessary information, weighing the risk and benefits, and then deciding on the best course of treatment. She wondered if his patients felt like she did now, scrutinized and analyzed, like a smear on a slide beneath his microscope.

“Why are you angry about this?”

“How much?”

“It’s a designer gown. I’d have never bought it for myself.”

“I realize that, but that doesn’t answer my question. How much was it?”

“It was almost four thousand dollars.”

He pushed away and pulled his iPhone from his back pocket. His thumbs went to work.

“That’s why I didn’t buy it. It was way too much.”

He ignored her, his thumbs gliding over the screen rapidly.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you have a wedding budget?”

“Of course. Mom and I set one when we started planning months ago.”

“How much did you allow for your dress?”

“Eight hundred plus alterations and accessories, so around one thousand dollars, but I was—”

“What is your total for the whole thing?”

“Um…” She was stalling for real this time. His unyielding stare made her fess up quickly. “Fifteen thousand, but—”

She didn’t know how to take the grunt he made after that answer. Did he think it too much? She had reluctantly agreed for him to pay for the reception—a major expense—because she and her mother had no hope of swinging that. That still left flowers, the cake, invitations, the photographer, bridesmaids’ gifts, and so many other things, it was mind-boggling. The girls going in on her gown was a budget booster.

“How many guests?”

“Well, that depends—

“How many?”

“I’m sending out invitations in two waves. The first wave is the must-be-there list—immediate family, close friends, and VIPs. Then when I get RSVPs—”

“Give me a number.”

She frowned at him. “Why do you keep interrupting me?”

“Why are you avoiding my questions?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Fine. At most there will be two hundred guests.”

He was back on his phone. This must be what the parents of teenagers felt like: interrupting rudely, moodiness, staring at the top of their heads while you’re trying to have a conversation.

“A few facts from The Knot,” he began as he glanced up from his phone. “You’ve heard of this site?”

“Of course, I’m registered at—”

“According to their statistics, the average cost of a wedding gown including alterations is $1500 and the average total cost for a wedding is around $25,000. So to begin with, you were skimping. Isn’t that right?”

She stared at him, waiting.

“Jessica, I asked a question.”

“Oh? Do I get to talk now?”

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m pissed, so I wouldn’t be pushing it right now.”

“My headache is coming back. I’d like to lie down.”

“This won’t take long. Answer me, please.”

“I’m not skimping. What’s wrong with bargain shopping?”

He rolled his eyes and she immediately understood why he hated it so much when she did it to him. It was damn irritating.

“Here’s my take on things. You’ve set a budget that’s significantly less than the national average. You are letting your mother help, when she is dipping into what little savings she has. You know that won’t cut it so you have been working overtime, extra shifts and double shifts to sock away as much as you can. In addition, you accepted, as a gift, a designer wedding dress from your friends, most of whom work as hard as you do, earning no more, and in some cases considerably less than you do. Is that about right?”

Silence enveloped the kitchen.

“Did I figure something wrong?”

“No.”

“Did you know that your engagement ring cost more than your entire wedding budget?”

Her jaw dropped. Stunned, she gaped down at her ring. The large round-cut diamond was exquisite, flanked on each side by three smaller diamonds set in a triangle shape on either side. She loved it, but never in a million years would she have imagined she was walking around with a $15,000 ring on her finger.

“Do you know why I didn’t take you with me to pick it out?” He didn’t wait long for her answer. “Because you’re a penny pincher and would have had a fit. So I got you what I wanted you to have.”

“I’m not a penny pincher.”

“You are. Just last week you and your mom spent half a day at a flea market. You bought two outfits.”

“I got two sweaters and a pair of jeans for twenty-five dollars. They still had the tags on them. What’s wrong with being thrifty?”

“You break out in a cold sweat when we go to the grocery store.”

“I do not!” she protested.

“Baby, you wanted to drive thirty minutes to Costco to save five bucks on frozen shrimp.”

“So?”

“There’s a great fish market not five minutes from the house. With the gas you’d use, it would actually end up costing more.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t get smart.” His warning came as no surprise. He hated flippant answers. ‘Whatever’ ranked right up there with ‘yeah right’ and the totally unacceptable eye roll. “I have to practically beg you to spend my money. That’s why I go shopping with you.”

“I thought you liked going shopping with me,” she said, her lower lip sticking out a bit. Shy of a full pout, she recalled all the good times they’d spent at the mall, often only walking hand in hand, people watching or window-shopping.

“I do, Jess, that’s not my point. I’ve been up front with you about my finances. You know I’m doing very well between the clinic and the hospital. The sports medicine and rehab center will more than likely double its last year’s revenue. My salary is only a fraction of my earnings each year; the majority comes from interest on my investments and my shares in Trent Industries. To put it crudely, I’m loaded. So I don’t understand why you’d let your friends, who can’t afford it, pay for a dress, but you won’t let me when I can.”

Selfishly, she hadn’t thought of the impact to her friends. Maybe it was the booze or the excitement, but she felt ashamed that she’d accepted it now. Her response sounded lame to her own ears. “The bride is supposed to take care of certain things.”

“Tradition again? I have to call bullshit on that. Your mother can’t afford this. Neither can your friends afford to give such an extravagant gift.”

“I think Stacy probably kicked in for most of it.”

He stared at her, arms folded, and she knew he didn’t find that explanation acceptable either. “You’ve been working yourself to a frazzle trying to pay for this wedding, haven’t you?”

“That’s only part of the reason, Marc. I’m responsible for what happens on my unit.”

“I understand that, but you took the job for the extra money in the first place. You don’t have to do any of this, Jessie. I can take care of it all and easily. I want to.”

She bristled at that. “That’s it, don’t you see. I don’t want you to. I want to do it myself. If I can’t, we might as well go to the courthouse like Jared and Stacy.”

He paused, considering her intently. She waited. She was wasting her time trying to explain; he just didn’t get it.

“Why do you even want a formal wedding?”

The question caught her off guard and she didn’t have a ready answer. Tradition popped into her mind first. She’d overplayed that card, obviously. She tried to come up with another answer and realized she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t blame it on her mother; she was anti-marriage, if anything. She frowned.

All of her friends had big weddings and she had a slew of bridesmaid’s gowns to prove it. Growing up when she thought about getting married, she’d always seen herself having a formal wedding, with a dress, attendants, and a church full of people, but she hadn’t obsessed about it as some girls did. Nor did she have an elaborate plan or pore through bride magazines incessantly or Pinterest about it compulsively. It was what was expected, wasn’t it?

The silence dragged on, she knew he was waiting for an answer, but she didn’t have one, not a good one at least. Yes, it was a celebration of their commitment to each other, but that didn’t have to break the bank or cause her to have a nervous breakdown to pull it off, did it?

Needing more time to figure it out, she took a different approach. A tactic that she knew would annoy him, yet she heard herself doing it, answering his question with a question. “I thought you were okay with having a big wedding. Have you changed your mind?”

“I really don’t care about the wedding. I only care about the marriage, about having you as my wife. How we get to that point is up to you. However, I’m not going to let you kill yourself and drain your mother’s savings to do it. I am taking over the financing of this entire event or we’ll call the whole thing off and go to the courthouse, which is perfectly fine by me.”

“But, Marc, it’s okay now. With the dress covered I have enough—”

“Dammit, Jessica! What is going on in your head?”

She snapped her mouth shut. “I was trying to tell you; however, you interrupted again, which is getting to be quite annoying if you must know.”