Page 60 of Forever Mr Black

“Things have moved on. And I think you’d be perfect.” He shrugs, as if it were no big deal.

“The deputy role is one thing; this is another.” I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Is this another one of your attempts to distract me?”

His brow creases in confusion. “Why would I want to try and distract you?”

I fold my arms. “Because I’m fucked off with you.”

“How do you mean, distract you, and why are you fucked off with me?”

“Where do I start?”

“How about at the beginning?”

“Okay then, how about the small matter of you booking a date here for our wedding without speaking to me about it first?”

“Mmhmm. I was wondering when you’d notice that.” Art thoughtfully strokes his fingers across his chin.

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” I cry, flailing my arms around like a crazy woman.

Art walks over to me. “Calm down.”

His comment is a red rag to a bull.

“No, I won’t bloody calm down. This is you all over. Bulldozing your way through. You mentioned getting married here without talking to me. The first I heard about it was when you decided to drop it in front of my parents at our engagement party.”

“I merely suggested it.” He rests his hands on my shoulders in an attempt to calm me.

I look away, shaking my head. He’s not getting round me that easily.

“If you really don’t want to get married here, that’s fine. We won’t. All I know is that time’s ticking on, and we haven’t even looked at venues yet. If we want to get married in December, we need to book something now, and I don’t want us getting married somewhere we don’t really like. I booked the date here, so we’ve got this place as an option. I’m conscious we’re running out of time.”

“We’re only running out of time because you want to get married in December. If we push back the date, we won’t be running out of time,” I snap.

“I want us married by the end of the year,” he says flatly, rubbing his thumbs over my shoulders in small circles.

My thoughts are thrown back to something Lucy said at the party about him not being able to wait to start a family. I feel uneasy. “You can’t keep trying to take over things. You can’t do that in a relationship. Everything can’t be your way or the highway. Have you never heard of the word compromise?”

He juts out his chin and shakes his head with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “No, never.”

I’m not in the mood. “I’m serious. You need to listen to what I want too.”

“If you’re really against getting married here, then we—”

“No, I’m not,” I cry in frustration and take a step back, out of his grasp. “This is a lovely place to get married, but that’s not the point. The point is, you’re taking over again, trying to push things and get your own way, and I’ve had enough.”

Serious eyes hold mine. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk about the venue and the date. I shouldn’t have booked it without speaking to you first.”

I hear his apology but carry on because he needs to know how I really feel. He can’t control us. “I know you see getting married as a chance to start afresh, but you can’t keep behaving like this. I know it’s how you deal with things, but it’s not the right way. It’s about what I want too.”

“Of course it is.”

“Well then, start acting like it.” I fold my arms. “It’s like you push ahead without giving a second thought to how I’ll feel.”

He frowns. “That’s all I think about.”

I give him a hard stare. “It doesn’t seem like that. In fact, if that’s true, it suggests to me you don’t know me very well at all. You’ve done it with the wedding. What’s not to say you won’t do it with us starting a family?”

“What?”

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