Page 98 of Charmed By Destiny

“More like Mom doesn’t want to miss it,” Eric muttered.

“You had everyone when I asked you,” Gabriel replied.

Maribeth walked over and smacked Gabriel’s arm. “No, he didn’t, Gabriel. I was sleeping. I missed the whole fucking thing. Richard had to give me an entire play-by-play that night because you and Eric were otherwise occupied.”

Gabriel’s shoulders sagged. “Sorry, Maribeth, I didn’t mean to exclude you.”

“I forgive you,” Maribeth commented and pulled Gabriel into a big hug. A second later, she whipped to face Luke. “However, I won’t be so kind to the next person in this family who gets engaged without me.”

“You’ll be there,” Luke promised. “I guess everyone can be there. It needs to be romantic too. Richard deserves romance.”

“We’ll get some flowers,” Gabriel said.

“We could get dressed up,” Eric suggested. “I could play the piano.”

“Excellent idea. We’ll fill the room with candlelight,” Rosalind added.

“Champagne would be a nice touch,” David added.

“Absolutely. We could call the pastry shop at the resort and order some delicious things. Nothing too grand, we don’t want anyone to have to scramble.”

Clark pulled out his phone. “Rosalind, what do you want to order? I’ll take care of it.”

“We all love sweets, let them pick whatever they think is best. One of us can pick it up. What else do we need?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Maribeth said as she rushed out of the great room. “Let me go make sure Richard wears waterproof mascara so he doesn’t bitch later.”

“Thanks, Maribeth,” Luke called after her.

“My pleasure, I can’t wait to see his face when he sees that ring.”

“If she keeps yelling like that, she’s going to ruin the surprise,” Eric muttered.

“You go tell her that. If I complain, she’ll give me an entire dissertation on why I couldn’t possibly be right,” Clark complained with a grin that refuted his words.

“Yes, you have such a tough life,” Rosalind drawled. “Anyway, let’s get this evening planned. Lucas wants Richard to have a special moment to cherish forever.”

Luke was delighted and overwhelmed by the fabulous family he had stumbled into thanks to destiny’s choice to give him Richard. He hoped no one would mind if he shed a few tears throughout the day as he prepared to take this enormous, wonderful step toward a future as Richard’s husband.

???

Something was going on. Maribeth wasn’t fooling Richard. He’d been rushed out of the house to spend his entire day shopping, eating, and being pampered. While Richard enjoyed those things, the sheer number of hours they’d spent away from the house raised his suspicions. Lucas reported in his texts that nothing unusual was happening at the house, so what was going on?

Had Maribeth changed her mind about staying in Vegas? Was she buttering him up to give him that terrible news? Or did she have something equally awful to announce? Richard couldn’t come up with anything worse than having Maribeth move away again, but his head was also spinning.

His thoughts weren’t at their best. But Richard said nothing as he was dragged from shop to restaurant, from lunch to dinner. He had been waxed, manicured, and pedicured. His hair was even trimmed. There were bags of shoes, makeup, clothes, jewelry, and a few home décor items piling up in the limousine's trunk.

Richard couldn’t recall the last time he’d blithely spent so much money, and his father would complain roundly. The specter of a parental rant did nothing to stymie Maribeth’s day. As the sun descended behind the tall mountains of the sandy Nevada mountain ranges surrounding the Las Vegas valley, they finally headed home.

Eager to get to the house, Richard’s priority was to apologize to Lucas for his impromptu disappearance that had turned into a day-long adventure. Hopefully, Lucas had eaten dinner and was ready to spend what was left of the evening in their suite so they could enjoy it together. The second the car pulled to a stop, Richard hopped out and rushed to the trunk to gather his purchases.

“Clark is going to bitch,” Maribeth muttered.

“I told you that about twelve times today.”

“Yeah, I got kinda lost in my plans and didn’t realize how much shit we threw in here.”

Richard bumped her shoulder with his. “At least we picked out some fabulous stuff.”

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