Page 15 of Baby Proposal
Right. I was generally intending for her not to hear about my mafia goings-on.
“No more emails,” I say instead. “We’re taking the rest of the day off.”
“But I have to work,” she insists. “That’s what you pay me for.”
“Nope. From now on, I pay you to arrange our wedding and have our baby. And we’re getting married this afternoon.”
“You can’t—”
“Sit down.” My tone must be as dark as I feel, since she clenches her teeth but does as I order.
“The wedding. Have you thought about it?”
She swallows and wobbles her head in that way that says,yes, but alsono, and mainlyI don’t want to confess any of this.
“What does our wedding look like, Adi,” I say more gently. “Tell me what you’d like. Diamond ring? Big white dress?” I grasp around, basically doing word association with wedding like I’m in a nineties daytime television game show.
“I don’t need any of that,” she says in a small voice. “I just wish…”
“What?” I demand.
She smooths her hands over her skirt. Those prissy suit-dresses she wears really do it for me.
“I wish my grandmother could be at our wedding,” she says matter-of-factly. “But she can’t.”
“Why can’t she?”
“She can’t get out of bed. And she’s been going a bit loopy. That’s why I have to get pregnant quickly. Before she gets worse.” Adi’s mouth turns down at the corners. “And no, we can’t video call her or whatever. She hates all of that. Won’t even speak to me on the phone.” She tries for a laugh, but it sounds far sadder than I think she’d like me to have heard.
I’m glad I did.
Nothing else matters to me other than Adi’s happiness. If our wedding being attended by her grandmother is important to her, then it’s what will happen. Honestly, who cares about where we get married. The only point of this for me is that she’ll be mywife.
“If she can’t get out of bed, we’ll go to her.”
“That’s sweet.” She gives me a tepid smile. “But a visit afterwards isn’t the same thing, is it?”
“Not afterwards. We’ll get married wherever she is. In her bedroom, if need be.”
“You. A billionaire. Getting married in a care home up north,” she huffs sceptically. “And I don’t think it’s even possible. Definitely not today.”
“For a woman who renovated the whole executive office floor without her boss knowing, you are remarkably lacking in imagination.”
She looks askance at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we have work to do, little one.”
* * *
Adi is a bit scared by the helicopter, which is fine by me as she sneaks close as we take off, and when I slide an arm over her shoulders she eagerly snuggles in. I breathe in the scent of her. Cherries. So sweet.
There’s too much noise to talk as we travel north to her grandmother.
I honestly don’t know what to expect when we’re set down on the lawn of the care home. All I did was snatch the phone from Adi when she’d found someone local and kept saying higher numbers until they agreed to drop everything and organise the wedding. But Adi’s gasp is expressive enough as we walk, my arm still around her waist because I’m a possessive psychopath, towards a walled garden with a large terrace.
Close to fifty older adults are sitting in curved rows facing a gazebo. As we go through the archway into the garden they break into applause and next to me in her white dress, Adi gapes and blushes.
That blush suits her, and I smile.
