Page 22 of Savage Love

“It’s your special day. You should be spoiled today. It’s bad enough that it had to be rushed, that it’s going to be an even smaller wedding than we anticipated—you deserve everything you can possibly get. You’re only going to get one wedding day,” she adds, picking up one of the two forks. “So we’re going to start with breakfast and mimosas, a virgin one for you, and then I’ll help you get ready. Niall is off to help Levin.”

I pick at the food, feeling guilty for not eating more, but my stomach is tied up in knots. “What is a virgin mimosa, anyway?” I ask her, and Isabella smirks as I take a sip and realize it’s just orange juice.

“I should have known.” I roll my eyes at her, but it has the desired effect. It makes me laugh and relaxes me a little, because it’s exactly the kind of idiotic prank that she would have pulled when we were just two girls living at home, Ricardo Santiago’s daughters, trying to keep ourselves occupied when we couldn’t go beyond the walls around our house. It feels warm and familiar, and I take another sip, grinning at her as Isabella drinks heractualmimosa.

“What do you want me to do with your hair?” she asks me when breakfast is finished, and I’m sitting in front of the bathroom mirror in my robe, looking at my reflection. “Up? Down? Half and half?”

“Maybe half and half?” I purse my lips, trying to decide. I have no idea what Levin would prefer, and I have no idea if it matters—if he’ll even notice one way or another. “Up feels too severe.”

“I agree.” Isabella fluffs her hands through my thick black hair, considering. “I think we’ll do something to amp up the curl a little, and then I’ll pull the front back with a pretty comb, and we’ll leave the rest loose. It will look gorgeous with your veil.”

My stomach knots all over again at the mention of the veil. Somehow that makes it all feel more real and reminds me that when Isabella is done with my hair and makeup, we won’t just be getting dressed to go out—I’ll be putting on a wedding dress and walking down the aisle to marry a man that is everything I could have ever wanted…and who doesn’t want me in return.

Or, at the very least, doesn’t really want to marry me.

When Isabella is finished with my hair, sliding a gold and sapphire comb into the pulled-back strands at the back of my head, she circles around to stand in front of me, quickly and expertly applying my makeup. When she’s finished, my skin looks perfectly smooth, and my cheeks lightly flushed, a soft rose eyeshadow spread over my eyelids, a thin strip of liner and rose-colored lipstick to match. I look soft and romantic, and something in my chest clenches at the thought that Levin might not care.

That he might look at me and be thinking of how quickly this could all be over with, so he can move on to the next item on the list. The next thing that needs to be taken care of.

I know I’m being cruel, thinking of him like that. Levin has always done his best to be what I need, insofar as what he can actually give me. The problem, of course, is that since the moment he came back—everything he can give me falls so woefully short of what I actually need.

Tears burn at the back of my eyes as I stand up, thinking of tonight. My wedding night—but I have a distinct feeling that it won’t be what I hoped for. I don’t know if we’ll even sleep in the same bed, and if we do, I don’t think Levin will touch me.

He’s been very clear on that point—that our marriage being anything but one of convenience will only make things harder on us both, in his mind. Which leaves us with only two choices—to spend the rest of our lives in frustrated celibacy, or have an open marriage.

Both ideas make me want to cry, for entirely different reasons.

Isabella has my dress out and hanging in front of the closet door, and as I shrug off my robe and find my undergarments while she takes a few pictures of the dress. “We didn’t have time to find a photographer who could do the whole day,” she says, glancing back at me. “But you should have plenty of memories from today.”

I don’t tell her that I’m not sure that I’ll want them. That my heart feels heavy and aching, thinking of how I’m going to exchange vows with someone who would never have married me except out of necessity, of how the pretty white lace panties I’m slipping on will likely go unnoticed tonight, that Levin isn’t going to weep seeing me walk down the aisle or think of how he wants to take my wedding dress off of me later tonight.

Today is likely going to be a day that I want to forget when it’s over. And that makes me feel horribly, achingly sad.

I do my best to hide it, though, as Isabella holds up my dress for me to step into, tugging the sleeveless bodice up over my shoulders and stepping behind me to do up the buttons one at a time. Looking in the mirror, the dress is every bit as stunning as it was when I first tried it on—beautiful embroidered floral lace covering all of it, the neckline a perfect sweetheart, the trumpet skirt sweeping out into a wider short train behind me, satin-covered buttons running from the nape of my neck to the very hem of the skirt. It’s gorgeous and romantic and perfect, and I fight back tears all over again, because I want all of this to be so very different.

Isabella attaches my veil to the comb in my hair, the sheer chiffon falling to my fingertips, edged in fragile eyelash lace. She gives me a once-over as I step into my heels, and then helps me put on the pearl jewelry that our mother had sent her for her wedding as a finishing touch.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue,” she says decisively, stepping back. “You look absolutely stunning, Elena. I still don’t think Levin deserves you, but you make an absolutely gorgeous bride.”

From there, there’s nothing to do but take my bouquet and follow her out to the waiting car, my heart in my throat. The closer we get to the cathedral, the more on the verge of panic I feel, and Isabella reaches for my hand next to me, as if she can hear my racing heart.

She looks beautiful, too, wearing the dark red maid of honor gown that we chose. She’s my only attendant, as Niall is for Levin, and I cling to her hand as the car pulls up in front of the cathedral, stifling the urge to run.

Not because I don’t want to be with Levin, but because I want it so badly that it feels like a physical pain, and I know he doesn’t feel the same way. That if not for the baby that still feels like it’s not even real, today wouldn’t be happening. He would still be in New York, and I—

Connor has made no secret of the fact that he wanted to marry me off to someone else, someone with more status, someone who could not only protect me from Diego but also further their own ends. It did nothing to make me like him more—I hadn’t come to Boston to simply walk into the same fate that would have been the one decided for me back home—but I also know that I wouldn’t have had a choice. I need their protection against Diego, and so does Isabella. Niall would side with his wife, but breaking with the Kings would be no small thing, and he wouldn’t do it lightly. None of us should—I’m smart enough to know that.

The baby made things simple. Levin was willing to marry me, and the pregnancy made it so that as long as he was willing, no one could say otherwise to force me to marry someone else. But at the same time, I can’t find it in me to look forward to what comes next—not when I know how he feels about it.

The nave of the church is cool and smells of incense, a familiar, nostalgic smell. I have a brief flash of memory, especially with Isabella next to me—the memory of us kneeling for the rosary in a church very like this one, of lighting candles for dead ancestors, of saying prayers memorized since we were old enough to speak. The scent and the memory calm me, and for a moment, I no longer feel as if my heart is about to beat out of my chest.

And then the bridal music starts, and I’m flooded with panic all over again.

“Just breathe,” Isabella murmurs, looking at me sympathetically, and then the doors open, and she turns to lead the way down the aisle.

Even under these circumstances, even with Isabella’s caution, the sight of Levin standing at the altar takes my breath away. He looks beyond handsome, dressed in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit that fits him in ways that makes my mouth go dry, a dark red tie at his neck to match Isabella’s dress and the roses in my bouquet. It makes me think of the ring he tried to give me—the rubies set on either side of the diamond—and my throat tightens as I start to walk, unable to keep looking at him as I follow Isabella.

Niall is standing next to him, and his gaze is focused solely on his wife, his face soft with memory as if he’s imagining their wedding day all over again. My eyes well up instantly, because there’s nothing in the world that I long for as much as Levin looking at me like that—with that kind of soft, aching love in his eyes that I’ve never known—and now never will know.

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