Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
“Oh, I’m making a list,” he assured me, and though our words mimicked the companionable banter we were used to, it all rang hollow.
I couldn’t understand why a simple piece of paper worried him so much. Buying a multi-million-dollar house and putting my name on the title? No big commitment. Standing up in front of our family and friends and admitting we loved each other and wanted to spend our lives together? Unthinkable.
The fact that he thought I was too young, that the age gap I’d thought we’d overcome had resurfaced just when it seemed our relationship was in the clear, made no sense to me. It had come from out of the blue. The fact that we couldn’t fight about it at the moment—no matter how angry I was, I was more concerned about Emma’s big day going smoothly—only made everything worse. I tried to read into his every word and gesture, like I could predict the outcome of whatever argument we’d end up having.
I didn’t think Neil would actually break up with me, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t hurt or betrayed enough to dump him. I didn’t need to be married. I’d never planned to. It really was an outmoded institution; one that had more to do—in my mind—with tax filing statuses than anything else. But I worried that if we called off our engagement, that would be the beginning of a long, torturous slide to the end.
What was strange about the whole thing was that, until he’d proposed to me, I would have been perfectly happy to keep going along the way we had been. But his doubt now seemed like a rejection. Or yet another case of him thinking he knew what was best for me, and not including me in decisions about our life.
The restaurant Emma and Michael had chosen was not the place I would have expected a billionaire’s daughter to have her wedding rehearsal dinner, but it was the place where they’d had their first date. The walls of exposed brick and the hanging light fixtures of opaque amber glass marked it out as a trendy, but relatively inexpensive, place, the kind I would have gathered at with coworkers.
When the drinks were served and the toasts underway, Michael stood up and thanked everyone for coming. “Maybe I should say that when Emma and I sat at that table, right over there,” he pointed to a corner booth, “I had no idea that this intelligent, beautiful woman would one day be my wife. But I knew. I knew that she was the one.”
There was a round of “awww!”s from the table. Even Neil looked moved by the sentiment. He might also have just been tired. We’d been out to JFK early that morning to greet his family, his brothers and their wives, his sister, and his mother, Rose, when their private jet had arrived, and we’d spent most of the day with them. It had been lovely to spend time with them and get to know them better, but it had also been exhausting, especially since we’d been maintaining this whole we’re-not-mad-at-each-other facade.
Michael stopped, choked up with emotion. He laughed and rubbed at an eyebrow with his thumbnail. “Okay, I’m going to stop being sentimental, before she kills me. But I just want to say… Thank you, Ms. Stern and Mr. Elwood, for raising the coolest woman on the planet. When she walks down that aisle tomorrow, I think I’ll have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
“When she walks down the aisle?” Rose leaned over to ask Neil in what she considered a whisper. “Aren’t you walking her down the aisle?”
“No, Mother,” Neil whispered back, hushing her.
For all the excitement of the evening and the romantic toast, Emma’s eyes were hollows, her smile frozen.
Michael was still beaming from ear to ear. “I won’t go on longer, but I just want to say, Emma, you have made me so happy. And I know we’re going to continue to be happy as we build our new life together. Cheers.”
“Cheers.” Neil raised his glass along with everyone, and I saw the tightness in his jaw. This was so hard for him, and I was powerless, because things were so strained between us that I didn’t know what comfort I could offer him without overstepping some line.
As the wait staff served the salads, Rose spoke up. “What’s this? What’s this nonsense? Neil, you’re not really going to let her do that, are you? A father has to give his daughter away.”
A hint of a smile crossed Neil’s lips. “I don’t see how it’s my choice, Mother. It’s Emma’s wedding, not mine.”
“Elizabeth, your father walked you down the aisle, didn’t he? Did you tell Emma?” Rose called to me, pointing a stern finger across Neil’s body.