Lovestruck Forever (32 page)

I
met his eyes in the mirror over the vanity. “Any regrets?”

He
narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. “Not a single one.”

***

Thomas
drove me to the church. He was going to spend the day with my dad and
brothers, watching a soccer game at some bar, before he and my dad
joined us for the opening of gifts. He had initially argued that he
would feel out of place at a party of all women, but Maria had
growled that it was the way we always did things, and he never said
another word about it.

“Can
I walk you in?” he asked.

“Please
do.”

The
basement room was decorated almost identically to the way we had done
it for Laura, and that was just fine with me. It felt comforting
knowing that Maria’s bridal shower had been just like this, as
had the showers of so many of my cousins. Sometimes being a part of
such a long line of tradition was very nice.

“This
looks great,” Thomas enthused, kissing each of my sisters on
the cheek before bending over to nuzzle Maia. He had been adorable
with the baby ever since the movie had wrapped and he’d come
home. I was starting to get that broody feeling, the scarily powerful
desire to see him hold a baby of our own. I kept having to remind
myself that there would be plenty of time for that. First, we had to
get through my book release and the subsequent tour, plus the
premiere of
Earth’s
End
and the upcoming
Darkness
shoot. Not to mention the wedding itself. And the renovations we’d
just begun on the Hampstead house. A baby could wait. For now.

“I
told you the white was perfect,” Sofie said, coming up behind
me with a glass of punch. She looked down at the pink liquid. “Though
maybe not the safest bet with the punch.”

“I’ll
be careful.” I took the punch with one hand, hugging her with
my free arm. She was really starting to show now, and she looked
pretty cute. She’d moved back in with her parents shortly after
Laura’s baby was born, and though she claimed they were
constantly driving her crazy, it was for the normal family stuff that
always drove us crazy, and not related to her pregnancy or her bare
ring finger.

“You
should get out of here,” she told Thomas. “All the old
bitty aunts will be here soon, and they’ll just be all over you
for being so cute.”

He
leaned down to brush his lips across mine. “Have fun, love.”

“I
will. See you in a few hours?”

“I’ll
be here.”

It
was a typical family shower. There was good food, lots of visiting,
and the requisite embarrassing games. All in all, I couldn’t
have asked for a nicer party. When Thomas and my dad showed up, all
the ladies applauded, and my fiancé, the world famous actor,
actually blushed at the attention.

He
was a great sport about opening presents. He oohed and aahed over
each and every dishtowel and place setting. And when I opened the box
containing my grandmother’s crystal punch bowl, he let me bury
my head on his shoulder while I cried, and made jokes to take the
attention off of me.

But
it wasn’t until much later that he really showed me what kind
of man I was marrying. Much as we had done after Laura’s
shower, we loaded up all of the gifts into several vehicles. I
expected my parents to invite us over for dinner, as was our custom
after a family event, and was shocked when they instead announced
they’d be coming to our place to drop off the gifts and eat
with us there. I gaped at Thomas’s knowing wink. “You
knew about this?”

“I
invited them,” he whispered in my ear. “Your brothers,
too. And I told them how much it would mean to you for them to see
our place before we moved.”

I
shook my head, still shocked. They had never come to our house in all
the months we had been there, a tacit reminder that they may have
given their blessing for our wedding, but they still didn’t
approve of the way we chose to practice our relationship.

It
was strange at first, having them all there. I had come to think of
the house as a little Thomas bubble, the place where we existed
together but outside of the rest of my family, Sofie’s
temporary stay notwithstanding. By the time Maria started loading my
dishwasher after dinner, I decided I liked them being there, strange
or not. Having them in our life like this was something I could get
used to.

“Lizzie,”
Thomas said after everyone had finished eating the leftover shower
cake. “You have one more present to open.”

“I
do?”

He
nodded and I realized that everyone in the room had stopped talking
and was watching us. I wondered if they were in on this, and then,
with a thrill of excitement, I realized that this could be it, the
big surprise he had refused to tell me another word about. After all
the drama over Franny had calmed down, I started asking him about my
surprise at random intervals, hoping I could catch him off guard and
get the information. So far, he had flatly refused to share a single
detail.

“Here,”
he said, placing a square wrapped present on my lap. I tried not to
frown down at it. It certainly didn’t look very exciting. What
kind of massive surprise could be in a box like this? When I
hesitated, he placed a hand on my knee and squeezed. “Open it.”

I
slid the thick ivory paper away from the box and opened the top.
Nestled in tissue paper inside was a plain leather book. A photo
album? I shot Thomas a questioning look before pulling it out.

“Look
inside.”

I
flipped open the cover to see what appeared to be a scrapbook page.
There were several photographs of flowers—flowers that looked
very much like the ones we had chosen for the wedding. Beside the
photos was a pink invoice. “What—?”

“Keep
going.”

The
next page was a picture of the cake Imogen and I had looked at in
London. The invoice on this page was yellow.

The
rest of the book contained assorted other invoices and receipts, for
catering and a DJ and a photographer and a string quartet. One page
was an assortment of menus, another a list of possible songs for a
ceremony. The scrapbook contained pretty much everything you could
need for a wedding. There was only one problem—I had never seen
any of these invoices. Had never heard of the DJ or the string
quartet. It was like Thomas had collected all the evidence of someone
else’s wedding.

“Thomas,
what is this?”

“One
more page, love.” He flipped to the last page of the album, and
I realized I was staring at a wedding invitation. It looked just like
the invitations we had sent out for our wedding—the same paper,
same typography.

“Just
read it.”

Mr.
and Mrs. Medina request the honor of your presence…daughter
Elizabeth Medina…son Thomas Harper…St. Mark’s
Church, London England
.

I
stared at the paper, confused and oddly close to tears. “I
don’t…” I looked up into his familiar green eyes.
“Thomas, I don’t understand what this is.”

“We
planned two weddings,” he said. “For you. One here, one
in London.”

I
just stared at him, the words not sinking in. “What do you
mean—two weddings?”

“We
wanted you to choose, Lizzie,” my mom said from my other side.
I turned to gape at her. Did she have tears in her eyes? “Thomas
told us that you wanted to get married in London but didn’t
want to hurt any of us by not having the wedding here at home. We all
realized that we didn’t want you to make a decision like that
because of what
we
wanted. It’s
your
special day.”

“So
we’ve been helping Thomas to plan another wedding in London,”
Samuel added. “This whole time he’s been over there
shooting the movie.”

“But…but…two
weddings?”

“And
you don’t have to worry about wasting money or anything,”
my dad said. “Because whatever you decide, we’ll still
have both. One will just be a party, and the other will be the
official ceremony.”

“That
way you can celebrate with all the people you love, no matter what
you decide,” Laura finished.

What
you decide
. Those were
the words my dad used, too. “What do you mean what I decide?”

“You
get to choose, Lizzie,” Thomas said. “That’s what
we want—what we all want—for you to choose where we get
married.”

I
still felt shocked, like their words just couldn’t sink into my
sluggish brain. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because
we knew you wouldn’t believe it,” Maria said, and I
realized it was the first time she had spoke since Thomas had brought
out the gift. “If we had told you that we didn’t care
where the wedding was, you would have thought it wasn’t true.
You would have thought we would be secretly upset or judging you, or
whatever.” Her eyes met mine across the room. She looked part
apologetic, part sad, and very much sincere. “We thought if you
could see all the work we put into the London wedding, you would
realize that we really were okay with it. Because we
are
.”

“We
are, Lizzie,” my mom agreed, reaching for my hand. “We
really are.”

I
looked back at the book in my hand, at the proof that they had put
more effort into making me happy than I could possibly imagine. I
thought of all the work they had done for the wedding in Detroit, all
the errands they had run with me, all the vendors we had visited. The
time and the money and the love they’d put forward.

And
now I knew that they had done it
twice
.

The
tears came so quickly I had to cover my face. I couldn’t
believe they had done this, that they’d managed to keep it a
surprise all these months. That they’d all been in on it.

“Are
those happy tears or sad tears?” Carlos asked and I could only
shake my head, helpless. Thomas slipped an arm around me, bending his
head close to whisper in my ear.

“We
all love you, Lizzie. We just want you to be happy.”

I
looked up, looked around at all of them—my too big, too loud,
too bossy, wonderful family, and I knew it was true.

“How
can I ever thank you for this?” I asked, covering my face
again.

I
heard my brothers and Sofie laugh and Thomas squeezed me tighter.

“You
can help me meet some hot European babes while we’re in the
UK,” Matias offered, and I heard the telltale smacking sound of
Maria slapping his chest.

My
mother reached out and took my hands from my face, looking me
straight in the eye. “All you have to do is be happy, Lizzie.
With whatever you choose. That’s all we want.”

I
looked from my mom to the rest of my family. Dad, smiling at me. I
remembered his words about accepting Thomas in New York. Laura at his
side, rocking the baby, also smiling at me. Samuel, who’d liked
Thomas from the start. Matias and Carlos, who were now arguing over
who could get the hottest girls overseas. Sofie, rolling her eyes at
me, her hand on her swollen belly. And Maria, sitting at the back of
the room, her gaze steady and unwavering.

And
beside me, his arm firmly over my shoulders, loving me more than
anyone had a right to be loved, Thomas.

“I
don’t think being happy will be a problem,” I whispered,
ducking my head to his shoulder, so overwhelmed I could barely speak.
“I don’t think it will be a problem at all.”

I
married Thomas Harper in front of fifty of our closest friends and
family in a small brick church in Kentish Town, London.

As
I confided in my mother before the ceremony, the location was
particularly appropriate. After all, he had first demonstrated his
commitment to me by joining me for worship in this very church when I
had just moved to London. What better place to promise that
commitment for the rest of our lives?

Though
the wedding had been planned by others, every detail was exactly what
I would have chosen for myself. Of course, it helped that Imogen had
been taking detailed notes of everything I liked during our wedding
window-shopping day so many months ago. I was confident, however,
that they would have been able to do just as well without that
insight. The wedding had, after all, been planned by the people who
loved me best in the world.

“How
do you feel?” Sofie asked, speaking to my reflection in the
mirror.

“I
feel good.”

“Not
nervous?”

I
wanted to laugh. What did I have to be nervous about? There was
nothing in the world that I was more sure of.

“I
feel more anxious than nervous,” I told her. “Anxious to
get started already.”

She
turned away from the mirror to check the clock on the wall. “Not
long now.”

I
gave myself a last glance in the mirror before standing. Thomas had
originally hired a hairstylist and makeup artist to come help me get
ready, but I decided I wanted the day to proceed with as few outside
influences as possible. Besides, between Sofie and Callie, I was in
good hands. In fact, I was pretty sure I had never looked better.

I
wasn’t the only one. “You’re gorgeous, Sofie,”
I told my cousin. “Seriously.”

I
expected some quip about her shape, about the pregnancy ruining the
line of her dress, and was surprised when she smiled instead,
smoothing out her wine-colored skirt. “Thanks. The dress is
pretty flattering for my preggers figure.”

“You’re
not kidding,” Laura said, joining us in the dressing room. Two
months postpartum, and she pretty much had her figure back. The
Grecian draping of the bridesmaid dresses helped cover anything she
might still be uncomfortable with.

“You
guys done with the pictures?” I asked.

“Yup.
They’re finishing up with the guys now. Everyone was right
behind me.”

As
if on cue, Bryony, Maria, Callie, and my mother entered the room. The
wedding photographer had been pulling us out in groups to take some
pre-ceremony shots. Their return was another sign that we were
getting close.