All of Me (Inside Out #5.5)(38)

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” He drapes his arm over my shoulders and we walk across the bridge to return to the chateau, and I’m touched by how selfless this man can be. He has money and power and fame, but he never thinks about only himself.

We enter the dining room to find Katie and Mike still sitting at the table, worry on their faces. Chris and I take off our coats again and sit down.

“Everything okay?” Katie asks.

“Yes,” Chris replies. “I just had a little walk down memory lane.”

“Memories aren’t always easy,” Mike replies.

“No,” Chris agrees, “but they make us stronger.”

I’m reminded of what he told me about Chantal, about how we’re the sum of our broken pieces.

Chris lifts his glass. “Let’s toast.” Everyone lifts their glass, and he says, “To making roses—”

“Out of wildflowers,” Katie finishes.





      Part Twelve



   Just You and Me





The weeks before the wedding pass in a blink of an eye, despite a brief window of harassment by the press. Chris and I spent the time at home and around San Francisco, especially in “our” window corner of Diego and Maria’s Mexican restaurant, while Chris sketches and I work. Maria’s son Diego is back from Paris as well, nursing a broken heart, and his mother is determined to help him mend with comfort food. She’s also determined to fatten me up before the wedding, and I certainly don’t lose any weight.

Now, on the eve of the wedding, I wake up alone in the bed of the rental house, certain Chris is already in the kitchen drinking coffee. It’s become our ritual for him to wake early and start the coffee, be it here, back at the apartment in San Francisco, or in Paris, and for me to join him when it’s ready.

Entering the kitchen, I find Chris leaning on the marble countertop by the coffeepot, shirtless and in his pajama bottoms, the long strands of his blond hair a wild, sexy mess I’m pretty sure I created last night.

He glances up from the paper he’s reading, then picks up his coffee cup. “Morning, Ms. McMillan.”

“Morning, Mr. Merit,” I reply, grinning as I join him.

He offers me his coffee cup and I happily accept it, taking a drink of the perfectly flavored coffee and creamer. Sharing a cup with Chris has this sexy, intimate feel to it that always does funny things to my belly.

“Your last day as a free woman,” he comments.

“Why? Are you planning to tie me up sometime soon?”

He covers my hands on his cup. “Is that an objection, or wishful thinking?” He tilts the cup and drinks, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I plead the Fifth. It’s more fun that way.”

“That it is,” he agrees, but a sigh follows. “I wish I could do the same, but you’d better look at the newspaper.” He sets the cup on the counter, then hands me the Arts section of the local paper.

Dread fills me as I read the headline: “Acclaimed Artist and Philanthropist Chris Merit to wed Sara McMillan on Valentine’s Day in Star-studded Event in Sonoma.” I set it down. “We went to so much trouble to get the press off our backs before the wedding, and now they’ve found us! I knew when all these famous people showed up on the guest list, it was going to turn into a zoo.”

“Walker Security anticipated the press, and they’re staffed and ready for it. It’ll be fine. We’ll be shielded.”

Nerves the size of birds, not butterflies, attack my stomach. “We should have eloped.”

“We still can. Let’s do it. Now. Today.”

“We can’t elope,” I say, sounding appalled, as if he’d suggested it, not me. “People who respect you are coming a long way to see us. And Katie has planned this for months.”

“Baby, we can do whatever we want. This is our day.”

“No. We can’t. Not this far into this. Which reminds me—you can’t stay here tonight. It’s bad luck to see the bride the night before the wedding.”

“I told you how I feel about that. We make our own luck.”

“Chris—”

He kisses me. “I’m staying here tonight, and I’m f*cking you like I won’t see you ever again, just to be sure you walk down that aisle.”

“If you’re waiting for me at the end of that aisle, I’ll be there. And if you’re staying here tonight, we can use separate bedrooms.”

“Does today count as part of that eve-of-the-wedding rule?”

“Yes.”

He scoops me up and I yelp. “What are you doing?”

“I’m a renegade, baby. Let’s go break the rules.”

? ? ?

It’s noon when Katie and I head to the Auberge du Nuit, the resort hotel Chris and I stayed at our first night in Sonoma. First on the agenda is to meet a couple of her girlfriends, as well as Chantal, her parents, and Rey in the lobby. As Chantal predicted in Paris, Katie and her mother are elated to see each other. Of course every person I meet tells me how beautiful I am, even though I’m without makeup, in sweats, ready to go to the spa. Maybe brides are like new babies, which everyone says are cute even when they have swollen heads and red faces. Nevertheless, I take the compliments gracefully, and there’s lots of hugging and laughter. There’s also enough awkwardness between Chantal and Rey to make even Katie, as distracted as she is by her reunions, give them a curious look. When the fuss finally dies down, Katie, her friends, and Chantal’s mother decide to do a little sightseeing. Rey is quick to go to his room.