Beautiful Beginning(15)
planned a night out for all of us in the Gaslamp Quarter. We were going to
hit a few bars, have a few drinks. As Max put it, “Tonight we’re going to
get right pissed and pretend Chloe didn’t hand each of us a to-do list
five miles long.”
I’d ordered the guys to get ready in our suite and the women—Sara, Hanna,
my childhood friend Julia, soon-to-be sister-in-law Mina, and I—were
getting ready in Julia’s room. I did this in part to have some girl-time
before we all went out together, but also so that Bennett wouldn’t see me
until we got to the bar. If he saw what I was going to wear out tonight, he
would tie me to the bed with one of my slips and change my clothes for me.
If I’d harbored any suspicion that he would tie me to the bed and f*ck me,
I’d be happily changing upstairs in the wedding suite alongside him. Alas.
I knew Bennett, and I knew how determined he was once he made a decision
about something. Tonight needed to be a sneak attack. I had to seduce my
fiancé, and in order to do that, I had to play dirty.
Julia and Mina were both working on Hanna’s broken zipper, and I sat on
Julia’s bed and carefully crisscrossed the long, strappy heels up my calf.
Last night’s shoes had worked pretty well, but obviously not well enough.
Tonight I’d put on a tiny black dress, dangly chandelier earrings, and the
same shoes I’d worn the night I went out clubbing in San Diego when
Bennett and I had been here together for the JT Miller Marketing Conference
early in our “relationship”.
I tied the satin strap at the back of my calf and thought back to that
night, and how Bennett had looked, almost two years ago now, when I’d
walked into the hotel lobby of the W in the early hours of the morning to
find him sitting on a couch, waiting for me.
His hair had been a disaster, and I knew without having to ask that he’d
been pulling at it, nervously running his hands through it. In hindsight it
was obvious we were in love even then, but I remembered how surprised I’d
been when he admitted he needed another night with me. I wanted it more
than anything, but I never expected him to ask for it so openly.
I’d followed him up to my room and in that bed we’d made love for hours,
sharing words about real histories and real desires and real feelings. From
there, our relationship climbed to a peak—I’d easily stepped up and
covered with Bennett’s client when Bennett suddenly got sick, and when he
recovered, we’d decided to be together, a couple, no more hiding.
“Chlo?” Sara asked, ducking to meet my eyes and pulling me out of my
thoughts. “You okay?”
I bent and focused on the other shoe, nodding. “Yeah, just remembering
what it was like when the BB and I were first together.”
She sat and put an arm around me. “Is it weird to be getting married here?
”
Shrugging, I admitted, “A little. It’s bittersweet, you know?”
“When did you first know you loved him?”
I closed my eyes and leaned into her, humming as I considered the question.
“I think I probably felt love for him before I knew I loved him. But, do
you remember when we were here for the conference and he got food
poisoning?”
Beside me, Sara nodded.
“Well, after I did the whole Gugliotti presentation and came back to tell
Bennett how it went, I went back down to the conference for a little bit to
walk around and let him rest. When I came back up to my room, Bennett was
sitting on the couch. He always looks good, of course,” I said, laughing
when Julia wiggled her eyebrows at me, “but he just looked like a guy
right then. He was shirtless and his hair was messy in that bed-head,
unintentional way. He was zoned out on the television with his hand tucked
under the waistband of his boxers. And I had this epiphany that he was just
a guy, and that he was sort of becoming my guy, you know?” Around me, my
girlfriends all nodded. “I think those are the moments I love the most,
when I look at him and see him as so much more than the Beautiful Bastard.
In his BB moments he still feels sort of unattainable and intimidating even
to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love that side of him. But when we’re alone
he lets his guard down and I get to see all sides of him, and that day was
the first time it really happened. I think that’s when I knew I loved him.
”
“I think it was earlier,” Mina said, bending to dig into the hotel room
minibar. “I saw your face when I busted you in the bathroom at his parents
’ house. He said being with you was a mistake. Your expression was the
reaction of a woman with emotions.”
I crinkled my nose, considering this. “God, but he was such an *
then.”
“He’s still an *,” Mina reminded me. “And I’m pretty sure if he
wasn’t, you’d find a way to push the buttons to get him back there.”