Mid Life Love: At Last (Mid Life Love #2)(31)

“We’re doing it now, Claire. Right. Now. I feel like you’re delaying this, and if that’s the case I need to know why.” He looked as if he was waiting for me to say something, but I shook my head. “If it’s not the case, I need to know that you’re as serious as I am about getting married.” He pulled me close to his chest. “You can still meet with her next week to fine tune all the small details, but I want the date and the venue set tonight.”

“I am very serious about marrying you, Jonathan...”

“Prove it.”

“Okay, let me get this straight...” Our wedding planner paced our hotel suite tapping her lip.

Her name was Paris Corwin and she was the top wedding planner in the country. She’d worked with hundreds of celebrities, superstar athletes, and had even been an advisor for the royal wedding overseas.

Impeccably dressed in a dark gray suit and creamy colored blouse, she was wearing her brown hair in an asymmetrical bob that loosely framed her heart shaped face.

“You want the ceremony to be outdoors facing the ocean, but you don’t want it to be within miles of anywhere that’s accessible to the public?” She looked at me. “And you also don’t want it to be on a beach?”

“Right.”

“And you want the reception to be in an indoor facility that’s within walking distance from the ceremony space, but it has to have glass ceilings?”

“Correct.”

She took off her glasses and rubbed her forehead. “It also has to be in San Francisco?”

Jonathan spoke up. “We would prefer that.”

“Okay, well...I’m just going to be honest with you two. You may have to concede on a few things if you want to have it there.”

“A few things like what?” I raised my eyebrow. I’d been envisioning my wedding every night and I didn’t want to give up any of my preferences.

“Well...” She walked over to the projector screen she’d set up on the other side of the room. She dimmed the lights and clicked her mini remote. “This is a picture of The Shores Resort. It is a beachfront resort, but they have a huge ballroom with glass ceilings.”

She clicked again and another picture appeared onscreen. “This is La Santa Maria resort. It has a beautiful outdoor area that’s near the beach, but instead of sand there’s grass—which is what you want, but the ballroom does not feature glass ceilings. It does have floor to ceiling glass walls though, and those walls are twenty feet high.”

One of her team members walked over and handed me a white binder.

“Inside that binder, you’ll find similar resorts that are just as grand.” Miss Corwin said. “They’re just as pricey, but they’re only missing one of the things that you’re looking for.”

“Do they all have the grand steps for the reception?” I looked at Jonathan. “I want to enter the reception by walking down the steps, right before our first dance.”

“All the pages with the pink tabs have grand steps. The others have standard steps.”

“Okay.” I sighed. “Let me look...” I opened the binder and flipped through the pages relatively quick. All the venues were beautiful but they didn’t have everything I wanted, everything I’d dreamed of.

“What about this one?” Jonathan pointed at a page that featured a historic castle near the beach. It was gorgeous: Sun drenched stones, grand marble steps, but the ballroom didn’t have a glass ceiling and the outdoor area for the ceremony had more dirt than grass.

I shook my head and shut the binder. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t what I want...I don’t want to concede anything. If we move it to another city will our options be better?”

“Yes, Miss Gracen. They actually would. Let me show you those options.” She took a flash-drive out of her pocket and placed it into her laptop. “Let’s start with Los Angeles.”

“Miss Corwin.” Jonathan cut her off. “You have a full staff of architects on your staff, correct?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll make sure that the gazebo you both want is constructed to perfection.”

“Actually...” He lifted my hand and kissed it. “I want you to build my fiancée’s dream wedding venue from the ground up. Give her whatever she wants.”

There was silence.

Ear deafening silence.

Everyone’s eyes widened—including mine, and all her staff members’ faces went white.

I looked over at him in shock, whispering, “No, that’s insane. You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s just like buying a car. It’s nothing.” He kissed me and turned his attention to Miss Corwin again. “You have a week to find a purchasable location site in San Fran, but I want the proposed budget on my desk by Monday and a list of all the building permits you’ll need. How long do you think construction will take?”

She blinked.

“It would take about eight to ten weeks once the permits cleared sir.” One of her staff members spoke up. “We’d probably have to bring on another company to help, but depending on the height of the building, we’d also need a zoning clearance from the city. That takes months to get—sometimes years.”

“I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t seem fazed. “What’s next?”